Right, but if the driller was pushing the rig to its limit.....

All of that will probably never be released to the public.

 

he may not have, it could have been under the limit and the rig failed were they welded on it. jason works on a rig doesnt he? maybe he will chime in.

 

That's actually really similar to something that happened up here about a month ago. They were tripping pipe and the push asked the derrick hand to climb up the derrick to check something. The derrick hand wasn't comfortable with that since it was around -30 Celcius (aka, really friggin cold) and he thought the steel might be getting brittle. The derrick hand was fired on the spot and the push made the climb while the consultant ran the rig. They had all the pipe leaning against one side of the rig, making it really unbalanced. Once the push was up the rig, everything conspired against the poor soul and the rig snapped, killing the push. A few of my friends have worked with him and said he was a super nice guy and a hell of a wrench. The consultant got thrown in jail! Haven't heard anything since, but I imagine there's gonna be a bunch on lawsuits and safety changes around here. Sad deal though.

 

Risky business, anything can happen.

Edit: Yea Jason is now a driller

 

Kinda reminds me of a well we workedo on a few months ago. The crows nest was setting off to the side of the location all twisted up with a cross right next to it. Got the story from the company man. He said it was storming and was winding and they had shut down and the pusher/driller or some one said they were going back to work and told him to go back up there and he did not want to but did anyways. Any how the rig fell over with him in up in the derrick.

 

I asked Jason, he didn't seem to know. He may post something though.

 

ok rigs are pushed to high limits all the time. many things could have gone wrong here. Most of your drill pipe will part at 600k most derricks are rated at 750k or more. Even when jaring on the pipe to get it unstuck you dont pull those numbers. The weight indicator could have been bad or the derricks structure had a defect causing it to colapse. Also by the looks of that junk *** rig i bet a derrick pin came out while they were jaring on it. If they didnt have a proper keeper in the pin this could easitly have happened. Im sure i will here what really happened and ill inform you guys. Justin the driller is only allowed to pull a certain amount over string weight any further the decision is made buy the pusher or the company man and the blame is taken from the driller. This is a rare occurance for a rig to collaspe. Prayers go out to the derrick hands family. Ive been a derrick hand. Its all dangerous and makes me thankful who i work for. We have very strick safety and very new and nice iron to work on. BTW Temperature wont make the derrick brittle. It looks like a Patterson rig and we dont call them SPLATterson for no reason

 

also rigs are designed to have one side full of pipe it does not throw it off balance

 

I was hoping you knew something on this, and Im sure you will before long. How often does the pipe get stuck?

 

sounds like a very dangerous job.