Deepwater Horizon, Part 2: BP’s Disaster

Summary

Lawless Planet — Deepwater Horizon, Part 2: BP’s Disaster

Podcast: Lawless Planet
Host: Zach Goldbaum
Date: November 10, 2025
Episode Focus: The Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, its immediate human and environmental toll, the ensuing cover-ups, and the lack of true accountability for the catastrophe.

---

Overview

This episode, the second part of Lawless Planet’s Deepwater Horizon series, recounts the harrowing final hours aboard the BP oil rig as it exploded and ultimately sank in April 2010. Through firsthand survivor accounts, congressional testimony, and investigative reporting, host Zach Goldbaum dissects the sequence of catastrophic failures, BP’s response and misinformation campaign, the environmental and human cost, and the flawed aftermath of corporate accountability. The episode’s tone is tense, urgent, and critical, exposing the intersection of criminal neglect, regulatory failure, and profit-driven risk-taking fueling ecological crises.

---

Major Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Night of the Disaster: First-Person Accounts

• 9:45 pm, April 20, 2010: Technician Mike Williams detects danger—smells gas, hears mechanical strains, and is soon met by a sudden explosion. (00:00–04:44)

  • Mike’s harrowing escape: Blown doors, fire suppression CO₂, crawling while injured, and confronting destroyed walkways and burning rig structures.
  • Memorable quote:

    "Thinking to myself, you know, this is it. I'm going to die right here."
    — Mike Williams (02:17)

• Caleb Holloway (floorhand): Describes a culture of fatigue and foreboding ("the Whale from Hell"), with ignored warning signs and faulty maintenance. (06:59–07:12)

2. Systemic Safety Shortcuts & Cost-Cutting

• Pressure tests skipped or dismissed: Troubling readings ignored; a faulty gauge was blamed. BP’s oversight results in dangerous shortcuts, in pursuit of savings (e.g., skipping a test to save $128,000). (07:21–10:29)

• Failing safety protocols: Decisions to replace protective drilling mud with seawater for cost and speed; mounting pressure ignored. (10:29–11:11)

3. The Catastrophe Unfolds

• Explosion and chaos:

  • Alarms ignored or muted; evacuation alarm not sounded due to fear of false alarms and manual override policy. (13:27–15:20)
    • Andrea Fletas (bridge officer) on muted alarms:

      "We continued to get a series of alarms... the drill floor called and told me that they had a wall control situation. And they hung up." (14:28)

  • Evacuation is improvised; lifeboats launch half-empty; survivors left behind must improvise with rafts or by jumping into burning, oil-slicked water. (18:06–21:46)

• Mike Williams’ leap: Injured, he throws himself 100ft into the Gulf; is later rescued.

  • Quote:

    "I remember closing my eyes and saying a prayer and asking God to tell my wife, girl, that daddy did everything he could." (21:29)

4. Initial Aftermath: Loss, Disarray, and Company Pressure

• Survivors' ordeal: Rescue, triage on a supply vessel. Caleb Holloway’s desperate search for colleagues, many never found; 11 men ultimately declared dead. (22:28–24:12)

• BP’s immediate response: Survivors are forced to submit to drug tests and sign pre-filled waivers, some attesting they saw nothing or were not injured, just to go home. (24:12–24:55)

• Sinking of the rig: After burning for two days, Deepwater Horizon sinks. Lack of coordinated government response; private boats fight the fire. (24:55–25:26)

5. The Spreading Spill & Corporate Media Spin

• The oil unleashed: The sinking rig rips open the well, setting off a massive, uncontrollable spill. BP initially minimizes extent, even hints at sabotage. (25:26–27:06)

  • BP CEO Tony Hayward:

    "Everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impacts of this will be very, very modest." (27:06)

• Government and public realize the scope: Leaks discovered, official estimates rise from 1,000 to 5,000 barrels/day, and the flow rate keeps increasing. (27:29–27:40)

• Spill Cam goes viral: BP releases a live video feed under public pressure; millions watch the gushing oil. Actual scale revealed—possibly 57 million gallons. (28:50–30:21)

6. Investigations and Attempts at Accountability

• DOJ and congressional investigations: Reveal repeated BP cost-cutting, ignored warnings, and faulty contractors. (31:01–31:22)

• Systemic impunity:

  • Scott West (EPA investigator):

    "What the government has done over the past several years has taught BP that it can do whatever it wants and will not be held accountable." (31:01)

  • On ignored worker warnings:

    "Information is coming to light that corners were cut and that employees concerns were being ignored. It's the exact same pattern that we saw with BP... in Texas City." (31:22)

• Legal fallout:

  • BP pleads guilty to 14 criminal charges, pays $4.5 billion in fines (later increased by $20 billion).
  • Manslaughter charges for two site leaders (later dropped); VP charged with obstruction (acquitted).
  • Scott West’s frustration:

    "None of these three men that were held personally accountable ever saw the inside of a jail... not at all the ones that were making the kind of decisions that led to Deepwater Horizon." (33:03) "Corporations don't make the decisions. It's individuals within them." (33:23)

7. The Ongoing Impact & Lessons Ignored

• Enduring ecological and human costs on the Gulf:

  • Massive animal deaths (dolphins, pelicans, sea turtles), collapse of the fishing industry, 1200 square miles of seafloor affected. (34:32)
  • Chemical dispersants, including Corexit, posed their own health hazards—downplayed by BP. (34:47)

• Trauma and broken promises for survivors.

