The Byford Dolphin Accident | A Short Documentary | Fascinating Horror

[Music] on the 5th of November 1983 a diving bell was winched up out of the dark choppy Waters of the North Sea two dive tenders approaching the end of a long shift attached the diving bell to a pressurized habitat so that the divers inside the Bell could crawl safely out it was the early hours of the morning a stinging rain was falling and the rig on which they worked was deafeningly noisy they were tired they were cold and one of them was about to make a mistake that would lead to one of the deadliest accidents

in the history of commercial diving the biford dolphin drilling rig was constructed in 1974 in a shipyard in Norway it was owned and operated by dolphin drilling a company headquartered in Norway and controlled by a holding company headquartered in Scotland the rig was used to drill for oil in between the two countries in the harsh cold water of the North Sea the biford dolphin was a semisubmersible rig a name given to a type of rig that has significant Parts above and below the surface in the case of a rig like the biford dolphin most work

was carried out from an elevated platform above the water below could be found ballast tanks that kept the platform stable drilling would take place on the sea floor Far Far Below while the rig was equipped with engines these were used only to counteract drift and keep it in position when drilling for moves of any significant distance the rig would be towed by tugboats another feature of the biford dolphin was its saturation diving facilities the rig was capable of drilling down to a depth of 6,100 M or 20,000 ft and to support this it was necessary

to have divers on hand who could work at extreme depths carrying out maintenance and repairs diving to Great depths is dangerous for a number of reasons weather Wildlife extreme cold and poor visibility all make the work hazardous but the immense pressure exerted on the bodies of divers by the water all around them is by far the greatest danger as a diver descends into the depths of the ocean the pressure increases to the point that nitrogen gas naturally present in the body as a result of breathing can dissolve into the bloodstream this isn't problematic until the

diver ascends and the pressure drops at this point as the pressure decreases the dissolved nitrogen emerges from the blood and can can form bubbles that block circulation resulting in pain paralysis muscle spasms and heart problems these serious symptoms of decompression sickness are sometimes known as the bends as even in mild cases they can be so uncomfortable that they make the sufferer double over in pain in severe cases they are fatal to avoid this fate it is imperative that divers return from from Deep Dives extremely slowly a gradual Ascent allows the dissolved nitrogen to emerge from

the blood slowly without causing harm the length of time needed for a safe Ascent only grows longer the deeper a diver goes or the longer they spend at depth a dive of a few minutes therefore can require a decompression time of 10 hours or longer of course this makes carrying out regular maintenance at depth difficult having divers decompress for up to 50 hours after each shift is Impractical particularly when it might be necessary for work to be done on a regular even daily basis for this reason saturation diving techniques are used after a certain time

at depth a diver's blood cannot absorb any more nitrogen they are said to be at saturation remaining at pressure will allow them to keep working for days or even week weeks at a time without adding any further time to the decompression they'll need to endure when they finally return to the surface in some cases undersea habitats are built to allow divers to live and work at depth for several weeks at a time on the biford dolphin however a pressurized habitat above the water was maintained divers could come and go in a pressurized diving bell and

would spend their off-duty hours resting inside the pressure ized habitat in this way they could continually go back and forth between the habitat and their work site far below without having to stop to decompress they would live within a closed pressurized system for the entire length of a given job and endure only one long period of decompression at the end this was naturally a stressful uncomfortable and risky job saturation divers accordingly were and still are paid some of the highest rates in the industry for their work with many earning in excess of $1,000 a day

on the 5th of November 1983 four divers were working within the biford Dolphins saturation diving facilities they were 35-year-old Edwin Arthur coward 38-year-old Roy Lucas 29-year-old bjon bergerson and 34-year-old trolls helic Lucas and coward were resting in one chamber of the habitat exhausted after several days of working overtime bergerson and helic had just finished working at a site far below they had been sent down to inspect a valve expecting to be underwater for just 1 hour the dive had overrun by several hours before it was abandoned it was now around 3:00 a.m. and they were

doubtless Keen to retire to a safe rest area bergerson and helic were winched up to the habitat inside a pressurized diving bell which two dive tenders outside the habitat then attached to the habitat via a trunk Ferguson and helic crawled through and began removing and ringing out their diving gear at this point the door between the diving bell and the trunk was closed helic began closing the door from the habitat to the trunk this was standard procedure after he had done so the trunk could be safely depressurized and removed from the system separating the diving

bell and the habitat however before helic could completely close the door one of the diving tenders outside the system believing the door was already shut removed the clamp holding the trunk in place the result of this was an instant explosive decompression the pressure within the saturation diving chambers was 9 atmospheres a huge difference from the ambient outside pressure of one atmosphere air blasted out of the chamber with Incredible Force the blast flung the diving bell away from the habitat killing the tender who had removed the clip and seriously injuring the other three of the divers

within the chamber died instantly the rapid decompression caused nitrogen to boil out of their blood this natured proteins in their blood causing fat to be deposited throughout their organs and circulatory systems in a fraction of a second their circulation stopped and they passed away helic had been attempting to close the door when the decompression took place the force of the air rushing from the chamber blasted him bodily out through the door he had been just about to close unfortunately the blast also jammed the hatch in partially closed position leaving a gap of just 60 cm

or 24 in through which his body was forced at high speed this resulted in severe traumatic injuries injuries that were later likened to his body having exploded there was no possibility of survival only one person survived the accident British dive tender Martin Saunders was severely injured by the diving bell but made a full recovery it had been the other dive tender that removed the clamp too early and Saunders was unable to shed any light on why he might have done so following an investigation it was theorized that working conditions might have contributed some of those

involved had been working for longer than 12 hours at the time of the accident a factor that might have led to a lapse in focus and concentration it was is also an extremely noisy working environment the dive tenders relied on Communications from within the chamber that were delivered via a speaker mounted on the outside this was the only way for them to determine when the doors had been safely sealed with rain wind and noise from the rig the chances of mishearing were extremely high it was also recognized that much of the equipment being used was

nearly a decade old and lacked safety features that could have prevented the disaster indicator lights to show when the doors were open or closed or pressure gauges on the outside of the chamber could have prevented the accident from taking place or better yet a clamp that physically could not be removed when the trunk was pressurized would have made its accidental early removal impossible indeed one year prior to the accident the Norwegian petroleum directorate had announced that this newer safer type of clamp must be used by all diving companies going forward but had then granted an

exemption for operations on the biford dolphin this and other exemptions were swiftly removed in the wake of the accident and safer clamps and Interlocking Systems became mandatory going forward the families of those who had died in the accident took legal action against the Norwegian government on the basis that it had known un safe conditions existed on the biford dolphin and had not taken action to remedy this in 2008 26 years after the accident the families were offered and accepted a settlement the biford dolphin continued to operate for many years but was scrapped in 2019 saturation

diving continues to be used in the oil industry though better equipment and processes have ensured that there has never been another decompression incident as deadly as the one on board the biford dolphin saturation divers are still vital but as technology improves remotely operated robotic systems are slowly taking on more and more of this dangerous and sometimes deadly work [Music]