The Great Invisible

Here's my desk.

Here's a console where I

monitor and control the rig.

Right there's what's going on above the rig floor right now.

They're going down the well right now with some pipe.

I got two engines running,

two broke down, and two on standby.

All's I gotta do is push that little red button right there,

emergency transfer to backup,

and I'll be in control of the rig.

But I'll tell you what,

I'll have a lot of people come in here real quick.

And I probably wouldn't have a job after that.

How do you know where to pick a spot out, man?

It's everywhere.

I think it's moving, like, north, northeast

compared to where we were at this morning.

Oh, man, it's thick.

It happened more than 50 miles

out in the Gulf of Mexico.

126 workers were believed to be

on the Deepwater Horizon rig when it erupted in flames.

Straight ahead, Bart, on a 330...

Flaps up.

We're able to see quite a bit still

where the oil's creeping northbound.

Yeah, every day, it's a different flight.

Every day they're just trying to get a picture

of where it is and where it's going.

OK, we're past, shouldn't be a problem.

We're gonna climb up and do a strip search

with our Selex radar, get a good picture

of where the oil's creeping northbound.

The oil spill, drifting toward the Louisiana Coast,

is 80 miles long.

It's about the size of Rhode Island.

This oil rig was kind of like the Titanic.

It was this marvel of engineering.

As the chief executive of BP,

can you please tell the American people

what specifically you take responsibility for?

I take full responsibility to eliminate the leak

as fast as we can and clean up the oil.

Well, this is the mother lode right here.

Yeah. Yeah, we're on it here.

All right, sounds good. Thanks, guys.

Because there's never been a leak this size at this depth,

we need to know the facts

before we allow deepwater drilling to continue.

What they've got us doing right now,

this is our normal doors, the doors here, the nets.

It's what we use to catch shrimp with.

What they're trying to do with this,

all this underneath the surface that you can't see,

they're wanting us to set our nets and drag them

to see if we can locate it, spot the oil.

Personally, I don't think we're gonna be able to retrieve the oil with the nets, you know?

I mean, you know, they're designed

for water to go through the nets.

I mean, they catch fish, shrimp, sea life,

but you're not gonna hold oil in them.

Sir? Hold on. Hey.

Oh, I didn't sign that.

All right. I just got word from Bob.

We ain't supposed to be talking to y'all.

- I didn't know that. - So, yeah.

Uh, let's see...

Here we go, "all"? Okay.

Outside.

I'm supposed to be monitoring the cement job here.

There it is, that stairway right up there.

That was the one that we went up to escape.

All that behind it was completely blown away.

There was nothing there.

That's our lifeboat.

That's number three.

That's number four.

And those are some inflatable emergency rafts.

There's the mighty, mighty derrick.

Doug Brown, what's up?

What's up, homie?

I'm making a movie for home.

This is Tom, my buddy electrician,

working on a water-tight door.

What's up, Douglas?

The rig was all ours.

Or I should say all Transocean's.

She was assembled in Korea.

When I arrived there,

it was still in pieces in a shipyard.

I was there to spank it, bring it to life.

I knew that thing like the back of my hand.

It was the newest generation, state-of-the-art rig.

We drilled the deepest oil hole in the world.

It was an outstanding rig

because of the crew that was on it.

They knew what they were doing.

So it was like we didn't even have to talk to each other.

And it worked.

Oh, shoot, here comes a storm.

It's blowing pretty darn good out here right now.

We just got an upgraded weather report,

condition red for thunder, lightning, and water spouts.

Whoo!

I knew my job was dangerous.

That was one reason why I took the job.

I always thought, "Wow, that's cool, you know?"

And, I like hurricanes...

I was always like, uh, Lieutenant Dan,

you know, at the top of the mast.

"Whoo-hoo, is that all you got?"

Because of the safety that was involved with this,

visitors and family were never allowed out there.

Basically, a lot of us lived in a secret world.

OK, I'm right above the drill floor now.

Let's try to sneak up so we can look down.

Shh, be quiet. Don't say anything.

People forget that it was a very prestigious job

to work on the Deepwater Horizon.

The last well that they drilled,

Gordon said for weeks, they told them,

"Dry hole, dry hole, this is a dry hole."

And they kept drilling,

and found the second biggest oil reserve

in the history of the United States.

Gordon was on the rig when they hit that.

It was a lot of fun.

He said when they find oil on the rig you're working on,

everybody gets a bonus, everybody.

You got snow in your hair, kid.

We were proud of him for doing so much so soon.

I bragged about getting Gordon that job.

I'm gonna throw it at Mom. You ready?

Set?

Ow, shit!

But then when that job cost him his life...

I had to stop bragging and...

...and feel responsible.

I'm sorry, I know this is not a good time,

but this is the two minutes our child will have of his birthday.

Mmm.

I'll give you the ultimate bittersweet experience.

It's having a new grandson whose daddy just died.

And this was a time of such happiness,

and we just hugged and cried and cried.

And it was just so emotionally wrenching

for us to see that Gordon...

Not there, to be there.

Gordon's supposed to be there.

There's me. Yeah.

"Even a cave man can do it."

There's a crane operator, Heavy D.

His name was Dwayne, but we called him Heavy D

because he was a big guy.

This is Jason Anderson,

this is one of the guys that got killed out there.

But he was always making funny faces in the meetings. So...

We were all inside,

up on the front here, when everything happened.

So that's why I was so close to the, the lifeboats.

Luckily I was, being asleep, I was right there at it.

And then all these guys working were, like,

up here in the center and stuff, and this crane here

on the other side, that's the one that Dale was in,

when it came out, when he got blew out.

There's me. See, this is a crane pedestal.

So that crane that I was showing you,

this is what it's sitting on.

And that's, you know, that's probably

like a 50-foot drop at least.

Ah, I found it.

See? That was my room, 338.

This is the one I grabbed and wore out of the rig,

something that I wanted.

I felt that, you know, if they were gonna get mad

for me stealing a life jacket,

then, oh, well at that point, you know?

Come on you guys, answer.

Hello?

There we go.

Hey, John.

Yeah, I'm gonna take control back here, I think, OK?

For some reason, Transocean started saying,

"We don't need that many people to properly maintain the rig,"

so they started eliminating positions.

At first, it seemed OK because, you know, equipment's new.

It doesn't break down very much when it's new.

But pretty soon, started getting too much

for us to keep up with.

The accident aboard the drilling platform,

you've made clear that that was the fault

of that drilling company, but it was your oil

that was coming out here and is now poisoning the Gulf of Mexico.

What kind of oversight did you have on that drilling operation?

We can review the issues around that in the future.

Our focus today is responding to the incident.

We're focused on eliminating the leak,

and we're focused on defending the shoreline.

I'm pleased to announce that BP has agreed

to set aside $20 billion to pay claims