Report: Panic caused Gulf accident that killed 22

MEXICO CITY - Panic and poor emergency training caused the death of 22 oil workers after a drilling rig crashed into their offshore platform during a storm in the Gulf of Mexico, an independent commission said Friday.

Waves as high as 25 feet (8 meters) and winds of 80 mph (130 kph) caused an oil rig to slam into the platform's valve assembly on Oct. 23, 2007.

More than 80 workers and rescue personnel were forced to abandon the platform at the height of the storm. Most dove into small, enclosed fiberglass lifeboats, and some of these boats became swamped, drowning 22 people. Others were rescued from the open sea.

The commission said Friday that the workers weren't trained in how to use the lifeboats, and opened them up instead of keeping them closed in rough seas.

"Everything was a result of human error and failure to follow procedures," said the commission's president, Nobel prize-winning Mexican chemist Mario Molina.

He dismissed speculation that the lifeboats were poorly designed.

"There wasn't enough training in how to react in a safe and appropriate manner during emergencies," he said. "They didn't know how to act inside the lifeboats ... or how to survive at sea."

He also said the weather report that day wasn't "precise enough" to have predicted the dangerous conditions at the platform.

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