Leaping From a Burning Oil Rig: Piper Alpha Down

One of the biggest offshore disasters in history. In July 1988, a fire breaks out on the Piper Alpha - a vast oil rig in the North Sea. Those stationed on board are thrust into a hell on earth. As the conflagration grows around him, 29 year-old Joe Meanen must make a desperate decision. Stay patient and put his faith in the remote chance of rescue? Or take his survival into his own hands? A Noiser production, written by Joe Viner. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:03John Hopkins?

  It's Wednesday, July 6, 1988. 125 miles off the northeast coast of Scotland. The lights of an offshore drilling platform glimmer on the dark surface of the North Sea. Rising 200 feet above the waterline, the Piper Alpha is a towering steel behemoth, a bulky, cubic construction of yellow-painted girders, pipes, and scaffolding. The sturdy rig is built to withstand the battering storms of a North Sea winter. But right now, the ocean is calm.

• 1:41John Hopkins?

  The sky is a deep, inky blue, the last residue of daylight glowing at the base of the horizon. French sailors have a name for conditions like these. When the ocean is this tranquil and glassy, they call it "la mer de huile," Sea of Oil.

• 2:04John Hopkins?

  Down in the rig's production modules, the air thrums with machinery. Inside this complex system of tubes and cylinders, powerful forces are contained and corralled. Highly pressurized hydrocarbons, sucked from the earth's crust, now captive within steel pipes.

• 2:24John Hopkins?

  Given the combustible nature of oil and gas, every step of the extraction process must be strictly regulated. Every step carefully overseen.

• 2:35John Hopkins?

  But down in production module C, something is wrong.

• 2:43John Hopkins?

  A safety relief valve, which prevents excessive pressure from building up within the pipework, was removed for repairs earlier today. As such, the pump that controls the flow of liquefied gas through this pipe is shut down.

• 2:59John Hopkins?

  But due to a combination of bad luck and human error, that pump has just been brought back online without its safety valve.

• 3:09John Hopkins?

  As an oblivious technician activates the pump from the control room, thousands of gallons of liquefied gas begin to surge through the pipe.

• 3:20John Hopkins?

  With the safety valve removed and the end of the pipe sealed off by a temporary steel cap, there's nowhere for the gas to go.

• 3:29John Hopkins?

  It collects at the end of the pipe, the pressure building and building, until just before 10:00 PM, the dam breaks.

• 3:40John Hopkins?

  Oily yellow jets spurt from a hairline crack around the seal. Within seconds, C module is flooded with highly flammable liquid gas. From here, it only takes a tiny electrical spark.

• 3:55John Hopkins?

  For divers doing maintenance work 50 feet underwater, the explosion comes as a flash of white light and a bang that punches through the silence of the deep.

• 4:08John Hopkins?

  For the men working on board the support boat studded around the platform, the dusk is briefly illuminated by a ring of pale blue flames with a surge of blistering heat.

• 4:21John Hopkins?

  For 29-year-old Joe Meanan, relaxing and watching a film with colleagues on board the rig, the explosion is preceded by a series of deep tremors,

• 4:32John Hopkins?

  followed by an ear-shattering blast.

• 4:36Speaker 05

  You could actually feel the energy coming through the floor, actually coming through your seat. Then all of a sudden, there was a huge explosion. The whole platform rocked back and forward.

• 4:49Speaker 05

  We actually didn't know what had happened. You just knew something horrendous had happened.

• 5:02John Hopkins?

  Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice?

• 5:10John Hopkins?

  Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations, people suddenly forced to fight for their lives.

• 5:24John Hopkins?

  In this episode, we meet offshore oil worker Joe Meanan. In the summer of 1988, Joe is stationed on the Piper Alpha Oil Rig in the North Sea.

• 5:35John Hopkins?

  Since drilling began here in 1976, it has become one of the busiest rigs in the world, at one stage producing more than 300,000 barrels of crude oil every day, 10% of Britain's total usage. It's a hive of incessant industry, a round-the-clock drilling operation optimized for the relentless pursuit of profit, whatever the cost.

• 6:00John Hopkins?

  But on July 6, 1988, a catastrophic fire breaks out on the platform and the 226 people stationed on board will be thrust into a hell on earth.

• 6:12John Hopkins?

  As the conflagration grows around him, Joe will have to make a terrifying decision: stay patient and put his faith in the remote chance of rescue, or take his survival into his own hands.

• 6:23Speaker 05

  Straight away, you know, you could realise that there's no chance any helicopter's even coming near this platform, never mind landing on the platform. Because the smoke was so intense, I thought, well, that's it, I'm dead here.

• 6:38John Hopkins?

  I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories.

• 7:10John Hopkins?

  It's 9:30pm in the North Sea. Wednesday, July 6, 1988. 125 miles north-east of Aberdeen, Scotland, the Piper Alpha is a metallic beast standing in the waves.

• 7:26John Hopkins?

