Dream Sparks Rig Evacuation

[rynner2]

Hundreds evacuated from North Sea oil platform after 'dream' sparks bomb alert
· Woman flown to Aberdeen for police questioning
· Union says emergency reaction was 'madness'
Matthew Taylor and Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian, Monday February 11 2008

A 23-year-old woman is expected to appear in court today after reports of a bomb on a North Sea oil rig sparked a full-scale emergency operation involving the army, RAF and police.

According to one report, the scare started when a woman employee on the rig was overheard recalling a dream she had had about a bomb on the platform. Jake Molloy, general secretary of the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee, one of the biggest unions representing offshore workers, said: "It was complete madness. This girl had a dream about a bomb being on board and she was a bit shaken. The next thing anyone knew workers were being evacuated."

He said the rumour that a bomb was on the accommodation block - or "flotel" - had spread to senior managers within an hour. "It was complete madness on behalf of everyone. There was never any reason to evacuate the platform."

A Grampian Police spokesman last night said: "The female is expected to appear at Aberdeen sheriff court on Monday in connection with the matter."

Earlier police confirmed that they were treating the incident as a false alarm, adding that a 23-year-old woman was being brought ashore for questioning.

"The incident, which was reported to Grampian police force control room at 9.30am today is not considered terrorism related," said a police spokesman.

According to the company that runs the oilfield, Britannia Operator, the alarm was raised at about 9.15am when a member of crew on board the Safe Scandinavia, a flotel stationed next to a rig 190 miles north-east of Aberdeen, said there could be a suspicious device on board.

Within minutes emergency procedures swung into action and the block was evacuated, with about 500 people crossing the gantry linking it to the oil rig. A search of the platform began and army bomb squad officers were put on standby.

Five helicopters from RAF Kinloss and a Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft from RAF Waddington were scrambled to the scene. By mid-afternoon the company confirmed that nothing had been found, and workers began to return to the platform. The bomb squad was stood down and police said they were making arrangements to bring the woman ashore.

Kath McGill, managing director of Britannia Operator, said the company had acted sensibly. "We are very relieved this has turned out to be a false alarm but we obviously had to treat it seriously and act appropriately to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all our people."

However, the union described the decision to evacuate as "ludicrous".

Molloy said: "It appears that the whole thing was started when someone was a bit upset about a dream they had and that appears to have sparked one of the biggest security operations the North Sea has ever seen. The cost has been astronomical and there was never any need for it." He said he felt sorry for the woman who appeared to be at the centre of the alarm.

A spokesman for RAF Kinloss said the emergency services were following "precautionary measures". Squadron Leader Barry Neilson, from RAF Kinloss, said that although the incident had been "unusual" it had fallen within the "normal operating procedures."

A Scottish executive spokeswoman said during the operation: "A Scottish government civil contingencies official is based in the Grampian police control room, and the justice secretary is being regularly kept appraised of developments.

"There are well established procedures for dealing with incidents in the North Sea, and these are operating efficiently and effectively."

A Ministry of Defence spokesman confirmed their helicopters and planes had been stood down. "The helicopters that were there have been sent home. The two planes have been turned around and sent home as well."

Oil rigs have long been considered a potentially vulnerable and important target for terrorists and enemy forces. During the cold war Nato drew up contingency plans in the event of an attack in the North Sea by Soviet special forces.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Nicol Stephen, who represents Aberdeen South, paid tribute to the professionalism of those involved in the evacuation and said it was too early to say what had caused the incident.

"After more than three decades of North Sea oil this is the first serious security incident of this kind that I can recall," he said. "It is a tribute to everyone involved in the evacuation that it was carried out with such professionalism and efficiency.

"It is now important that all investigations are completed as quickly as possible and that work on the platform returns to normal."

Aberdeen coastguard said 161 of the 539 workers were airlifted from the rig before the alarm was called off. The workers who were flown to neighbouring platforms returned to the Safe Scandinavia last night.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/feb/1 ... dterrorism

Once upon a time, people believed in dreams; now, we believe in terrorism.
Same difference, really....

 

[Quake42]

If all the poor woman did was to recall a dream and discuss it with someone, it seems rather harsh to treat her like a criminal...

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

If all the poor woman did was to recall a dream and discuss it with someone, it seems rather harsh to treat her like a criminal...

