I needed to find out why the North Sea Disaster took my father

Shane Gordeman was 18 years old when he lost his father in the Piper Alpha disaster.

David was a security officer on the oil stage, which was about 120 miles (193 km) in the north-east of Aberdeen.

He was one of the 167 men who died after a gas explosion, harassing the convenience of pieces in July 1988, which remains the world’s worst offshore oil and gas accidents.

The trauma of that loss has shaped Shane’s life, inspiring him to follow David that they are trying to secure the industry for those who work in it.

One in New BBC Scotland series Explaining the disaster and the story after that, Shane – who joined the army shortly before the explosion – explains why he later decided to pursue the career’s offshore.

“I just felt that this is what I needed to do,” they say. “It was right for me. I went as a security officer who my father used to do. He was always talking about keeping people safe. It was his calling.

“I always wanted to find out what it was, this thing that took my father away from me. What is this? What did it contribute to being such a big disaster?

“As it turns out, it is a list of things that have to line up. Just the perfect storm.”

The last photo of David and Shane was taken just five days before the disaster. It shows the father and son, enjoying a weapon around each other, enjoying a drink and marking a special occasion.

“It was a kind of farewell party or a good fortune party for me, going to the army,” Shane says.

“I was 18-half and he was 41 years old.”

He said goodbye for the last time at a railway station, before Shane started basic training.

He says, “My father and my mother took me to Edinburgh Were and my father shook my hand.” “I remember he shaking his hand and ‘go to go”. “

Within days, everything changed.

When he was undergoing his basic training, Shane did not get access to newspapers or watched TV.

He says: “You are in the army. This was my lieutenant, my commanding officer who came in and said: ‘You have to go home.’

“They gave me a train warrant and took me to Darlington train station in a Land Rover and just left me.

“Of course, I am still not intelligent what is going on. And I am really confused about why I am being sent home.”

When Shane learned what happened to Piper Alpha, the stage on which his father was working.

“I went to the newspaper to buy coke and one Mars bar or something else’s can and the papers were just covered,” they say. “Metal sticking out of the sea, headlines. Reporting the volume of those who died.

“And honestly, I just knew right that he had died and was not coming back. I knew it directly.

“I just cry the whole route in the train. And I am 18 years old and I was rested by two old women.

“I don’t think I managed to tell them why I was so upset. Maybe I did, I don’t remember it. It was empty from there.”

Piper Oilfield Norway’s west coast is about half between Scotland. It was discovered in 1973 and production began in December 1976.

Piper Alpha was established in the ground in 1975. A certain platform, it was attached by permanent legs for 472ft (144 m) below the surface of the North Sea.

It was designed to drill together and produce oil, operated by the UK Arm of Oxidant Petroleum, an American company with interests worldwide.

It was modified to produce oil along with gas and, at its peak, the platform is said to have about 10% of the entire North Sea oil production.

All this ended on the night of 6 July 1988.

The incidents caused by the explosion began with leakage from pipes associated with the pump. A security valve was removed from the pipe for maintenance.

A communication failure on the stage meant that the pump was being worked at the same time. When the pipe work was removed from which the security valve was removed, the start-up was pressurized, the gas began to leak.

Soon after, the gas ignited, causing an explosion that turns off the oil. The heat broke a gas pipeline from another installation, producing a fireball that attachs the piper alpha.

The fire spread and the effects were destructive. The blasts exploded through the firewall and attached the most part of the platform, including the control room and the housing block – which were fire retardant and safe.

Less than two hours after the initial explosion platform, its auxiliary structure weakened by rapid fire, began to fall and fall.

The first crane, then drilling deeric and finally the housing modules fell into the sea. He was full of workers who demanded a sanctuary from Infrano.

165 out of 226 men died on board, as well as two rescue teams.

61 who survived managed to make it from the stage and at the sea, where they were picked up by a small floatla of ships.

Of these people, five helicopters jumped 175 feet (53 meters) from the deck.

Those who made it piper alpha were rushed to the hospital in Aberdeen, but it took months keeping in mind the number of casualties.

David Gordeman was among those whose bodies were missing.

Says Shane: “The information that we had, was my father missing, was considered dead. Strangely, the last time my father saw that he was holding a door open to get people through the housing.”

The housing blocks were picked up from the seabed by the end of 1988. David’s body was not out of 87 found inside.

“My father was one of those who had never met,” Shane says.

“There was an acceptance that we will not get his body, which also takes its toll because it is … not only to get a death certificate, it’s not really about it … It’s just the fact that there is no closed.”

David was one of the 30 piper Alpha victims, whose remains were never recovered.

In March 1989, the remaining stage was dropped into the sea.

The official inquiry, headed by Scottish Judge Lord William Kulen, was opened in Aberdeen in November 1988.

The BBC series rebuke the often annoying testimony of people, rescue teams and experts as they kept the night and subsequent events together.

The investigation sat for 180 days in 13 months. Lord Kulen’s final reportPublished in November 1990, the platform’s oxytal management, its communication systems, attitude towards safety of workers and the overall industry and government inspection of the situation in the North Sea were afraid.

Nearly four decades later, and with the benefits of 13 -year -old offshore, whatever she learned about the circumstances of her father’s death was surprised.

“I don’t think that night they had a laudable or practical way to fight the fire. You cannot fight the fire in this way. You have to stop its fuel and it did not happen,” they say.

“They did not have the right to stop pumping from the management, even though they could clearly see that there was a big disaster in front of their eyes. It seems that there was a fear that they would lose their jobs if they had stopped.”

Shane is particularly angry with the lack of public announcements to vacate the stage, a failure that was frightening for workers that night.

He says, “It never came. Most people just had to whisk for themselves and try and find their way from the platform.”

“I honestly thought that it was a complete insult. Kullen’s report discovered a kind of flicker for a systemic failure, cultural failure, from top to bottom.

“How was it allowed? I am not sure. But it was.”

The Piper Alfa disaster monument is standing in the Hazelhead Park in Aberdeen. It depicts three offshore workers and bears the names and age of 167 dead.

What happened in July 1988 that night, changed the UK Oil and Gas industry forever.

Lord Kulen made 106 recommendations, the way the industry and the government operated the region. A long period of industrial unrest and protests from workers helped the press for change.

In 37 years, there is no major security emergency in the North Sea.

Oxidantl is said to have paid $ 220m in compensation to the remaining people and the families of the dead. Insurance claims for damage arrived around $ 1.4BN.

In May 1991, Oxidantl sold its UK oil and gas business to French company Elf in $ 1.35BN.

Two months later, Scotland’s most senior law officer, Lord Advocate Peter Fraser, said there were insufficient evidence to establish the cause of disaster or any criminal obligation.

He announced that no criminal allegations would be made against any person or stage operators.

Shane Gordeman continues to work as a security advisor in the North Sea Oil and Gas Industry, who died.

He says: “Piper Alpha should be a lesson for all of us, which is not decent and does not allow greed and money to rule people and security.

“I think this is a message. People are more important.”