  The rig is so vast, it has its own helipad, living quarters, and even cinema room.

• 7:34John Hopkins?

  Here, a group of off-shift workers are watching a movie. This evening's entertainment is the comedy "Caddyshack", and it's a popular choice. There's barely an empty seat in the house.

• 7:48John Hopkins?

  In the audience, his round, amiable face creased with laughter, is 29-year-old Joe Minnan.

• 7:56John Hopkins?

  Joe is a scaffolder. He and his colleagues are responsible for construction work and maintenance around the oil rig. It's a challenging job, but Joe's used to it. He's worked on North Sea drilling platforms for the last six years, and he's grown accustomed to the hardships of life offshore, from the cramped conditions to the extreme weather.

• 8:17Speaker 05

  I went offshore for the first time in 1982. We just kind of got moved around the North Sea as, you know, contracts, new contracts were negotiated. You know, we just moved about as we were needed, so that's just the nature of the job I was in.

• 8:36John Hopkins?

  The idea of going where you're needed, of taking opportunities where you can get them, was nothing new to Joe when he started out. His father had been a construction worker, and in the late 1960s, he had moved the family from their Glasgow tenement to East Kilbride, one of several new towns developed by the government to accommodate the growing population after World War II.

• 9:00Speaker 05

  My dad got a job up in East Kilbride because that's part of the criteria back then. You had to work in the new town to get a house. And yeah, East Kilbride was great. It was out in the countryside, had a good upbringing there. Loads of families with kids all about the same ages, you know. So, yeah, it was good.

• 9:22John Hopkins?

  While his childhood was a happy one, as he and his sister grew older, rising local crime rates became a cause of concern for their parents.

• 9:32Speaker 05

  Unfortunately, back in that days, there was a lot of gang problems in Glasgow, East Kilbride, such like. And once you come into adulthood, you could have went in a few different directions. Some good and some not so good.

• 9:51John Hopkins?

  When Joe was 17, his family moved again, this time to the village of Stonehaven, just south of Aberdeen.

• 9:59John Hopkins?

  And with the move came economic opportunity.

• 10:03John Hopkins?

  A few years prior, petroleum had been discovered beneath the bedrock of the North Sea, and the port town of Aberdeen had become Europe's oil capital. Joe's father was one of thousands of men who flocked to work off the northeast coast, where lucrative wages beckoned. In the heady days of the mid-1970s, as big energy companies rushed to set up drilling operations in the North Sea, finding work offshore was as simple as turning up at the heliport.

• 10:36Speaker 05

  They all joked like it was get to the heliport and get £200, you know, your pass go, you know, a bit like Monopoly. So, yeah, absolutely. It was kind of, back then there was endless cash going through Aberdeen. Money was no object.

• 10:54John Hopkins?

  After finishing school, Joe followed his father into the construction trade with a view to finding employment in the booming oil and gas industry. For the first couple of years, he stuck to working on land. The pay was lower, but the demands were less extreme. Everyone knew offshore work was a different beast. But then, in 1981, his father died. In his early twenties, Joe suddenly found himself responsible for others beside himself.

• 11:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, I suppose it's just coming head of the family or whatever, you know, and just taking that bit more responsibility when you're 20, 21, 22, 23, you know, moving forward.

• 11:38John Hopkins?

  A year after his dad passed away, Joe went to work offshore for the first time. Despite years of hearing stories about life on the platforms, nothing could have prepared him for his first glimpse of a rig. It was like an island of steel rising from the waves. Its very presence seemed to defy physics.

• 12:01Speaker 05

  My first experiences were a real eye-opener and, oh, how's these things, you know, how they even here, the construction of them, they're sitting in the middle of the North Sea, especially during the winter time, you've got some horrendous weather conditions, you've got 60-foot waves hitting the side of the platform, you've got 60, 70 mile an hour winds.

• 12:28John Hopkins?

  Offshore work is not for the faint-hearted. Joe spends his days operating machinery at perilous heights, scaling 200-foot scaffolds to conduct maintenance work, often in the teeth of fierce North Sea gales.

• 12:44John Hopkins?

  Extensive safety training minimizes the risk of accidents. But when you're working with flammable substances like oil and gas, there are some dangers that no amount of training can mitigate.

• 12:59John Hopkins?

  Four years ago, in 1984, a ruptured gas riser on the Piper Alpha triggered a massive fire. Though no one was killed in the blaze, the accident raised serious questions about safety on the platform, and in particular, the potentially catastrophic consequences of a prolonged, high-pressure gas fire.

• 13:21John Hopkins?

  An official memo advised various improvements to the existing safety protocols. But the recommendations were largely ignored by management, who maintained that the threats were not serious enough to justify the expense.

• 13:36John Hopkins?

  In any case, for Joe and his colleagues, the risks are like the bad weather and the isolation. Unfortunately, they are part of the job.

