In the quiet dawn of November 5, 1983, as waves crashed against the steel hull of the Byford Dolphin oil platform in the North Sea, no one could have foreseen the disaster that was about to unfold.
Beneath the calm surface, saturation divers were immersed in one of the most grueling professions on the planet. These divers endured extreme pressures from both their work environment and the relentless demands of their jobs, risking their lives every day to keep operations running smoothly.
But on this particular morning, a devastating sequence of events would drive the Byford’s dolphin into one of the most chilling stories in the history of human tragedy at sea.
What began as a routine operation soon turned into a nightmare of unimaginable horror, illustrating the deadly consequences of the collision of precision, technology, and the forces of nature. The events that followed were not just a series of collapses; they were the perfect storm that turned an everyday task into a deadly incident that left a haunting mark on the world of commercial diving.
On that fateful day in 1983, the terrible disaster known as the Byford Dolphin Incident occurred.
It is remembered as one of the “most brutal” deaths in history.
The Byford Dolphin was a semi-submersible drilling rig used in Norway.
Professional deep-sea divers known as saturation divers Maintenance of equipment on offshore oil platforms and submarine pipelines require working at depths of 500 feet (152 meters) or more.
Residential divers can stay on one job for up to 28 days, living in high-pressure chambers between shifts, unlike most commercial divers who surface after a few hours.
Although the pay is good, the work is dangerous and demanding.
Divers must carefully ascend and descend while working at such extreme depths and stop when decompressing to avoid decompression sickness, also called “the bends.”
Every cell in the body is affected by water pressure as the diver descends, which compresses the nitrogen gas molecules that are inhaled through the lungs and causes the nitrogen to dissolve in the blood.
The problem is when the diver ascends too fast, not when he is taking in nitrogen.
Gas under pressure expands rapidly and creates bubbles.
“Nitrogen bubbles will form in the bloodstream and can impede circulation, including the heart,” says Phillip Newsum, a respected commercial diver and executive director of the Diving Suppliers Association International (How Stuff Works).
“In that case, you risk getting decompression sickness.”
Heart attacks, strokes, insanity, paralysis, and excruciating joint and muscle pain are all possible consequences of decompression sickness.
If caught in time, it can be treated in a hyperbaric chamber, where the patient is again under pressure and the pressure is gradually released over the course of several hours or days.
However, the best defense is to go up gradually so that the body can naturally “gas” the nitrogen.
However, commercial divers operate at depths significantly deeper than recreational divers, requiring a different decompression technique.
The Byford dolphin tragedy was caused by the failure of this mechanism.
Scuba divers use pressure diving bells and decompression chambers to decompress, unlike recreational divers who would need days to reach the surface.
For every 30 meters he descends, he must spend approximately one day in the chamber.
Saturation divers commute in pressurized diving bells and stay pressurized for up to 28 days to save money.
Before returning to normal atmospheric pressure, the last week of each saturation diving assignment is devoted to gradual and consistent decompression.
A full crew is required for saturation diving operations.
Cooks are present to prepare and serve food to the divers in the living chambers, the dive control team operates the diving bell, and life support technicians supervise the air mixture.
The “umbilical cord” – a communication line and air supply pipe – is controlled by tenders that assist the divers.
William Crammond, an experienced horseman, performed a standard surgical procedure on a Byford dolphin on November 5, 1983.
After connecting the diving bell to the living chambers, he had just safely placed two divers in one room. Two other divers were already sleeping in another compartment.
Everything went terribly wrong at that moment.
Before the chamber door was closed, the diving bell separated, resulting in an “explosive decompression”.
It’s a “death sentence,” according to Newsum, who also added, “You’re not going to survive.”
The air pressure in the living quarters quickly dropped from nine atmospheres to one atmosphere.
Crammond was killed by a tremendous blast of air and Martin Saunders, his companion, was seriously wounded.
The four saturation divers who were in the chamber also met a terrible end.
According to autopsy findings, Bjorn Giaever Bergersen, Roy P. Lucas, and Edwin Arthur Coward were essentially “cooked” from the inside out when the nitrogen in their blood burst into gas bubbles.
Truls Hellevik squeezed through the thin opening, stood before the half-open door, his body torn to shreds and his internal organs spilling out onto the deck.
“Given the speed of the incident, it is expected that all divers passed immediately and painlessly – but the scene that was left behind was horrific,” reports IFL Science.
Since the disaster exposed serious flaws in safety protocols, commercial diving operations and safety standards have improved significantly worldwide.
The commercial diving industry took the incident as a wake-up call and strengthened safety protocols to avoid similar deaths.
Decades passed before the Norwegian government accepted responsibility for the Byford dolphin tragedy and compensated the families of the victims.
The injured Saunders and the families of the victims received an undisclosed sum in 2009.
According to an assessment of the incident, the disaster was caused by faulty equipment rather than human error.
The Byford dolphin disaster remains a grim reminder of the extreme dangers associated with saturation diving and the relentless pressures faced by people who work in the deep sea environment. This terrible tragedy underscored the critical need for strict safety protocols and equipment reliability in an industry where even the smallest mistake can have devastating consequences.
This prompted the commercial diving sector to adopt stricter standards and implement rescue measures in an attempt to prevent such a disaster from happening again. Decades later, the victims’ families have received long overdue recognition, but the memory of that day continues to serve as a cautionary tale and a call to accountability. The lessons of the Byford dolphin incident resonate in modern safety practices, forever changing the landscape of submarine operations and serving as a tribute to those who lost their lives.