It's what comes of living in a Society that trades Fantasy for Reality, on a regular basis. Eventually, no one can be 100% sure that they can really tell the difference.

These are the times in which we live.

 

[Stormkhan]

Not to mention the Chinese Whispers effect where an overheard conversation about a 'dream' bomb becomes talk of a real bomb which then gets communicated to overzealous management. I presume no one in authority actually asked where this talk of a bomb came from, at the time.

"Well ... er ... George said he'd heard that Dave had heard ... er ... Nigel talking about a conversation he'd heard as he was passing ..."

It's like a small-time version of the apocryphal panic surrounding the War of the Worlds radio play, or the overreaction to Ghostwatch. One thing to consider though is that fear very often overrides commonsense and rational questioning.

 

[Kondoru]

You could say it was nice their contingency plans worked well.

Bothing like a false alarm to test them under real conditions

 

[OneWingedBird]

I wonder if this govt have passed any legislation against dreamcrimes yet :?

 

[rynner2]

Oil platform alert woman in court

A 23-year-old woman has appeared in court following a huge security alert on a North Sea oil platform.
Dana Rosu, from Aberdeen, appeared in private at the city's Sheriff Court in relation to a charge of breach of the peace on the Safe Scandinavia platform.

Ms Rosu made no plea or declaration and was remanded to Cornhill Hospital in Aberdeen for assessment. :?

A total of 161 staff were airlifted from the installation during the alert on Sunday.

The evacuation came after allegations of a "possible suspicious device".

Britannia Operator Ltd, which owns the installation, confirmed the workers had returned to the platform having been moved to neighbouring rigs while investigations were carried out.

The company's managing director, Kathy McGill, added: "We are very relieved that this has turned out to be a false alarm, but we obviously had to treat it seriously and act appropriately to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all our people."

The Safe Scandinavia, an accommodation installation attached by a bridge to an oil rig in the Britannia field, lies 130 miles off the Aberdeen coast.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/nor ... 238147.stm

Which doesn't get us much further....

 

[Stormkhan]

She'll be done for Breach of the Peace - her intentions are irrelevant. All they're concerned with is justifying their own overreaction.

 

[Quake42]

Hard to know what to make of all of this.

If the unfortunate woman at the centre of all of this did no more than calmly discuss a disturbing dream with colleagues, I really am struggling to see how she could end up forcibly detained in hospital. If that is really what has happened, I hope she sues the arse off all of them when she gets out.

I suspect that the truth is probably a little murkier and that when relaying the dream she perhaps acted in an irrational or disturbing manner. It's not unknown for people to freak out when stationed in remote or claustrophobic places such as an oil rig.

 

[Philo_T]

Ignignokt, thou art AVENGED!



This, along with the above referenced Boston incident, and the battle of the organization anonymous against Scientology all point to the futar. Absurdism is going do destroy civilization. Soon the Discordians' un-plans for world domination will finally come to fruition!!


Or something....

 

[rynner2]

It's not unknown for people to freak out when stationed in remote or claustrophobic places such as an oil rig.

Yes, it happened to me!

Years ago, I was supposed to do a 2-week stint on a North Sea rig, but my relief never turned up, so I had to stay on another week. At the end of that time I just got on the departing chopper without checking whether my relief had arrived!

I resigned from the company when I got home as I knew that my future with them would be mainly on offshore rigs. What I hated was the continual noise (and then we didn't have the 'luxury' of flotels, but lived on the drilling rig itself).

Interesting this memory should be revived today, because I've just been hearing on the radio how aircraft noise can raise the blood pressure of people living near airports (and traffic noise ditto).

The thing I love about my current accomodation is how peaceful it is. I feel I've earned it!

 

[Spookdaddy]

It's what comes of living in a Society that trades Fantasy for Reality, on a regular basis. Eventually, no one can be 100% sure that they can really tell the difference.

These are the times in which we live.

I can’t help thinking this might just be taking the desire to see every incident as a reflection of a wider malaise in society a little bit far as it completely ignores the specifics involved: an inherently isolated and dangerous working environment where operation and accommodation are in close proximity to each other, a place where physical communication is entirely reliant on mechanical intervention - which is itself reliant on favourable natural conditions, an environment where the influence of natural elements, should other factors fail, can have catastrophic effects far beyond anything that most people have to deal with, and a world where the shadow of Piper Alpha will probably never quite go away.

