CASTINE, Maine — The tension at Maine Maritime Academy rises every time there is an accident at sea, and this week’s disaster aboard an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico is no exception.
A $600 million rig called the Deepwater Horizon exploded Tuesday before spending two days aflame and spewing crude oil into the sea. The platform, 41 miles off the Louisiana coast, sank Thursday morning. Seventeen people were injured and another 11 are still missing from the explosion.
MMA President Leonard Tyler said students, faculty and staff at the institution were monitoring the situation closely, but as of Friday afternoon there had been no confirmation that anyone associated with MMA was hurt in the catastrophe.
“We’ve heard informally that we may have had one or two people on board, but as far as we know none of those are among the missing,” said Tyler. “We’ve always had a strong connection with the company,” he added, referring to Transocean Ltd., which owns the rig.
Tyler said the disaster has been discussed in classes and around campus this week, but the issue of safety at sea is a constant focus at the academy, which sends about half of its graduates to maritime careers, many of them aboard oil rigs. As the semester winds down in the next couple of weeks, many of the school’s students are preparing for summers at sea either aboard commercial transport ships or the academy’s own training vessels.
“Your hope is to prepare them and help them be aware of things so that disasters don’t take place,” said Tyler. “Throughout the whole curriculum there’s mandated safety courses students have to take on both the engineering and technical side.”
Unfortunately, there is no level of training that can avoid every accident. Rescue crews have been scouring the area near the accident scene since Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, though the prospect of finding survivors grew dimmer. The Coast Guard found two lifeboats but no one was inside. More than 100 work-ers escaped with at least four critically injured. The search for the 11 missing people goes on.
“We certainly are thinking of the people who were on that rig and who are associated with that company,” said Tyler. “Our hearts go out to the victims.”