• BP leans into renewables and PR, but later doubles down on fossil fuels; regulatory rollbacks under Trump’s administration erase some safety progress.

• Scott West’s parting warning:

  "While there's still profit to be made, we're going to have problems." (36:58)
  "If folks had been prosecuted in my case... individuals had gone to jail, nobody would even know the word Deepwater Horizon today." (37:37)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments with Timestamps

• Mike Williams’ sense of dread:
  "Thinking to myself, you know, this is it. I'm going to die right here." (02:17)
• Caleb Holloway on ignored warnings:
  "It was nicknamed the Whale from Hell... it just seemed like something was going to go wrong." (07:12)
• Andrea Fletas (bridge officer):
  "We continued to get a series of alarms... the drill floor called and told me that they had a wall control situation." (14:28)
• Mike Williams’ leap of faith:
  "I remember closing my eyes and saying a prayer and asking God to tell my wife... that daddy did everything he could." (21:29)
• Tony Hayward’s infamous comments:
  "Everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impacts of this will be very, very modest." (27:06)
  "There's no one who wants this thing over more than I do. You know, I'd like my life back." (28:11)
• Scott West’s condemnation:
  "What the government has done over the past several years has taught BP that it can do whatever it wants and will not be held accountable." (31:01)
  "Corporations don't make the decisions. It's individuals within them." (33:23)

---

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–04:44: The night of the explosion — Mike Williams’ perspective.
• 06:59–10:29: Crew’s final hours, ignored pressure readings, cost-saving shortcuts.
• 13:27–15:20: Andrea Fletas and the rig’s evacuation alarm snafu.
• 18:06–21:46: The evacuations, chaos, and survival stories.
• 22:28–24:12: Roll call, missing men, trauma for survivors.
• 25:26–27:06: BP’s media spin, early public statements.
• 28:50–30:21: “Spill Cam”, revelation of disaster’s true scale.
• 31:01–33:32: Investigations, Scott West and the limits of corporate accountability.
• 34:32–35:47: Environmental effects and BP’s continued PR efforts.
• 36:58–37:54: Scott West on the dangers of profit over safety, lessons unheeded.

---

Conclusion

Lawless Planet’s “Deepwater Horizon, Part 2” reconstructs, with urgency and depth, the human terror, corporate recklessness, environmental devastation, and failed accountability surrounding the BP disaster. Survivor testimonies and expert analysis make a compelling case that without real consequences for decision-makers, history is bound to repeat itself. The tone is somber and damning—a warning for the future of offshore drilling and environmental crime.

---

Key Quote:
"Corporations don't make the decisions. It's individuals within them. And that's the whole thing with the push to hold individuals accountable in the environmental arena."
— Scott West (33:23)

---

For deeper investigation, the episode draws on:

• Fire on the Horizon: The Untold Story of the Gulf Oil Disaster
• Run to BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster
• Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours (NYT)
• Firsthand testimony from survivors and congressional hearings

---

Next Episode Teaser: The fight against chemical giant DuPont and the struggle to hold it accountable for pollution that destroyed families and communities.

Transcript

[Zach Goldbaum]

Wondry subscribers can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now. Join Wondry in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. This is the second episode in a two part series. If you haven't listened to last week's episode, we recommend you check it out first. It's just after 9:45pm on April 20, 2010. The Deepwater Horizon is floating off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico, and on board, Mike Williams, the rig's chief electronics technician, knows something is wrong. He smells gas wafting into his office. He hears pistons working overtime in the engine room next door, and he stares at his control panel in disbelief. Power is surging into the small bulbs in front of him and the fixtures overhead giving the room an eerie glow. Mike is a Texas native with close cropped, thinning hair and a goatee. He's a former avionics technician from the Marine Corps and is typically even keeled. But right now he's beginning to worry. Alarms are blaring, which alone isn't unusual on the Deepwater rig, but they're sounding uncontrollably in his shop and everywhere else on the rig too. Here's Mike in an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes.

[Mike Williams]

They're at a constant state now that's just beep beep beep beep beep beep. It doesn't stop, but even that's starting to get drowned out by the sound of the engine increasing in speed. I'm pushing my way back from the desk when my computer monitor exploded.

