On 05/03/2010 05:26 AM, HeyBub wrote:

The BP platform fire and resulting oil spill could have been way beyond the
rig designer's portfolio.

For example, if a surfacing U.S. submarine could hit a Japanese yacht in the
middle of the Pacific (sinking the boat and killing all aboard), a
submarine - either U.S., another nation's, or a drug smuggler's - could have
collided with an oil platform in the considerably more crowded Gulf of
Mexico.

Arguably, the blowout preventer should have been able to survive the
loss of the rig.

Unless the blowout preventer itself was blown up by a bomb, it should
have been designed to fail safe.

Chris