"Workers on Doomed Rig Voiced Concern About Safety"

"A confidential survey of workers on the Deepwater Horizon in the weeks before the oil  rig exploded showed that many of them were concerned about safety practices and feared reprisals if they reported mistakes or other problems.

In the survey, commissioned by the rig’s owner, Transocean, workers said that company plans were not carried out properly and that they 'often saw unsafe behaviors on the rig.'

Some workers also voiced concerns about poor equipment reliability, “which they believed was as a result of drilling priorities taking precedence over planned maintenance,” according to the survey, one of two Transocean reports obtained by The New York Times.

'At nine years old, Deepwater Horizon has never been in dry dock,' one worker told investigators. 'We can only work around so much.'  ...

According to a separate 112-page equipment assessment also commissioned by Transocean, many key components — including the blowout preventer rams and failsafe valves — had not been fully inspected since 2000, even though guidelines require its inspection every three to five years."

Ian Urbina reports for the New York Times July 21, 2010.