• 13:46Speaker 05

  You just got used to it. It was just a matter of course. And we probably should have been more aware. That was one of my regrets afterwards, should have been more aware of how dangerous the situation where I was working. I should have been more aware of that and taken that a lot more seriously. And I did.

• 14:16John Hopkins?

  It's the night of July 6, 1988, back in the cinema room on the Piper Alpha. Joe crosses one leg over the other and chuckles at the movie.

• 14:28John Hopkins?

  Given the intense nature of the job, offshore riggers work on a fortnightly rotation. Two weeks at sea, two weeks on land, providing essential downtime. Joe's only got a couple of days left of this rotation. On Friday evening, he'll board the helicopter and fly back to the mainland.

• 14:47John Hopkins?

  Unlike many of his colleagues, he doesn't have a wife or kids back home, but he's looking forward to the break all the same.

• 14:54John Hopkins?

  Joe turns to the guys next to him, fellow scaffers with whom he's grown close over the years, and laughs along with the banter.

• 15:03Speaker 05

  I kind of got in with a good crowd of folk, and scaffolders are kind of like that, you know, they'll look after each other. It was just camaraderie, you made the best of it. Everybody knew they were in the same situation. We all knew what we were doing, and we were there for two weeks, so we just made the best of it and, you know, just kept going.

• 15:30Speaker 01

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• 15:38Speaker 02

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• 15:55Speaker 03

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• 16:00Speaker 00

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• 16:34John Hopkins?

  Joe checks the time. It's a little before 10pm. He stifles a yawn and settles back in his chair. He should probably get some sleep soon. Another busy day awaits tomorrow. But just then, a sound like rumbling thunder reverberates through the room. Joe looks away from the screen, his brow furrowed.

• 17:00Speaker 05

  About forty minutes or so, forty-five minutes into the movie, you could hear a successive flaring going on outside from the flare booms. And it was that loud it drowned out the sound of the movie. And a silence fell over the cinema.

• 17:18John Hopkins?

  Flaring is a common occurrence on any oil rig, a means of burning off excess gas produced in the drilling process. But Joe has never heard it flare so violently or for such an extended period.

• 17:33John Hopkins?

  It sounds like a turbo jet engine, a thunderous flamethrower-like roar.

• 17:40John Hopkins?

  Eventually, the flaring stops.

• 17:43John Hopkins?

  After exchanging a few tentative glances, the men turn their attention back to the film.

• 17:49Speaker 05

  The noise started getting back up in the cinema again, you know, the laughter and all that. But then maybe a minute or so, it started up again. Even more intense, you could actually feel the energy coming through the floor, actually coming through your seat. And then all of a sudden, there was a huge explosion.

• 18:10John Hopkins?

  A volley of sonic waves rips through the floor.

• 18:15John Hopkins?

  The ground jolts violently. Lights tumble from their fixtures, metal panels fall from the ceiling, the projector screen crumples. And for a few surreal seconds, the film is being shone onto a bare wall.

• 18:29John Hopkins?

  Then the power goes out and the cinema falls into darkness.

• 18:36John Hopkins?

  After the initial blast, an eerie stillness has been left in its wake. A silence filled only by the deep, heavy breathing of the shaken men.

• 18:48Speaker 05

  Within maybe ten to fifteen seconds, the emergency lighting came on. So it was a matter of, "Great lads, let's calm down here now. Let's get in orderly fashion and get back out into the main accommodation."

• 19:07John Hopkins?

  Joe joins the agitated crowds flooding the hallway up to the main accommodation block.

• 19:13John Hopkins?

  The air is warm with smoke. Clearly, there's a fire burning somewhere on the lower levels. So why are there no alarms?

• 19:23John Hopkins?

  Joe listens out for an announcement over the tannoy, but nothing comes.

• 19:28Speaker 05

  There was no alarms went off, there was no tannoys went out. And that's really quite confusing. Nobody's getting any information what's happening.

• 19:39John Hopkins?

  As more bodies fill the hallway, their progress up to the accommodation block slows.

• 19:46John Hopkins?

  Joe cranes his neck to see past the jostling crowds.

• 19:51John Hopkins?

  The stench of burning oil sears his throat and eyes, and tendrils of smoke now visibly drift through the gaps in the metal grill flooring. The air is becoming hot and scratchy to breathe.

• 20:06John Hopkins?

  Up ahead, where the traffic is bottlenecked, panic is breaking out. People are running in different directions, crashing into each other in a narrow, dimly lit corridor. With no announcements, it's unclear what the best course of action is.

• 20:22John Hopkins?

  Joe decides to move away from the gaggle. He hurries down a flight of stairs that leads to the west side of the platform, where the lifeboats are located. He uses the handrails to steady himself as he descends the steps. The steel banisters are already warm to the touch. Joe's footsteps quicken, eager to reach the lifeboat station. But he never gets there.