[Zach Goldbaum]

One by one, the light bulbs start to explode too. Suddenly he's in complete and total darkness. Assuming it's nothing more than a runaway engine overheating, Mike starts to head to the engine control room to help help troubleshoot. But as he reaches for the heavy fire resistant door, he hears an awful hissing noise and then suddenly the blast tears the door from its frame and it slams into him, throwing him across the room. He's knocked unconscious for a second. When he comes to he realizes he's pinned under the door and I remember.

[Mike Williams]

Thinking to myself, you know, this is it. I'm going to die right here.

[Zach Goldbaum]

The fire suppression system kicks in, filling the room with CO2. Mike chokes, hardly able to breathe, and he notices his left arm won't move. But he needs to get out of this room and into fresh air. Now he manages to get himself out from under the door and crawls one armed through the dark. He feels his way along the floor, finally making it to a second door when the second fire door blows in, hitting him again and sending him backward 30ft.

[Mike Williams]

At that point, I actually got angry. These fire doors are trying to kill me. And I made a decision. I'm going to get outside. I may die out there, but I'm going to get outside.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Mike crawls into the corridor and heads toward the engine control room. On his way, he finds two bodies that aren't moving. He assumes they're dead, but there's no time to stop to make sure. He needs to move, needs to get to fresh air. He can see a small sliver of light ahead, so he presses on until finally he makes it outside and he can breathe again. From there, he turns right where there should be a walkway, but it's gone. It's been blown to pieces, along with the entire engine control room, one of the rig's engines, and the entire back half of the rig. Mike looks down past all that mangled steel to see the waters of the Gulf of Mexico 70ft below.

[Mike Williams]

I knew that something really, really bad had happened, and it wasn't gonna get any better anytime soon. I had an inclination that this was way worse than anyone could expect.

[Zach Goldbaum]

From one dream. Zach I'm Zach Goldbaum, and this is Lawless Planet. Each week we tell a new story about the true crimes fueling the climate crisis and the people fighting to save the planet or destroy it.

[Mike Williams]

The doghouse is on fire and about half of the derrick at this point is on fire. It was then I realized we had a blow.

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Why choose a sleep number? Smart bed.

[Andrea Fletas]

Can I make my site softer?

[Mike Williams]

Can I make my site firmer?

[Zach Goldbaum]

Can we sleep cooler?

[Sleep Number Announcer]

Sleep number does that cools up to eight times faster and lets you choose your ideal comfort on either side. Your Sleep number setting. Enjoy personalized comfort for better sleep night after night. And now max out your savings. The more you buy, the more you save on beds, bases and more. Plus, get free home delivery on any smart bed with base limited time. Check it out at a Sleep Number store near you [e-mail] today.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 1]

Hey Pod listeners. Have we got a fun new game for you.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 2]

It's called Quick Quick, Quick. A game that has outrageous questions that will keep you playing and laughing for hours like this. Quick, quick, quick. List three gifts you'd never give a cowboy.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 1]

And you can say anything.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 2]

There's no wrong answers, so go get it. Quick, quick, quickly. Available now at Target and Amazon.

[Zach Goldbaum]

In our previous episode, we looked back at what unfolded inside BP in the dec. The years of warning signs, the cost cutting, the safety violations the culture of speed and profit over everything, and the lax government oversight that allowed it to largely continue under the new leadership of CEO Tony Hayward. BP pledged to turn a page on all of that. But as we'll find out in today's episode, that is not what happened. After the tragedy on the deepwater rig, offshore oil drilling declined for a time, but in recent years, it's come roaring back. So if we want to understand what the future of deep sea drilling might look like, we need to examine its checkered past. Which brings us back to April 20, 2010, the day that everything changed for the men and women on the Deepwater Horizon. It's 5pm on April 20, just under five hours before the eventual explosion of the Deepwater Horizon. The drilling crew is in high spirits. There's about 12 of them and they'd worked for 21 days straight on the drill floor or inside the doghouse. But by the next morning, the guys expect to be picked up on a helicopter and brought to shore to see their families.

[Caleb Holloway]

So everybody was excited. You know, we were gonna be done with that well.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That's Caleb Holloway, a 28 year old floorhand. As he explained on the Tailboard Misfits podcast, things had not been going smoothly.

[Caleb Holloway]

It was nicknamed the Whale from Hell. Just nothing out of the ordinary problems, but it just seemed like something was going to go wrong.

