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ahhh thank you for posting your findings jedinightwing. i remember reading about another training drill involving FEMA that's supposed to take place around the 3rd week of May. I wonder if we're going to see anything else happen soon. I hope it stays a drill this time though. These artificial disasters are not fun and games!

The fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon reportedly started at 9:45 p.m. CDT on April 20, 2010. According to Transocean executive Adrian Rose, abnormal pressure accumulated inside the marine riser and as it came up it "expanded rapidly and ignited".[13] According to interviews with platform workers conducted during BP's internal investigation, a bubble of methane gas escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before exploding.[33] Rose said the event was basically a blowout.[13] Survivors described the incident as a sudden explosion which gave them less than five minutes to escape as the alarm went off.[34]

At an April 30 press conference, BP said that it did not know the cause of the explosion.[35] Transocean chief executive Steven Newman described the cause as "a sudden, catastrophic failure of the cement, the casing or both."[30] The heavy drilling mud in the pipes initially held down the gas of the leaking well. When managers believed they were almost done with the well, they decided to displace the mud with seawater; the gas was then able to overcome the weight of the fluid column and rose to the top.[30] The explosion was followed by a fire that engulfed the platform. Video of the fire shows billowing flames, taller than a multistory building, and a captain of a rescue boat described the heat as so intense that it was melting the paint off the boats.[36] After burning for more than a day, Deepwater Horizon sank on April 22, 2010.[37] The Coast Guard stated to CNN on April 22 that they received word of the sinking at approximately 10:21 am.[38]