• 20:49Speaker 05

  As I moved over to the west side of the platform, there was people coming back saying, "There's no chance. You can't get out that way. The smoke and the heat is too extreme."

• 21:01John Hopkins?

  Soot flecked faces pass him in the stairwell, their eyes red from the smoke, their hair singed from the heat of the flames.

• 21:10John Hopkins?

  He spins around and follows them back upstairs.

• 21:16Speaker 05

  The main kind of consensus was, most people were heading up to the galley area. The galley area was a designated safe area. It was fireproofed and it had a positive airflow.

• 21:32John Hopkins?

  The galley is the canteen and kitchen area where the workers have their meals. Joe pushes forward, moving with a crush of bodies.

• 21:43John Hopkins?

  In the smoky haze, the men walk in single file, their chins pressed into their chests. They grip the shoulder of the man in front with one hand and cover their mouths with the other.

• 21:57John Hopkins?

  The galley is located near the top of the platform, just below the heli-deck. It's the place they've been told to go to in the event of an emergency.

• 22:07John Hopkins?

  Joe ascends a flight of stairs and emerges into the crowded galley.

• 22:12John Hopkins?

  There must be over a hundred men packed in here. They're all huddled together in groups of three or four, throwing frightened glances at the windows where the fire's radiance has turned the surface of the sea into liquid gold.

• 22:26John Hopkins?

  Joe scans the room, but he doesn't recognise any of the faces staring back at him.

• 22:35Speaker 05

  All of a sudden, the door on the right-hand side of me burst open and this guy came in and he shouted, "Is there anybody here from Bodens?" And Bodens was the actual drilling crew, you know, they'd done all the drilling for the oil on the platform. And somebody recognised his voice and shouted, "We're over here, Mark. Get yourself over here." So he went away, he headed over there. I thought, "Oh, that's a good idea." So I shouted out, "Is there any scaffolders here?"

• 23:05John Hopkins?

  After a pause, there's an answering cry from the far side of the galley.

• 23:11John Hopkins?

  Joe picks his way through the bodies over to where the scaffolders are gathered. He nods grimly at his colleagues, glad to be reunited with some familiar faces.

• 23:22John Hopkins?

  Around the room, a few angry voices start to rise. There's a handful of management personnel up here in the galley, each encircled by dozens of frightened, incensed workers, all demanding answers.

• 23:37Speaker 05

  One of our senior managers on the platform shouted that Bina Mayday sent out, which there had been from the radio room just after the first explosion. And there should be helicopters here within the next half an hour to come and rescue us. So just stay where you are, guys.

• 23:57John Hopkins?

  The management staff urge patience and appeal to protocol. But it's clear from their disturbed expressions that this is uncharted territory for them too.

• 24:07John Hopkins?

  Thick clouds of acrid smoke now fill the galley.

• 24:13John Hopkins?

  To escape the fumes, some men lie face down or shelter beneath the long formica tables.

• 24:20John Hopkins?

  A few of the scaffolders have taken wet rags from the kitchen, holding them clamped over their mouths. They advise Joe to do the same. He runs over to the sink and picks up a tea towel.

• 24:32John Hopkins?

  But when he turns the tap, all he gets are a few drops.

• 24:36Speaker 05

  There was only dribbles of water coming out of it. Whether I had been not really realising how bad the situation we were in or it was some kind of defensive thing in my mind. But when I realised, you know, when I turned on the tap and there was only dribbles of water coming out of it, I'm thinking now, we've got no power, we've got no water, we've got nothing to fight this fire with now. We're really in a bad situation.

• 25:09John Hopkins?

  It's 10:15 PM, a quarter of an hour since the explosion.

• 25:14John Hopkins?

  The temperature in the galley is rising. Beyond the windows, angry flames flicker like forked tongues.

• 25:23John Hopkins?

  Joe stands in the corner with the scaffolders, their eyes darting from the windows to the floor, which is beginning to heat up beneath their feet.

• 25:33John Hopkins?

  There have still been no announcements, no evacuation plan, even though it's become clear that this fire has not been contained and is steadily engulfing the entire platform.

• 25:45John Hopkins?

  Among some men, the mood has turned dark, their outlook growing increasingly bleak.

• 25:51Speaker 05

  Some folks started to realize that there possibly would be a chance that we weren't going to get off that night. And some of the guys were starting to get a bit worried, having some negative thoughts, which we tried to say, "No, no, that's not going to happen."

• 26:10John Hopkins?

  Joe echoes the words of the senior staff: "They just have to stay calm and follow orders." There are helicopters stationed on the support vessels for emergency evacuations. Fire protocol dictates that if the lifeboats can't be launched, then an airlift will be arranged instead.

• 26:29John Hopkins?

  But as the minutes pass and the tension rises, the question on everybody's lips grows more urgent: "Where are the helicopters?" Things are getting desperate.

• 26:40Speaker 05

  The steel structure of the platform is starting to lose its strength, start to bend, and therefore it was twisting the platform, there was windows breaking, there was glass breaking, there was windows getting smashed.

