Disastrous Decisions: The Human and Organisational Causes of the Gulf of
Mexico Blowout is an essential reference for all work, health and
safety professionals, directors, officers, managers, safety regulators and
engineers.
Written by noted expert Professor Andrew Hopkins, Disastrous Decisions:
The Human and Organisational Causes of the Gulf of Mexico Blowout
takes the reader into the realm of human and organisational factors that
contributed to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. This event resulted in
the loss of 11 lives in the explosions and fire, the sinking of the rig and
untold damage to the environment and to the livelihood of Gulf residents. It
is important to know what people did, but even more important to know why they
did it, so this book attempts to “get inside the heads” of decision-makers and
understand how they themselves understood the situations they were in. It also
seeks to discover what it was in their organisational environment that
encouraged them to think and act as they did.
Hopkins provides a sophisticated analysis of the accident that first
identifies a series of critical defences that failed and then goes on to
explain why they failed.
