Deepwater Horizon rig safety alarm “set to snooze”
Friday July 23, 2010: Transocean Chief Engineer technician Mike Williams told a Marine Board panel that a computer monitoring fire, gas and toxic fume sensors was working at the time of the rig explosion, however the alarm had been “inhibited.” The ultimate effect of setting the alarm this way was to cause the sensors to send information to the computer, but for the computer to NOT trigger an alarm. Williams also testified that inhibiting the system this way prevents the computer from activating emergency shut down systems designed to stop or minimize damage. Williams said the reason this decision was made is because the rig’s supervisors did not want people woken at 3:00am by false alarms.