• 26:55John Hopkins?

  When heated to over 800 degrees Celsius, the nature of steel changes. As the molecules expand, the metal becomes flexible, semi-molten. And with the inferno building throughout the platform, the structural integrity of the rig has started to fail.

• 27:16John Hopkins?

  Suddenly, the emergency lights blink out, and the room is plunged into blackness.

• 27:23John Hopkins?

  Joe looks over at his colleagues, his friends.

• 27:28John Hopkins?

  The fire through the glass illuminates their faces with a throbbing orange glow.

• 27:35John Hopkins?

  After a pause, one of the scaffers turns to the other with an ultimatum.

• 27:40Speaker 05

  Well, if we stay in here, guys, and anything else happens, we'll not be in a position to do anything for ourselves. Why don't we go outside and climb up onto the heli-deck and see if we can see anything for ourselves?

• 27:55John Hopkins?

  The plan is agreed.

• 27:58John Hopkins?

  Swiftly, the scaffolders make their way through the galley towards the exit. As they go, Joe spots a group of guys he recognizes. He calls out to them.

• 28:07Speaker 05

  I says to them, "These guys not coming with us." And they looked at each other and they said, "No, we're being told to stay, we're just gonna stay." Says, "Okay, good luck to these guys."

• 28:22John Hopkins?

  Joe follows his coworkers through the double doors and onto the open deck. Immediately, he is enveloped by a suffocating smog of sickly black smoke.

• 28:34John Hopkins?

  A shimmering heat haze rises above the fire, which is spilled out beyond the lower decks and billowed up around the rig.

• 28:42John Hopkins?

  Red flames coil around the guardrails. Joe looks up at the heli-deck, and something terrifying becomes apparent.

• 28:52Speaker 05

  Straight away, you know, you could realize, there's no chance any helicopters even coming near this platform, never mind landing on the platform. Because the smoke was so intense, thick black, oil-based smoke, fire. Even if they did get on the platform, you could imagine the panic there would have been. People trying to scramble to get on a helicopter, it would never have happened.

• 29:17John Hopkins?

  That's that then. No lifeboats, no helicopters. If they're going to escape the burning rig, they'll have to find another way.

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• 31:30John Hopkins?

  It's 10:20 PM in the North Sea. Onboard a support vessel stationed in the waves a short distance from the Piper Alpha, it's all hands to the pumps. Dubbed upon her launch as "the most expensive fire engine in the world", MSV Theros is desperately needed right now. After the crew moves the vessel into position, the water cannon on deck splutters into life.

• 31:57John Hopkins?

  A huge white jet erupts from the nozzle and arcs through the air, bridging the 75-meter gap between the Theros and the platform. The men onboard the support vessel watch tensely as water rains down on Piper, sizzling against the red-hot metal.

• 32:15John Hopkins?

  The crew has never witnessed a blaze of this magnitude. It's a horrifying sight, a ballooning fireball wreathed in dark gray smoke.

• 32:25John Hopkins?

  The efforts of their water hosts feel futile.

• 32:31John Hopkins?

  Meanwhile, on the top deck of the Piper Alpha, Joe and his fellow scaffolders make their way through a labyrinth of mesh walkways and access doors.

• 32:41John Hopkins?

  After realizing that the smoke was preventing the rescue choppers from touching down on the heli-deck, they've decided to climb to higher ground.

• 32:51Speaker 05

  Somebody suggested let's go along to the radio room. The radio room was adjacent to the heli-deck. It was like a converted container. So we climbed up on the roof of that because that was the highest point we could get to in that area. And this thick black smoke was coming over. And it was almost like, you know, if you're on the beach and you're watching the sea coming in and the waves, thick black smoke was coming in waves and every so often there'd be a gap in the waves. So you'd stand up and grab a breath of fresh air.

• 33:25John Hopkins?

  Joe crouches on the roof of the radio room. Through intermittent gaps in the smoke, he glimpses the dark blue evening sky. Maybe if a helicopter could hover above their new vantage point, it could drop a rope down with a harness and hoist the men to safety.

• 33:43John Hopkins?

  That is, if they can see it through the smoke.

• 33:49John Hopkins?

  Then, out of nowhere, a droplet of cold water lands on Joe's scalding skin.

• 33:57Speaker 05

  The Tharus, a support vessel, had had a water cannon right at the top of one of the cranes, and it was fanning back and forward on paper. And it was catching us up on top of this radio room, soaking our clothes and our hair.

• 34:12John Hopkins?

  The Tharus's water cannon sprays across the eastern side of the platform. Some of the men fall to their knees and spread their arms wide, gratefully soaking themselves in cooling water.

• 34:24John Hopkins?

  But as Joe watches the jet slam against the metal framework, a new danger presents itself.

