ABOUT 80 men gathered in the cinema aboard the oil rig Alexander Kielland on the evening of 26 March 1980, but as 60mph winds buffeted their North Sea home the true drama was far from entertaining.
The drill rig, converted after four years to accommodate workers, rested about 150 miles from both the Scottish and Norwegian mainland. The winds were unnaturally brutal that night when suddenly one of the platform legs gave way. The 10,000 tonne structure, the size of a football pitch, turned over onto its back into the freezing waters. It was a disaster of unthinkable proportions and left 123 men dead in what was the worst North Sea accident at the time.
While some of the 212 men on board were watching a film, others slept as best they could in the gale and may not have been awoken by the two loud bangs some survivors reported. But everyone was thrown from side-to-side when the rig listed sharply, the structure dragged down by the weight of a derrick metal-frame. The rig broke from its mooring and was upended in about 15 minutes. Some British survivors of the capsized rig told of how the wrench was so violent that flying pieces of structural debris had struck and killed crewmen.
A major international rescue operation was launched. The mission involved 47 ships, 23 helicopters, two planes and three diving vessels. In addition to Scotland and Norway, teams from Denmark and Germany were involved.
Some survivors were rescued in a few hours, despite the difficult conditions, but others endured a freezing 12-hour ordeal as they were tossed about by the storm. One such man who clung on was chief technician Odd Osland, who told the
Guardian newspaper: "I was just going to bed when I heard a terrible noise like waves beating against the deck and ... managed to get into a lifeboat with some of my colleagues. Many of us were in our shirts without any clothing to speak of, and some men were in their underpants, but we had some blankets and managed to keep warm by huddling together. Water was pouring into the boat and we did not think we were ever going to be found. We didn't think we were going to make it - and some of our friends didn't make it."
Although it was a half-day before he was rescued, Osland was one of the lucky ones. As the rig listed the gradient became too steep for most of the seven, 50-person lifeboats to be deployed. One such unfortunate man was Ted Brooking, from Cumbernauld, Lanarkshire, who desperately clung to the upturned platform and watched helplessly as, hours later, some of the first rescue helicopters circled around the scene of the tragedy. The choppers could not see the survivors who clung to life below the foam from the sea and swell of the waves. Brooking and two other men survived by grabbing hold of a dinghy and inflating it. One of the men was eventually lost.
An air rescue crew dispatched from the Royal Air Force base in Kinloss, Morayshire, found survivors had drifted up to a mile from the disaster. It was a night that rescue member John Moody will never forget.
"Eventually we found a life raft with 10 Norwegians inside. There was no ship within five miles, so we decided to winch them up," recalls Moody, then a flight sergeant. "It was very difficult to maintain the hover. They were the worst conditions you could get - bad visibility, cross winds, high seas and a very small target. They had no extra clothing and were in a state of shock and very cold."
The survivors were too numbed by exposure to grasp the lowered winch but, despite the extreme conditions, one crewman's selfless bravery helped the survivors out of harm's way. Mike Yarwood, another RAF flight sergeant, lowered himself down the winch as it swung like a pendulum in the winds and pulled some Norwegian workers to safety. Complicated by the weather, that single operation took more than 45 minutes to complete.
The efforts of the rescue crews deployed during the long hours brought hope to the survivors and their families - but for some this effort was not enough. Fifty men had been trapped in an air bubble in the cinema as the rig collapsed and could not escape. Divers mounted a rescue attempt on 28 March – more than a day after the nightmare began – but the men would eventually suffocate.
Although many died, 89 men were saved by the heroism of others. An official inquiry found metal fatigue in one of its six bracings to be the source of the accident and criticised both a poor safety regime and the design of the rig. As in most monumental disasters, the industry strengthened its safety procedures and rig designs afterward.
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