A Lesson to be Learned

    Some very important lessons were learned from the sinking of the Ocean Ranger. Some of those lessons were focused around the technology and the safety of the platform. The tragedy of the ocean ranger made the oil companies and other participants respond in many different ways. A Memorial University Sociology professor House says "I think the disaster had a very profound effect on the way Newfoundlander’s feel about the gas and oil industry." The government has continually examined the safety issues that contributed to this disaster of the Ocean Ranger and has implemented numerous changes to enhance the safety of our offshore workforce . The Newfoundland and Canadian government set up a joint royal commission to investigate the disaster of the Ocean Ranger and to provide recommendations to improve safety.

Two years later, a royal commission on the Ocean Ranger disaster concluded that the deaths resulted not only from the storm and flaws in the rig’s design, but also from a lack of human knowledge. Experts say the many deaths could have been prevented with better safety training and better safety precautions. Since then new and old rules have been enforced. One rule that was not enforced in the past was that a worker had to be carrying a special card which indicated that they have passed all tests for the job in the past three years. Without this card they would not be allowed to board the helicopters that take workers to and from the rigs. As well during the late 1980's the federal and provincial governments installed boards to regulate offshore oil and gas. These boards required anyone visiting the rigs to have minimum safety training. Over the past two decades, survival systems have improved greatly in off shore drilling. Some of the new technologies that were introduced are cold water survival suits and improved methods of lifeboat deployment. Also for more safety, training requirements for offshore workers have increased intensely and new facilities have been established to make sure that the workers have the safety skills to avoid another big accident like the sinking of the Ocean Ranger. As well weather buoys were established in selected locations throughout the waters in Atlantic Canada to provide critical weather information to forecasters and mariners.

The oil companies were held liable because their workers weren’t trained for emergency procedures and didn’t do any emergency drills. The Ocean Ranger could have survived the storm and flooding if those in charge had understood how the ballast system worked. the two men working in the ballast room had never been tested for what they had learned. The senior operator had only reached the halfway point in his training but he was promoted to the senior operator anyway. The Ocean Ranger did not have enough safety equipment on board for the amount of passengers they had.

Families of lost crew members sued the companies that owned and operated the Ocean Ranger. They were forced to pay out millions in lawsuits. Twenty years later, people who work on oil rigs say things have greatly improved, that training is better and so is safety. But whether that's true or not is almost impossible to verify. The companies that run oil rigs are very secretive about their operations, citing proprietary interests. They do have to report to a government agency, but that agency does not have to release much information to the public.

On the twentieth anniversary of the sinking of the Ocean Ranger the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador released a message ensuring to those affected that major changes have been made to the oil and gas industry.

"Major legislative and regulatory changes were made to the Atlantic Accord Acts by the federal and provincial governments to establish strict safety guidelines that must be followed from the initial design of an offshore project to the actual implementation of safety systems during the operations phase of development. These regulations govern the necessary requirements of offshore safety.

Over the past two decades, government and industry players have worked together to ensure that the necessary funding is available to facilitate the important research needed to improve escape, evacuation and rescue systems. New technologies have been introduced including cold water survival suits and improved methods of lifeboat deployment. Training requirements for offshore workers have increased significantly and new facilities have been established to ensure that these workers have the necessary safety skills to avoid tragedy."

While these changes are welcomed they are of little comfort to those who lost loved ones on February 15^th.