Florida Probate Attorney

As reported over the news and online media, the Transocean rig that employs hundreds of workers exploded in late April, 2010. Sadly, this isn’t the first time that Transocean has had similar safety problems occur. Apparently, according to reports, back in 2004, one of the rigs belonging to Transocean suffered an explosion while situated close to Galveston, Texas and killed one person and injured many others. This time around, it took place off of the coast of Louisiana, injuring many maritime employees and leaving 11 workers missing.

The rig, or semi-submersible vessel, was named the Deepwater Horizon — it exploded around 1000HRS on April 20^th. After the explosion took place, it left many rig workers injured. Rescue crews began searching for the 11 missing workers that were reported missing. It continued to burn for two days before sinking into the Gulf of Mexico. With the missing workers still not found, the Coast Guard searched days and nights in the waters to try and find them. When it comes to locating missing persons in the Gulf of Mexico, our United States Coast Guard is the finest and most highly trained rescue force in the world bar none. At the same time, they were trying to control the fire to keep the rig / vessel from sinking.

Some families, including our client, were told by Transocean that the workers that were reported missing didn’t seem likely to have survived the blast. Aircrafts searched the area 12 times, each time with just as much zeal as the previous time because that is the professionalism that we have come to expect from the USCG. On April 23^rd, the rig finally sank.

Deepwater Horizon was a 256 foot wide and 396 foot long semi-submersible vessel. It was developed in 2001 by South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Shipyard located. Because it is a vessel, the oil rig workers including the floorhands, drillers, roustabouts, as well as the crew members such as the Captain, engineers, cooks, etc. are all covered by the Jones Act.

Many people are beginning to wonder how two oil rigs from the same company can explode within a six year period. One would think that Transocean would have taken safety measures to increased heights to avoid such a thing from happening again — this doesn’t seem to be the case. The future of this company and their oil rigs will be in question until they can prove that they are serious about upping their security measures to ensure safety of their workers.

If you have been affected by this incident and need a Transocean Deepwater Horizon oil rig lawyer, you can give Gordon, Elias & Seely, L.L.P. f/k/a/ Gordon & Elias, L.L.P. a call today at 1-800-773-6770. We are honored to say, that because of our prior experience successfully suing Transocean in wrongful death matters, our firm was hired before all other maritime law firms to prosecute a lawsuit against Transocean, British Petroleum and others.