[Zach Goldbaum]

The Deepwater Horizon is the crown jewel of BP and Transocean's deep sea drilling operations. It's a nearly 400 foot long rig that's been floating 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana for the past two years, drilling an exploratory well. Six engines power massive thrusters that are working at all times to keep the rig directly above the well. An oil derrick, essentially a tall steel tower that raises and lowers drilling tools, stands about 25 stories high at its center. All that's to say, the rig is an impressive technological feat. But there are a lot of moving parts and before the crew can officially leave, they have to cross off their final tasks. On the drill floor. By the foot of the derrick, Caleb watches a team of engineers running what's called a negative pressure test. When an offshore crew finishes drilling a well, they can't just pack up and leave. They have to make sure the well is sealed and stable enough to stand on its own without their man made systems in place. So they run this negative pressure test, which is basically one final way to check the well for leaks. Everyone is expecting good results. Just that morning, BP leadership signed off on a cement job that supposedly was so successful at sealing the well that they didn't feel like they needed to do a final round of testing. That move also happened to save the company 12 hours of labor and $128,000. When the crew runs the negative pressure test, they discover something troubling. Pressure is rising. That's the exact opposite of what they want. Some of the guys on Caleb's crew are unsettled. But instead of stopping everything to figure out why the pressure was spiking, a BP company man gives the order to just run the tests on a different pipe in the well. There, the pressure gauges read as stable. It doesn't really make sense to the crew how there can be such different readings. But they ultimately conclude that the first pressure gauge must be broken, which isn't such a stretch, considering the entire deepwater rig is in desperate need of maintenance. The crew monitors the system for another 30 minutes and sees no changes. So they decide everything's fine. But what they don't know is that gas has already started creeping up the well. With the negative pressure test complete, Caleb Holloway and his team are ready to move on to their final replacing the drilling mud in the well. It's a heavy substance used to pack in pressure deep underground, like a lid on a soda can. But when it's time to leave the site, that mud has to be removed before the rig can be detached. So they swap it with seawater. It's not as good at keeping in the pressure, but it is a lot faster and cheaper, which BP likes because they're already five weeks behind schedule and $26 million over budget. Once the seawater is pumped in, they seal the well with a cement plug. Caleb's team is watching the process carefully, looking for any signs of a kick. That's when oil or natural gas starts sneaking into the drill pipe and escaping the well before you're ready to capture it. Kicks are dangerous, but crews are usually able to contain them if, for whatever reason they can't. A kick can become a blowout where flammable oil and gas explode from the well. That's a deadly situation. At first, everything looks good. As the mud is pumped out and replaced by seawater, pressure begins to drop. That's what they want to see. But then around 9pm, there's a sudden spike in pressure, and over the next seven minutes, it just keeps surging upward. It is the first clear sign that something is very wrong.

[Mike Williams]

Just so happens I was on the phone around 9:30 with my wife.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That's Mike Williams again, the chief electronics technician from Texas.

[Mike Williams]

And during our phone conversation, we heard a gas level being announced.

[Zach Goldbaum]

These sorts of warnings and announcements were so common aboard the Deepwater Horizon that Mike and the other crew members had become immune to them. Gas issues had been a persistent feature for weeks.

[Mike Williams]

My wife actually heard the announcement through the telephone and asked if I needed to get off the phone to go take care of it, and I told her no. It was just an indication to make everyone aware of what the gas levels are.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Alarms are going off in the background, too, but Mike doesn't think much of them either. But suddenly the beeping is overwhelming, and soon it's joined by a hissing noise and finally a thump.

[Mike Williams]

At that point, I did get off the phone with my wife. I said, hey, I need to go check this out, see what's going on.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That was when Mike started to smell the gas. Several floors below, Caleb Holloway's supervisor radios him and one of his buddies to go check on a valve in the pump room. Caleb's friend offers to handle it. He says he'll see Caleb at the end of their shift. But that's not what happens. Here's Caleb from a New York Times video report.

[Caleb Holloway]

Saw the start of a blowout, and I said, oh, shit.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Until off running mud explodes from the wellhead, pouring across the deck and blasting up through the derrick. Caleb and another crew member on the main deck sprint toward the drilling floor. Around them, debris rains down water and drilling mud, spraying in all directions, soaking them.

[Caleb Holloway]

It was just everywhere. It was blowing up so intense that it was just bouncing off of everything.

[Zach Goldbaum]

It sounds like a jet engine. The roar of pressurized gas rushing up from deep below. Caleb knows emergency protocols, but he can't remember any training for what to do in the event of an eruption like this. He tries to radio his supervisor, but he doesn't get a response. So he and the other crew members take shelter in the heavy tool house. Then Caleb starts to smell gas, too.

[Caleb Holloway]

I just knew that that was bad. And that's when I kind of panicked a little bit, and I said, that's gas. We have to get out of here.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Caleb and his fellow floorhand book it again, this time toward the lifeboat deck. All the while, the rig is filling with gas, drifting invisibly through enclosed spaces, searching for a spark. On the bridge, junior officer Andrea Fletas sits at her post, monitoring the rig's positioning system, when suddenly she feels a jolt. Then her screen floods with multiple alerts. The color of magenta. On Deepwater Horizon, that color means just one combustible gas. And by the looks of it. It is everywhere. Warning alarms go off, and Andrea's heart starts racing as she tries to remember her training. She's not sure what she's supposed to do next. And she can't think with all the alarms blaring. Then her supervisor reaches over and silences them. He says he needs to think, too. Here's Andrea giving testimony at a congressional hearing about about this moment.