• 34:31Speaker 05

  They were that powerful, these water cannons. If they'd hit somebody on the platform, they would have, if they hadn't killed them, they would have severely injured them.

• 34:41John Hopkins?

  It would be a cruelly ironic way to go. Staying on the exposed roof of the radio room is just too risky.

• 34:49Speaker 05

  Somebody suggested, right, why don't we go over to the west side of the platform? Maybe the Tharus could move a bit closer. We could climb onto the crane, climb down onto the Tharus. It was a, I mean, it was desperate situation.

• 35:03John Hopkins?

  Right now, any idea is better than staying put.

• 35:07John Hopkins?

  They descend from the roof of the radio room and start heading west. Periodically, their route is blocked by some blazing obstruction, forcing them to find an alternative path.

• 35:18John Hopkins?

  They turn back and pass beneath the shadow of the oil derrick, a vast crane-like structure that towers over the platform and is now lit up like a funeral pyre.

• 35:30John Hopkins?

  Joe wipes a curtain of sweat from his brow. Which is when, there is another almighty bang, as a second massive explosion rips through the night.

• 35:46Speaker 05

  We actually didn't know what had happened, you just knew something horrendous had happened.

• 35:51John Hopkins?

  A high-pressure gas pipeline has just ruptured, instantly releasing the equivalent of the entire annual gas consumption of the UK. A colossal fireball surges into the sky, wrapping the rig and the men on board in a canopy of superheated air.

• 36:11John Hopkins?

  For Joe, the shock of the blast jolts him into a strange kind of clarity. Quickly, he runs to the radio mast and starts clambering up, away from his colleagues who scatter in the wake of the explosion.

• 36:25Speaker 05

  I don't think it was panic, it didn't feel like panic, I knew what was doing. It was just a silly thing it was doing, because it was going nowhere.

• 36:34John Hopkins?

  The sky above him glows with a pale red twilight. Below, the screams of wounded men merge with the roar and crackle of the flames. Joe climbs and climbs, the metal scorching his hands, gripped by an instinct that tells him to go higher, away from the bonfire of steel burning below.

• 36:56John Hopkins?

  But then, his foot slips. He instinctively closes his fingers around the bar as his feet thrash in midair.

• 37:04Speaker 05

  And just at that point, I thought, well, that's it, I'm dead here.

• 37:08John Hopkins?

  Joe wraps his forearms around the horizontal strut and holds on tight. Intense heat pulsates from below, melting the rubber soles of his flailing trainers.

• 37:21John Hopkins?

  Thirty-meter walls of flame now encircle the platform, a ring of fire fed by over 50 million cubic meters of gas.

• 37:34John Hopkins?

  By this stage, scores of men have already tragically perished in the blaze or drowned in their bid to escape. And as Joe dangles from the mast, it seems his fate is also sealed.

• 37:50John Hopkins?

  But even in the face of this impossible situation, he refuses to give up. Something keeps him fighting.

• 37:58Speaker 05

  My dad died in 1981. And he actually worked on Piper Alpha as well. I don't know if it was maybe something to do with that, that gave me the will to survive because that would have just destroyed my mum. You know, it was only my mum and sister left then, you know, so I dare say there must have been a bit of my dad's, you know, character in me as well, you know. Possibly because he had passed away by that time. And he gave me that extra emphasis, inspiration to survive.

• 38:36John Hopkins?

  With gritted teeth, Joe lifts his foot back onto the rung of the radio mast.

• 38:43John Hopkins?

  Greater clarity takes over, and he starts to descend the ladder again.

• 38:48Speaker 05

  It was like somebody flicking a switch, you know, a light switch on or something. It sort of just took over what I was doing. I'd say whether it was a will to survive or some higher being looking after me. I came down the ladder to the level below the heli-deck, run along to the access stairs that would take you back up onto the heli-deck, run over to the north side of the platform, had a look over. That huge explosion had cleared all the thick black smoke away, so you could actually see down to the sea.

• 39:19John Hopkins?

  Joe peers over the edge of the heli-deck. It's 175 feet to the water below.

• 39:29John Hopkins?

  In his safety training, Joe was warned that jumping into the sea from higher than just 30 feet can be fatal. This is almost six times that. Hitting the water from such a height would be like landing on concrete. But what choice does he have?

• 39:45John Hopkins?

  The inferno is building around him, the air scorching his lungs with each breath. It's now or never.

• 39:52Speaker 05

  Took a few steps back, and there's this safety net that goes round the heli-decks. Look, and they've got metal supports for the safety net. I knew I could use that to try and propel myself away from the platform. I knew exactly what I was doing, but it was almost like an out-of-body experience, watching yourself doing what you're doing.

• 40:15John Hopkins?

  Joe plants his foot on the metal rim of the heli-deck.

• 40:21John Hopkins?

  The life jacket he's wearing could break his neck on impact with the water. So he removes it and throws it over the edge.

• 40:31John Hopkins?