The people who initiated this operation did so in a fraction of the time it took for the News reports to come out. We ‘know’, because the press has told us, having had the time to find out for themselves, that this was in response to a worker’s dream. We have absolutely no idea how much information was available on-site at the time. Would it be reasonable to risk the lives of hundreds of people (including rescue workers) by allocating an indefinite amount of time to trying to track a rumour to its source? (And as people interested in Forteana, we're surely aware how incredibly powerful rumours can be, how impossible it can be to find their original source, and how difficult to scotch even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, even over long periods of time).

The fact is that the threat was treated as almost definitely a false alarm right from the start but, it appears, the potential human catastrophe involved in that single degree of doubt was considered too much to take anything for granted. The evacuation was called off before it was complete which would suggest that it was initiated at the same as an on-site investigation into the source of the story, which seems the sensible route. In fact, given the potential risk to life I can’t see what the alternative might have been and I’m mystified as to why the story has caused such negative chatter. For once I think the relevant authorities should be applauded – they put the safety of workers before profit and carried out a dangerous and complex physical and logistical operation without a hitch. (And, yes an evacuation of this kind is inherently dangerous and also puts lives at risk – but if the alternative is a bomb on a heavily populated and combustible plank in the middle of the ocean I'm just not sure what other choice there was). How those in charge dealt with the rumour at the time and how they deal with the source of the rumour after the fact are, it would seem to me, two completely different issues.

Of course some people would have it both ways – I do not doubt for one fraction of a second that if the rumour had been ignored as an almost definite hoax and no action had been taken then the same people would be up in arms that profit was being put before safety and that however tenuous the alleged threat the welfare of workers should have been paramount.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

...

The fact is that the threat was treated as almost definitely a false alarm right from the start ...

Could that conclusion actually be benefit of hindsight and evidence of bad news management?

Oil platform alert woman in court

A 23-year-old woman has appeared in court following a huge security alert on a North Sea oil platform.
Dana Rosu, from Aberdeen, appeared in private at the city's Sheriff Court in relation to a charge of breach of the peace on the Safe Scandinavia platform.

Ms Rosu made no plea or declaration and was remanded to Cornhill Hospital in Aberdeen for assessment.

A total of 161 staff were airlifted from the installation during the alert on Sunday.

The evacuation came after allegations of a "possible suspicious device".

...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/7238147.stm

Apparently, the supposed Threat was taken seriously enough for 161 staff to be airlifted off and transferred to neighbouring rigs. The treatment of the worker, who had a dream and made the mistake of giving voice to it, still seems rather extreme. An over-reaction, if not scapegoating.

 

[Spookdaddy]

Neither point really addresses my own - which is, basically, what alternative was available? Whether the conclusion was the benefit of hindsight is irrelevant to that. (actually the source for that was an MOD spokesperson rather than a rig official).

I would hope that the woman at the source of the rumour is treated fairly but I can really see no evidence in the fact that an investigation has been launched and that she is an integral part of that investigation, and treated as such, as anything particularly out of the ordinary.

(edit: I'm not saying I don't understand the potential for this woman to be treated as a scapegoat, especially as, given the costs involved, I don't doubt there are many people trying to cover their backs at the moment - just that I'm not sure that her treatment in the immediate aftermath, given the information available, was particularly out of the ordinary.)

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

...

I would hope that the woman at the source of the rumour is treated fairly but I can really see no evidence in the fact that an investigation has been launched and that she is an integral part of that investigation, and treated as such, as anything particularly out of the ordinary.

...

Charged with 'Breach of the Peace' and 'committed, for observation?' Let's hope, indeed, that this woman is treated fairly.

SUPPORT FOR RIG ALERT WOMAN

Link: Press & Journal online. 16 February 2008

Colleagues of a woman who was charged by police after the evacuation of a North Sea accommodation rig have leapt to her defence on her social networking internet site.

About 160 workers were airlifted from the Safe Scandinavia flotel - attached to a rig in the Britannia field about 130 miles north-east of Aberdeen - last Sunday.

Dana Rosu, 23, whose address was given as 17a Jasmine Terrace, Aberdeen, appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court on Monday in connection with the incident.