[Andrea Fletas]

We continued to get a series of alarms. And while we were getting those alarms, the drill floor called and told me that they had a wall control situation. And they hung up.

[Zach Goldbaum]

It's chaos. Alarms are flashing across every screen, but no evacuation siren is sounding and no systems are shutting down. That's because Transocean, the company that owns the rig, made a decision that the general alarm could only be triggered manually. They didn't want all the false alarms jolting the crew awake in the middle of the night. But Andrea hasn't hit the evacuation alarm yet. Neither has her supervisor. They don't want to jump the gun. Before either of them can figure out what to do, the computer screens in front of Andrea go dark. They're in a blackout. And then an explosion rips through the rig.

[Andrea Fletas]

I went over to the general alarm and hit the general alarm. Yancey made the announcement over the PA to report to emergency stations and lifeboats. At that point, I looked over and noticed that no one had hit any of the distress buttons.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Andrea doesn't bother waiting for an order. She breaks protocol and the chain of command and slams the distress button herself. Then she grabs the radio and calls out, mayday. Mayday. This is Deepwater Horizon. In disbelief, Mike heads up the stairs toward the captain's bridge and the main deck about 400ft away. He struggles to keep his balance along the walkways that are slick with drilling mud. As he climbs to the main deck, he realizes that the 25 story oil derrick at the center of the rig is engulfed in in flames. Mike feels helpless. Then someone shouts over the PA system for everyone to report to their emergency stations and get to the lifeboats. Relieved to know that there are other people still alive, Mike makes his way to the bridge. Inside, There are about 20 people. Alarms are blaring, there's radio chatter, and someone is shouting Mayday over the comms. Another voice on the bridge inside insists they disconnect from the well. It's the only way to save the rig and themselves. But the supervisor refuses to authorize it without sign off from representatives from both Transocean and bp, the companies that operate and own Deepwater. Disconnecting the rig from the well without properly sealing it off would mean abandoning the $154 million Macondo project and declaring it a bust, even though they were so close to being done. But just then, the most senior Transocean man stumbles in, coughing and vomiting, and he gives the okay to disconnect. So all eyes turn to the BP man. He stares at the panel for what feels to Mike like minutes before he finally gives the go ahead. When they hit the button, an underwater mechanism should cut the pipe connecting the rig to the well, setting the Deepwater Horizon free to float away. But nothing happens. The rig doesn't move, and the inferno continues to rage. The emergency disconnect has failed, and since the power is out, the rig no longer has its fire suppression system.

[Mike Williams]

I felt really disgusted at that point that all these things that are supposed to protect us are failing and nothing's going right.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Then, through the bridge's windows, Mike sees something that makes his stomach drop. One of the lifeboats is lowering into the water. The captain has given the order to abandon ship, and crew members are leaving without him. If Mike doesn't move fast, he doesn't stand a chance.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 2]

Okay, Carrie, you ready? Quick, quick, quick. List three gifts you'd never give.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 1]

A cowboy, lacy bobby socks, a diamond bracelet, and a gift certificate to Sephora.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Oh, my God.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 2]

That's outrageous.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Carrie.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 2]

Oh, wait, we're recording a commercial right now. We gotta tell them why we're doing this.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 1]

Oh, yeah, sorry, pod listeners. Okay, so we're five besties who've been friends for five, and we love games, so of course we made our own.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 2]

It's called quick, quick, quick. You just pick a card and have your partner give three answers to an outrageous question. It's fast, fun, fantastic, and a bunch of other funny adjectives.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 1]

Anyone can play your mom, your dad, your kitten, your kids, your Auntie Edna, and even your butcher.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 2]

And you know what's incredible? There are no wrong answers. Just open your brain and say what's in it. Just quickly.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 1]

And. You're not going to believe this. Well, you might once you start playing. It's as much fun to watch as it is to play. Seriously.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 2]

So get up and go grab your copy now. At Target and Amazon. Quick, quick, quick.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 1]

It's the fastest way to have fun.

[Zach Goldbaum]

The Deepwater Horizon is engulfed in flames. Anyone who can move is scrambling to the decks to try to evacuate. There's a protocol in place for moments like this. Assigned lifeboats, a roll call policy to wait for everyone before deploying a boat. But none of that matters now. The first lifeboat leaves early without filling its 73 seats. The second one waits, trying to stick to the plan. But the fire is spreading fast and panic is setting in. They can't hold out forever. And soon the second boat launches 2. Those aboard pray they haven't left any survivors behind. Or maybe they've accepted that they just can't save everyone. At this point, there are at least 10 men and women who are still alive on the rig, including Mike Williams. But they don't have any accessible lifeboats. They're surrounded by flames, trapped high above the ocean and 40 miles from land. Here's Mike again in that 60 Minutes interview.

