As a maritime lawyer, I see that despite advancements in safety technologies, offshore worker injuries and deaths continue to occur.  In the most recent such incident, a fire on an Apache Corp oil and gas drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico has killed one worker and injured two others.

There is no information on how the fire broke out on the platform. However, the crew members were apparently rescued by another commercial vessel that was nearby. The injured workers were rushed to the hospital, where the victim Frank Richard of Louisiana died of his injuries. The other two workers were treated for injuries, and discharged from the hospital.

The company statement assured the public that there was no environmental impact from the fire, and that there was an only a “minor petroleum sheen” on the water”. Jon Jeppesen, who is the executive vice president of Apache in the Gulf Coast region, stated that the company’s first priority at this time would be to assess the environmental impact of the incident, and after that has been done and they can begin their drilling activities again, to conduct an investigation into the cause of the fire. There was no word of how the fire could have started, or any other relevant details.

I am very impressed with the company’s concern with the environment, but a worker was killed here, and his family will have questions about the tragedy. As a maritime lawyer, I would like know:

• Where did the fire start?
• What set it off?
• How was it allowed to grow to the extent that it burned three workers severely, and one of them to death?
• What kind of processes were in place for the safe management of inflammable materials?
• What kind of emergency firefighting equipment and techniques were used?

There will be more questions as more details about the tragedy emerge

Unfortunately, as a maritime attorney who frequently comes up against oil and gas drilling companies in court, I know that answers to victim’s questions frequently come only after a claim is filed. Only when a claim is filed and goes to trial, that the company can be made to own up to what happened.

Maritime lawyer Brian Beckcom is a Board Certified trial lawyer, whose primary focus is the representation of injured Jones Act seamen, including offshore workers, tankerrmen, galleyhands, deckhands, drillers, and oilrig workers in maritime accidents in Texas, around the country and in international waters.