The Witness

David McKay, a surveyor from Det Norske Veritas, performed two International Safety Management audits for the Marshall Islands on the Deepwater Horizon rig since 2005. He said he found they had some issues with overdue maintenance on certain pieces of equipment and some crew members that had not been properly trained because of turnover. But he said none of the issues raised to the level of "nonconformity."
When the chairman of the investigative panel, Coast Guard Capt. Hung Nguyen, asked McKay for more specifics, the inspector said he couldn't recall. When Nguyen asked him to explain what would be an issue of nonconformity, McKay referred to a printed manual and declined to give any further explanation, saying he was here to testify about "facts, not opinion."
Nguyen, who has shown a level of righteous indignation over testimony in the past, harangued McKay about his response.
"I don't understand what the value of this audit is," Nguyen said. "Every time we ask you something you say you don't recall."
In addition to periodic inspections by the U.S. Minerals Management Service, Deepwater Horizon's flag state, Marshall Islands, hires its own inspection organization to audit activities and systems on the rig. The American Bureau of Shipping performs those surveys, and chief surveyor John David Forsyth testified that his agency last inspected the rig's failed blowout preventer in 2005, before it was installed as the final fail-safe against a well blowout. Asked by BP's lawyer if the fact that there were no further certifications of the blowout preventer came at Transocean's request, Forsyth said, "Yes, it was."
Forsyth said the American Bureau of Shipping was notified of two events, a flood on the rig and a blackout, but determined they did not raise enough concerns to withdraw the rig's certifications.