[Mike Williams]

By now, the fire is not only on the der, it's starting to spread to the deck. And on the deck we know that there's lots of chemicals, lots of bottles, lots of propane tanks, there's acetylene bottles. There's just literally bombs laying everywhere that are now waiting to go off.

[Zach Goldbaum]

For Mike and the remaining crew, the last option to escape is an inflatable raft. Somehow, amidst all the fire and explosions, they get the raft inflated and the remaining crew members, including Andrea, scramble in. But on its way down, the rope catches and the raft starts to spin wildly, sending Andrea into the oil slicked waters below. In all the chaos, Mike and a few others weren't able to board the raft. He's left on the deck injured, watching yet another set of crewmates leave him behind.

[Mike Williams]

I remember closing my eyes and saying a prayer and asking God to tell my wife, girl, that daddy did everything.

[Zach Goldbaum]

He could.

[Mike Williams]

And if I survive this, it's for a reason.

[Zach Goldbaum]

And then he jumps 100ft into the Gulf of Mexico. The largest vessel in the area is a ship called the Damon Bankston. They're the boat from last week's episode that was attached to the Deepwater Horizon and was taking the drilling mud from the well. But now they have a new job as a rescue boat. One by one, life rafts pull up to the Damon Bankston. On one is Caleb Holloway, the floorhand who is hours away from finishing his long run on the Deepwater Horizon. After climbing the ladder to get on board, he helps other survivors in a makeshift triage area. But his mind is elsewhere.

[Caleb Holloway]

And I just kept going around person in person and asked him, have you seen, have you seen Shane? Have you seen Adam? Have you seen Roy? Have you seen Carl?

[Zach Goldbaum]

But no one has. The rest of his buddies, the guys he worked three week shifts next to, are nowhere to be found. When Mike Williams surfaces in the dark, oily waters of the Gulf. It feels like he's on fire.

[Mike Williams]

I remember looking under the rig and seeing the water on fire and I thought, what have you done?

[Zach Goldbaum]

Until finally he hears a motor and someone shouting at him to keep swimming toward them. It's a small rescue boat deployed by the Damon Bankston. A guy driving the boat pulls Mike out of the water. They find Andreaflatus next. The small boat takes Mike and Andrea to the Damon Bankston. Other rescue teams help the crew members out of the lifeboats and rafts. The survivors gather together on the deck of the new ship, watching as the deepwater rig goes up entirely in flames. Then someone takes a headcount. Eleven men are missing. The Bankston is finally cleared to leave the site. Before they go, the surviving crew gathers for a moment of silence on the deck. Of the 11 missing men, eight are from Caleb Holloway's team. They would have been the ones working closest to the well. And they were all likely killed in the initial explosion. During the 12 hour journey to shore, none of the crew are allowed to call their loved ones. They'll be able to only after they give investigators a statement of what happened. Around 1:30am on April 22, the Bankston arrives at Port Fouchon, Louisiana. It's been a harrowing 36 hours for the deepwater crew. All they want to do is see their families. But they're immediately confronted with company officials and a line of portable toilets. Before the crew is allowed to do anything, they're handed a plastic cup and told to provide a sample for drug testing. Then some rig workers are handed pre filled statements to sign statements saying they weren't injured and didn't witness the explosion. Many of the crew members sign just so they can go home and put this nightmare behind them. You have information now that this, this rig has gone under. It has gone under the surface. On the morning of April 22, at 10:20am The Deepwater Horizon rig finally sinks into the Gulf. It had been burning for nearly two days since the initial explosions, slowly listing until it eventually disappeared beneath the surface. The response to the explosion had been haphazard at best. A Coast Guard search and rescue specialist later admitted that it was never clear who was in charge. No fire marshal had been designated. No agency stepped up to lead. Instead, private boats were left to fight the blaze, spraying seawater from every angle. But that was only the start. As the flames died down, a second catastrophic disaster was brewing below the surface. At this point. Is that oil in danger now of escaping into the sea? That is correct. As the 58,000 ton platform sank into the water. It ripped apart the well infrastructure, snapping pipes and unleashing a torrent of oil and gas. The Deepwater Horizon was gone, but the devastating oil spill had only just begun. In the days after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, images of the towering flames and rescue boats circling the rig fill television screens. But few concrete answers emerge about what actually happened. BP's global CEO Tony Hayward calls it a tragic accident and says it's too early to speculate on the cause. He admits they don't understand why their safety precautions didn't work. But it's not like he's taking any responsibility. He actually says that sabotage might be at play. Hayward and BP try to minimize just how bad the Deepwater explosion really is. Yes, there's a thin oil slick over the ocean's surface, but. But they're spraying chemical dispersants into the water to break up the oil. And they say that it'll all be easily contained. According to Hayward, it's nothing more than a minor spill.

