BP site leaders charged with involuntary manslaughter and seaman's manslaughter

[lacajun]

Charges against BP employees

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[zdas04]

Someone has to go under the bus. Looks like they found the lowest raw meat that the government would accept. This garbage is so political that it makes me ill.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[SNORGY]

If anyone wonders why technology stagnates and engineering creativity no longer exists...

Stuff like this is why.

Don't anyone dare do anything. The lawyers are watching and waiting...

 

[jgailla]

Why don't they charge the CEO? I believe in the death penalty for corporations.

 

[patprimmer]

I don't really know for sure anything of substance re who was at fault, so I reserve judgement.

Certainly a catastrophic failure should not in itself be blamed on the engineer, however if an engineer deliberately and knowingly does something risky to increase profits, he should be prosecuted.

Certainly if his managers pressure him to do so against his initial advice, then that mitigates the engineer to some degree and implicates the manager in the blame.

Regards
Pat
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[zdas04]

The story I'm hearing is that this is purely political--the government has to have a villain and those two guys were as low in the company as the government would accept. It seems to an outsider like a negotiated reality with the media absolutely complicit (as always these days).

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[lacajun]

Some of the laws hold management accountable. It seems they should here as well. Made me ill to read it.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[IRstuff]

I would expect that when all the details are revealed, as in the case of the two Shuttle disasters, engineers warn of dangerous conditions, and the mid-level supervisors pooh-pooh the warnings because nothing had every gone wrong before, and soft-shoed anything they told upper management. The only thing upper management might be at fault for is running too large a company to devote sufficient time to understand critical issues and not sufficiently knowing the weaknesses and propensities of their middle management. Not criminal, just stupid.

TTFN
faq731-376

 

[patprimmer]

I have certainly been in a situation where the CEO shot the messenger anytime he was told something he did not want to hear.

His loss of contact with reality was entirely his fault as he created the culture by firing everyone who told him when things where wrong or likely to be.

Regards
Pat
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[HornTootinEE]

I worked in a culture with incredible incompetent middle managers, and upper management who didn't know the difference. TROUBLE with that situation

 

[MiketheEngineer]

And the buck stops where??? Should be at the top. If you can't ingrain your employees with the skills and authority to make good decisions - YOUR fault!!

I can stop ANY project I want if I see something wrong - so can a lot of other lower managment people. Our boss makes sure we all know that!! If you are wrong - you might get chewed out a bit. but when you are right - you are the hero!

 

[patprimmer]

Company cultures always flow down, not up. If there is a cultural problem the CEO is really the one responsible as he installed those values in those he retained who then installed then in those retained at the next level etc etc etc.

Regards
Pat
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for site rules

 

[dik]

...and from the BBC, "BP has been temporarily suspended from new contracts with the US government, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said.

While it is unclear how long the ban will last, it follows BP's record fine earlier this month over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The EPA said it was taking action due to BP's "lack of business integrity" over its handling of the blowout."

Dik

 

[beej67]

The stories I read about what BP was doing to cut corners leading up to the disaster were pretty astounding, and someone absolutely should be put in jail for the business decisions that lead to all those guys getting killed. I can understand questioning if they've got the right guy or guys, but I don't see how anyone could think that nobody should be held responsible.



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