Abstract
The 1988 Piper Alpha disaster remains one of the worst safety-related accidents of its kind in the Oil & Gas sector. However, whereas the myriad lessons learned from this disaster are common knowledge among chemical and process engineers, the valuable safety lessons from this harrowing story are arguably not so obvious to laboratory chemists. Herein, a breakdown of and personally lived long-term perspective on the Piper Alpha accident is provided to show the transferrable lessons available for improving chemical laboratory safety culture.
Highlights
On the 6th July, 1988, safety lapses aboard the Piper Alpha oil rig resulted in a series of devastating explosions.[1,2]
This and related process safety accidents are well-known among chemical engineers,[3] but less so among chemists.[4]
Like some 3.9% of the worldwide population exposed to disaster situations,[14] my father suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)[15] following his Piper Alpha ordeal, as did 21% of Piper Alpha survivors interviewed after their experience.[16] (See Figure 3.) Long after the details of his escape were revealed to me, the story became that of a man periodically relapsing into alcoholism, fracturing family ties, and losing all hope of establishing a normal working life.[9,10]
Summary
On the 6th July, 1988, safety lapses aboard the Piper Alpha oil rig resulted in a series of devastating explosions.[1,2] This and related process safety accidents are well-known among chemical engineers,[3] but less so among chemists.[4]. I have chosen to share the transferrable safety lessons from Piper Alpha rather than those from any other such accident because my father, Mark Archibald Reid, was among the 61 survivors.[9,10]
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