[Tony Hayward]

Everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impacts of this will be very, very modest.

[Zach Goldbaum]

But that official stance falls apart when the first leak is discovered. Then another and another within a week. Government officials admit the scale of the disaster is far beyond what anyone had claimed.

[Scott West]

Experts with the national oceanic and Atmospheric.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Administration now say about 5,000 barrels of oil per day is pouring into the.

[Scott West]

Gulf of Mexico, up from earlier estimates of about 1,000.

[Zach Goldbaum]

And that number keeps growing. Over the coming weeks, it becomes clear that the well is uncontrollably gushing oil into the Gulf. The damage to wildlife and coastal communities is devastating. As images of oil soaked pelicans and rivers of brown iridescent slicks are plastered across cable news, BP continues to minimize the situation, from the volume of the oil to the environmental toll. And as public frustration mounts, Hayward seems increasingly exasperated.

[Tony Hayward]

There's no one who wants this thing over more than I do. You know, I'd like my life back.

[Zach Goldbaum]

He apologizes for that comment, obviously, and then he runs apology ads.

[Tony Hayward]

The Gulf spill is a tragedy that never should have happened. I'm Tony Haywood. BP has taken full responsibility for cleaning up the spill in the Gulf. We've helped organize the largest environmental response in this country's history.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Those don't go over well with the locals who are outraged.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 2]

If you care, stop the oil from coming into our estuaries. If you care. I don't think you do care. I think you care about your image. You don't care about us.

[Zach Goldbaum]

On May 12, 22 days after the Deepwater explosion, and after intense pressure from both the public and Congress, BP finally reveals what's actually going on underwater. They have a live video feed from a seafloor camera that shows just how bad the spill is. Anyone can bring up the feed and watch the oil gushing out into the Gulf. At that point, it was reported somewhere in the ballpark of up to 40 million gallons of oil. In reality, that number could be closer to 57 million gallons. The live feed gets dubbed Spill Cam by the Internet, getting millions of views. And it leads investigators to question whether BP had been lying this whole time about the flow rate of the spill. The images are impossible to ignore, and the live feed seems to indicate that things are much more, much worse than BP's letting on. It's been obvious since the Spill Cam went public that BP had been wrong, either through incompetence or lying from the very beginning. You've got 2.5 million gallons of oil into the Gulf every single day. Underwater robots have successfully cut through the pipe on top of the blown out BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

[Quick Quick Quick Host 2]

Hurry.

[Zach Goldbaum]

For underwater robots, It'll take another 65 days to stop the flow of oil from the well entirely. And by then, the Gulf's waters, its ecosystems and the lives that depend on them will be irrevocably changed.

[Scott West]

Our response treats this event for what it is.

[Zach Goldbaum]

It's an assault on our shores, on.

[Scott West]

Our people, on the regional economy, and.

[Zach Goldbaum]

On communities like this one outside of bp. The Obama administration was also under immense pressure to fix the deteriorating situation in the Gulf. The DOJ initiated investigations almost immediately. There were hearings upon hearings in Congress and investigators uncovered all sorts of problems with BP's well design and Halliburton's cementing work. But the process of uncovering what exactly happened on the rig that night and who was to blame took time.

[Scott West]

What the government has done over the past several years has taught BP that it can do whatever it wants and will not be held accountable.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That's Scott west on Democracy Now. He's the EPA investigator we spoke with in our previous episode. He began speaking out about BP's history of risky behavior shortly after the Deepwater disaster.

[Scott West]

Information is coming to light that corners were cut and that employees concerns were being ignored. It's the exact same pattern that we saw with BP and elections Alaska and with BP in Texas City.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Scott is determined to finally see BP executives held accountable. He doesn't want the same pattern of impunity that followed the previous BP screw ups like the Texas refinery fire, or the collapse of the Thunder Horse drilling rig, or the oil spill in the north slope of Alaska. But like before, it's out of his control. Then finally, two and a half years after the explosion in 2012, Obama's attorney general steps up to a podium and makes an announcement. BP has agreed to plead guilty to all 14 criminal charges, including responsibility for the deaths of 11 people and the events that led to an unprecedented environmental catastrophe. The criminal charges include environmental crimes, obstruction of justice and manslaughter. BP is slapped with $4.5 billion in fines, and they would later agree to pay an additional 20 billion. It's an unprecedented sum of money for a settlement of this kind. What's also surprising is that some individuals are charged with felonies. The two BP company men on board the Deepwater the day of the disaster are both charged with manslaughter for the 11 workers who were killed, although those charges were later dropped. A former BP vice president is also charged with lying to federal agents about how much oil was spilled, although he would also later be acquitted by a jury, which of course doesn't sit well with Scott West.

