Disaster at Sea: The Piper Alpha Story

Piper Alpha was an oil rig in the North Sea that caught fire with disastrous consequences. A public enquiry blamed lax safety practices, tacitly allowed by a government that was far too cosy with an industry that was vital to the public finances. Perhaps unsurprisingly, whle the government accepted the report's recommendations, the company that owned the rig was never prosecuted. This series combines a reconstruction of events on the rig and at the enquiry with contemporary interviews with survivors and others affected. It's not a showy series, but it's a serious one, and ultimately makes one feel both sad and angry. And yet there is a silver lining. The programme's final conclusion is that it's not accidental there have been no similar incidents since. It remains an outrage that we had to have this one first.