Oil spill probe: BP had wrong diagram to close blowout preventer

Oil spill probe: BP had wrong diagram to close blowout preventer

By Maria Recio, Dave Montgomery and Mark Washburn, McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — In the days after an oil well spun out of control in the Gulf of Mexico , BP engineers tried to activate a huge piece of underwater safety equipment but failed because the device had been so altered that diagrams BP got from the equipment's owner didn't match the supposedly failsafe device's configuration, Congressional investigators said Wednesday.

The oil well also failed at least one critical pressure test on the day that gas surged up the drill pipe and set the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig aflame, killing 11 and setting off a spill that has spewed 210,000 gallons of crude into the gulf every day for three weeks, according to BP documents provided to congressional investigators.

"The more I learn about this accident, the more concerned I become. This catastrophe appears to have been caused by a calamitous series of equipment and operational failures'' said Rep. Henry Waxman , D- Calif. , chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee , said at a hearing on Wednesday — the third congressional hearing in two days on the unfolding catastrophe.

Meanwhile, BP engineers announced that they were considering yet another tactic to seal one of two leaks 5,000 feet below the gulf's surface. The new tactic, dubbed the "insertion tube" by BP, would attempt to insert a smaller pipe into the leaking one and siphon the oil to the surface. It would complement a previously announced plan to place a small funnel that BP engineers call a "top hat" over the same leak.

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