[Scott West]

None of these three men that were held personally accountable ever saw the inside of a jail. And these were all minor, minor people, not at all the ones that were making the kind of decisions that led to Deepwater Horizon.

[Zach Goldbaum]

To Scott, the corporate fines just don't go far enough.

[Scott West]

Corporations don't make the decisions. It's individuals within them. And that's the whole thing with the push to hold individuals accountable in the environmental arena.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Scott believes that until the top guys at these corporations are held as accountable as any other criminal, nothing will ever change. Their lives aren't at stake, unlike the men and women who work for them. More than a decade later, the Deepwater Horizon disaster still haunts bp. The company continues to pay out nearly a billion dollars a year in damages to survivors of the disaster, those affected by the spill, and various funds trying to remedy the landscape. But in the Gulf, the environmental impacts remain. We could spend an entire series on just that. But in brief, millions of animals, including bottlenose dolphins, pelicans and endangered sea turtles, died after the spill. The Gulf's commercial fishing industry collapsed as oil spread unabated through marine ecosystems and coastal areas. And a federal study found that up to 1200 square miles of ocean floor around the wellhead was affected by the spill.

[Tony Hayward]

Near the oil clogged marshes, shrimp boats returned to harbor not with a lively catch, but with but dispersant equipment. Captains work for BP now helping to clean up a mess, which at the moment only looks as if it will get worse.

[Zach Goldbaum]

The cleanup itself introduced new problems. Chemical dispersants, including one called Corexit, meant to contain the oil spill, may have done as much harm as the oil itself. Commercial fishermen who lost their livelihoods due to the spill and were enlisted to help spray Corexit rarely followed proper safety protocols. BP told the public that Corexit was as harmless as dawn dishwashing liquid. But the company's own safety guidelines said that at high levels of exposure, it was hazardous to human health. For the survivors of the tragedy, there is also lasting emotional trauma. Many of them deal with PTSD and survivor's guilt, and they've struggled in their own ways for years. In the immediate aftermath, BP promised change. It, rebranded itself, leaned harder into renewables and a commitment to a net zero future. But that shift has since reversed. Over the years, BP has waged a nearly continuous PR campaign to improve its image. We're working every day at BP to improve our training, our technology, our culture, because safety is never being satisfied and always working to be better. But corporate profits still reign supreme. Today, BP is refocused on fossil fuels, scaling back climate goals, ramping up oil and gas investment, and promising bigger returns for shareholders. Government regulators are also relaxing the rules that govern offshore oil drilling. At the time, the Obama administration put new safety standards in place to prevent another deepwater, including tightening controls on mechanisms designed to prevent blowouts. But in 2019, Trump's Department of the Interior, led by a former oil industry lobbyist, rescinded those rules. Today, drilling in the Gulf is on the rise again. And that, combined with looser regulations, has former EPA investigator Scott west worried.

[Scott West]

Profits are a big thing. And I've got examples of professionals I worked with, law enforcement and in other places that chose money over, you know, doing the right thing. So while there's still profit to be made, we're going to have problems.

[Zach Goldbaum]

But Scott believes that if he'd been able to continue his investigation years earlier into BP's record of accidents, he would have been able to press charges, and he would have fought for someone to actually serve time for their negligence. Maybe if he'd done that, oil executives would have been scared for their livelihoods and things might have turned out differently.

[Scott West]

I honestly believe that if folks had been prosecuted in my case, I mean, individuals had gone to jail, nobody would even know the word Deepwater Horizon today.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey on the next episode of Lawless Planet, the long fight to hold a chemical giant accountable for poisoning our land, our water, and our loved ones.

[Andrea Fletas]

I wish I had never knew the word Dupont even existed. You can go buy a new cow, but you can't buy your family.

[Zach Goldbaum]

For today's episode, we relied heavily on Fire on the Horizon the Untold Story of the Gulf Oil Disaster by John Conrad and Tom Schroeder Run to BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster by Abraham Lustgarten and the New York Times Deepwater Horizons Final Hours by David Barstow, David Rode, Stephanie Saul A Special thanks to CBS's 60 Minutes and C Span for those interviews of the Mike Williams Lawless Planet is produced and hosted by me, Zach Goldbaum. This episode was written by Alex Burns. Our senior producer and senior story editor is Derek John. Senior producer for Wondery is Andy Herman. Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan. Our managing producer is Sarah Kenny Corrigan. Our associate producer is Lexi Piri. Sound design and music by Kenny Kuziak. Dialogue edit by George Drabing Hicks. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Fran Sink. Fact checking by Brian Punyant. Our legal counsel is Deb Drews. Executive producers are Marshall Louie and Jenny Lauer. Beckman for wondering. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.