More Pieces
The Times-Picayune has a story and picture: Deepwater Horizon’s 2 drill pipes seen up close in clearest picture to date
Fuzzy images taken by robotic submarines a mile under the sea showed the two pipes before. But the Marine Board panel investigating the massive April 20 accident just put out this crisp image taken after the section of tubing called a riser had been lifted to the dock.
It’s the clearest sign yet to back up the theory that a second drill pipe was also running into the blowout preventer, the huge system of valves and rams that are designed to close in the well in an emergency, and fouled up the works when the well blew.
Efforts to activate pipe-cutting devices in the blowout preventer repeatedly failed, at the time of the accident and for months afterward. The cutting shear rams are only designed to cut one pipe under high pressure.
Here is the problem – we don’t know when the second drilling pipe dropped down the riser, i.e. we don’t know if it was in the BOP before the blowout, or if it dropped as a result of the blowout. The BOP won’t function properly if there is a drilling pipe junction inside, so a second pipe would have the same effect.
Like many investigations, this one is generating more questions than answers at this stage.