  In the next instant, he drives his foot down and propels himself forward over the rim of the heli-deck, beyond the safety netting, and into the darkness beyond.

• 40:42John Hopkins?

  For a split second, it's as if he's suspended in space.

• 40:47John Hopkins?

  Then gravity takes hold, and he drops like a stone.

• 40:52Speaker 05

  And it was only at that point I came back to myself. The first thought coming out of my head was, what a leap have I done?

• 41:03John Hopkins?

  Joe tumbles through the night air, a tiny speck silhouetted against the flames. The wind roars in his ears as the oil-slicked water charges up to meet him.

• 41:15Speaker 05

  I didn't really know what was going to happen next. I was just throwing myself into a black hole, basically.

• 41:24John Hopkins?

  Joe is almost horizontal as he hits the sea, his left side breaking the surface first.

• 41:32John Hopkins?

  His body plummets down 20 feet, disappearing into a cold, black abyss.

• 41:39John Hopkins?

  He looks up. Beautiful shapes dance on the surface, flickering lights of pink and orange.

• 41:49John Hopkins?

  He starts kicking and crawling upwards, resisting the urge to breathe in seawater.

• 41:55John Hopkins?

  Seconds later, Joe's head breaks the waterline.

• 42:00John Hopkins?

  He gulps down the hot, smoky air and starts looking around for something to hold on to.

• 42:09Speaker 05

  There was a lot of debris, there was a lot of floating objects in the water. There was some bodies in the water also. And I was just very fortunate, I never, never landed on any parts of debris that was in the water, or any, any parts of the platform was, you know, maybe sticking out on the, on the way down. I don't know, it's just quite scary.

• 42:39John Hopkins?

  From what he can tell, he's relatively unharmed. And in another unbelievable stroke of luck, Joe's life jacket has landed just a few feet away from him. He swims over to it and zips himself into the flotation device.

• 42:55Speaker 05

  All lifeboats were stationed at the north end of the platform. And at least one of them had got blown off in that second explosion. And part of the roof of one of them was floating in the water next to me. Managed to grab a hold of that as well, and started to propel myself away from the platform.

• 43:13John Hopkins?

  Heat radiates against the back of his head as he kicks his legs and swims away from the platform. He spots the half destroyed shell of a lifeboat nearby and makes for it. Clambering on board the damaged vessel, Joe stops and steadies himself before staring back at the devastation behind him.

• 43:36Speaker 05

  I looked back at the platform, I was trying to, trying to just remember what I was witnessing. And one thought to my head was, if there's anybody left on that platform, they've got no chance they're gone.

• 43:53Speaker 05

  So I was sitting there, looked down with my hands and arms, because I only had a short sleeve t-shirt on, and had these huge blisters on my hands and arms, and I couldn't, couldn't figure out how that had happened.

• 44:05John Hopkins?

  In the chaos, his arms and hands have become badly burned, but given the shock, the pain right now is minimal.

• 44:13John Hopkins?

  The giant blisters on his limbs glow red, and Joe takes a few moments to catch his breath. Until, eventually, the sound of an approaching motor cuts through the crackle of the flames. He looks over his shoulder, it's a lifeboat.

• 44:33Speaker 05

  He came over, asked me if there was anybody else in the lifeboat. I said no, got me into the fast rescue craft, lay me alongside the side of the fast rescue craft. That's kind of when my injuries started taking effect on me. So I was in the naked consciousness then for the next forty minutes or so.

• 44:55John Hopkins?

  For a while, everything is a haze, a collection of random images. Arriving on board the Theros, being stretchered through to a hospital area, medics buzzing around him.

• 45:08John Hopkins?

  And then, an hour or so later, there's the roar of helicopter propellers and the smell of diesel as Joe and some of the other survivors are flown back to the mainland.

• 45:21John Hopkins?

  When they finally reach Aberdeen and the helicopter skids on the concrete of the hospital roof, it confirms something that not so long ago seemed impossible. He's going to live.

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• 46:43John Hopkins?

  It's the following morning. Joe lies in this hospital bed, his arms and hands swaddled in thick bandages.

• 46:51John Hopkins?

  He's sharing this ward with a dozen or so fellow survivors, some far more severely burned than he is.

• 46:59John Hopkins?

  Earlier, the doctors were able to explain how Joe sustained the blistering on his hands and arms.

• 47:06Speaker 05

  They said, "Well, we're 100% sure your burns occurred when you jumped off the platform, just that five or six seconds. Exposed to the heat, the temperatures were so extreme on the platform. It was just, the reason for my head burns was heat radiation from the temperatures on the platform. That was the reason for when I sat in a lifeboat and looked down at my hands and arms, and I could see these huge blisters on my hands and arms, and I couldn't figure out how that had happened. That was the reason that harmed you on the floor."

• 47:46John Hopkins?

  Aside from the burns and bruises, Joe has avoided any more serious injuries.

• 47:52John Hopkins?

