According to a report from NPR, a technician responsible for monitoring gas levels told federal investigators on Dec. 7 that he never considered using his authority to stop work on the Deepwater Horizon rig even though mud-moving activities in the hours before the blast made him uncomfortable. Joseph Keith, who works for a unit of Halliburton, told the joint U.S. Coast Guard-Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement panel that the BP wellsite leader and mud engineers onboard would have been in a better position to assess whether work should have stopped.
(Source: NPR)