fascinatinghorror

The Piper Alpha Disaster

Added 2022-12-13 11:15:01 +0000 UTC

There’s a lot to this story, and I couldn’t by any means fit everything into the video. Here are two of the stranger tangents I found while researching.

Piper Alpha Monopoly

Back in 2018, a PR firm came up with the idea of releasing a Piper Alpha monopoly set, with individual squares on the board sponsored by various gas and oil companies. All the profits from sales of the board game would go towards the upkeep of the memorial to the disaster in Aberdeen.

Not everyone thought this was a good idea. The fundraising intention behind it was a noble one, but many people agreed that it felt as though it made light of the disaster.

In the end the set was redesigned and released as a more generic Oil and Gas Monopoly. It seemed to go down well, and raised at least £50,000 to maintain the memorial for years to come. A happy ending to a rather bizarre footnote!

The ornamental fish tanks

Several times as I was reading about the accommodation on the rig, I found references to a pair of ornamental fish tanks that were situated in the canteen. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to find a picture of these tanks, or at least verify their existence.

In the end, although I couldn’t find an image of them, I’m fairly sure they were there. They’re mentioned by several survivors, with one of them noting that workers dipped scarves in the fish tanks and wore them as face masks while trying to evacuate.

It’s odd the details that really stay with you from stories like these. For me the fish tanks are one of those details.