  After a day in the burns unit, he's wheeled into the main ward, where more survivors are sitting up in bed. They greet him with solemn smiles and words of solidarity.

• 48:04John Hopkins?

  For the next few days, the patients help each other process their shared ordeal.

• 48:09Speaker 05

  It's amazing how quickly, you know, the rehabilitation kicks in, and myself and the guy Roy Carey, who, Roy was very badly burnt on his head and his face and his hands. We got into the main ward, where there was some other people, some other survivors from that night, and the camaraderie was quite good.

• 48:28John Hopkins?

  By now, the Piper Alpha disaster has become international news.

• 48:34John Hopkins?

  One day, the patients in the main ward receive something that lifts their spirits enormously.

• 48:39Speaker 05

  A great uplifting thing for us when we were in the hospital, I found it especially uplifting anyway, was we got these cards, letters, messages from schoolchildren from all over the world. England, Wales, Ireland, Australia, Canada, America, New Zealand. I found that really uplifting.

• 49:07John Hopkins?

  After a couple of weeks, Joe is discharged from hospital. He returns home for further rest and recuperation. And while many of his fellow survivors struggled with PTSD in the months that follow, Joe appears largely unaffected.

• 49:22Speaker 05

  I was absolutely just so happy to be alive. I just couldn't believe what I'd come through and I was just so happy and I just thought everything was fine.

• 49:32Speaker 05

  I thought everything was okay until the Christmas Day of 1988. I'd been out the night before. I'd got up in the morning, I was in my own flat. And I'd just switched on the TV in that morning. And then all of a sudden, I was overcome with grief.

• 49:51Speaker 05

  All I could do was think about that night and all the people, all the families. This was going to be their first Christmas with their loved ones that never survived that night. And I was overwhelmed with grief and I just sat there and cried. It seemed like an hour, it could only been, it could have been half an hour, it could have been 15 minutes, I can't remember. I was overcome and I was let howling with grief that day. But I don't think that was a bad thing either, actually. It was quite a good thing to get it out, you know? But yeah, it does catch up with everybody at different stages and different times. And maybe sometimes when you're least expecting it as well.

• 50:40John Hopkins?

  Of the 226 people stationed on the Piper Alpha at the time of the fire, only 61 survived. It is the worst offshore disaster in history.

• 50:52Speaker 05

  The 60 or so men that were working that night, 63% of them survived. Out of the other 160 or so men that were off-shift that night, it was only 13% of them survived. So if you were outside and you were working and you were maybe down in the lower levels, you had more of a chance to survive. But the people that stayed inside, that were off-shift, unfortunately, didn't give themselves much of a chance to survive.

• 51:29John Hopkins?

  An official inquiry is launched into the cause of the initial explosion. It is determined that the first domino to fall was a gas leak in one of the production modules. The escaped fuel was then ignited by an electrostatic spark, the cause of which is still unknown. In the resulting explosion, pieces of flying debris damaged the firewalls separating the production modules, thus allowing the fire to spread and more pipes to overheat than rupture.

• 52:00John Hopkins?

  It was a catastrophic chain reaction, that cost 167 lives.

• 52:07John Hopkins?

  The company that operates the platform, Occidental Petroleum, is found liable for damages and ordered to pay compensation to the survivors and to the families of the dead.

• 52:18John Hopkins?

  Ultimately, it becomes evident that safety conditions aboard the platform were indeed lacking. Following the disaster, Joe never goes back to work offshore, but he remains a vocal advocate for offshore worker welfare.

• 52:34John Hopkins?

  In the aftermath of the tragedy, a range of new emergency protocols are introduced to make the work safer.

• 52:41John Hopkins?

  These changes are largely the result of efforts from Joe and other survivors of the Piper Alpha disaster, who spend the years after the accident raising awareness of what happened.

• 52:54Speaker 05

  It's hugely different, the oil industry now. Safety-wise, mostly in the North Sea. Just that experience and the feedback I've got, it's really been rewarding, if that's the right word. It makes me feel quite proud and it makes me feel as if I'm maybe doing something for that 167 guys that never made it that night. That gives me a little bit of feeling that I'm making a difference, hopefully.

• 53:32John Hopkins?

  Next time on Real Survival Stories, we meet Justine Barwick, a 47-year-old care worker from Australia.

• 53:41John Hopkins?

  Justine loves the Queensland coast and takes regular trips there to enjoy long, relaxing holidays with her friends and family.

• 53:49John Hopkins?

  But one day, swimming in waters she's safely explored hundreds of times before, things take a sudden and shocking turn.

• 53:59John Hopkins?

  Out of nowhere, Justine faces a monstrous attack, a fight in the waves, and a life-threatening injury. With major trauma to her main artery, the life is literally draining from her.

• 54:14John Hopkins?

  The countdown has started.

• 54:20John Hopkins?

  That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen to Justine's story right now without waiting a week by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Click the link in the episode description.

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