A torrent of abuse has since been posted on Rosu's Bebo web page.

However, a message posted on behalf of all the construction engineering staff on the Safe Scandinavia describes Rosu as "a much loved and respected" member of their team.

It says: "For all that don't know Dana, I think out of respect for Dana and her family keep your personal views to yourself."

Rosu, who was charged with breaching the peace, made no plea and was remanded to Royal Cornhill Hospital in Aberdeen for assessment.

 

[Spookdaddy]

We are all dealing with the same sources and at present I'm keeping an open mind as some of those sources claim the woman actually believed there was a bomb on the site. She's variously reported to have been acting "a bit upset", "a bit shaken", and suffering from "nervous exhaustion" at the time she was detained by rig managers - and at least one TV news report at the time claimed she had been acting hysterically. If any of this is true then her behaviour seems extreme even for someone disturbed by a bad dream, and in this scenario the official response doesn't seem inappropriate.

To illustrate the confusion these reports come from the same pundit

Jake Molloy, general secretary of the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee, one of the biggest unions representing offshore workers, said: "It was complete madness. This girl had a dream about a bomb being on board and she was a bit shaken. The next thing anyone knew workers were being evacuated."
He said the rumour that a bomb was on the accommodation block - or "flotel" - had spread to senior managers within an hour. "It was complete madness on behalf of everyone. There was never any reason to evacuate the platform."

source

She was described as an employee and one source suggested she was suffering from "nervous exhaustion" when the installation manager decided to detain her and raise the alarm.
Jake Molloy, of the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee, said he had been told the woman genuinely believed there was a bomb on the platform.

source

It seems odd to me, and moreso the more I think about it, that some commentators have picked the word "dream" out of these reports and then fixated on it to such an extent that they've chosen to edit out every other reported detail - as if there is some sort of inherent and unquestionable truth represented in that one word which is absent in all the others around it. At this stage we are dealing with the same chinese whispers and all I think I'm doing is choosing not to edit those whispers in order to suit a particular mindset.

(edited for pore spellinng)

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

...

To illustrate the confusion these reports come from the same pundit

...

She was described as an employee and one source suggested she was suffering from "nervous exhaustion" when the installation manager decided to detain her and raise the alarm.
Jake Molloy, of the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee, said he had been told the woman genuinely believed there was a bomb on the platform.

source
...

Well, there's your problem. The Telegraph's spin on what Molloy said, is not quite the same as what they quote him as saying.

...

"It's completely and utterly bizarre and I am still struggling to get my head around why things got to the stage they did.

"The minute I heard what happened I disbelieved it because it's physically impossible to take any kind of device offshore because of the security levels.

"The girl apparently believed there was a bomb on board and it went round like Chinese whispers. The next thing you know, the management decides to evacuate.

"As well as the upset, she will be feeling the guilt of being responsible for the evacuation of the platform and there will be a lot of questions from her employer that need answering."

...

There's a significant difference between, "said he had been told the woman genuinely believed..." and "The girl apparently believed there was a bomb on board and it went round like Chinese whispers."

So, your apparent confusion is probably mostly down to selectively quoting from Telegraph spin.

 

[Spookdaddy]

So, your apparent confusion is probably mostly down to selectively quoting from Telegraph spin.

Aha, here we go again - confusion, spin, selectivity...the same tired old accusations.

Of course I accept newspaper reporting is flawed, but you appear to have completely missed the point I was making which is that a conclusion, any conclusion, can only be reached by us at the present time by resorting to that flawed information and therefore we shouldn't do it. (And that's leaving aside any argument that accusations of "spin" can be based as much on the prejudices of the reader as the author).

Moreover, the fact that direct quotation of individuals (which appears to be what constitutes the only legitimate form of news reporting as far as you're concerned, and which would, I suppose have the added advantage of meaning that you could fit every days news on one side of a piece of toilet paper) constitutes only a portion of the articles which all comments on this thread have been made in response to, doesn't seem to have prevented you, in your first post on the subject, from using the incident to illustrate a sweeping generalisation on modern society despite not having supplied a single quote or source yourself at the time.

Secondly, of course I'm quoting selectively, otherwise I'd simply bang down the whole article. Your implied accusation is of course that in missing out the rest of the article I'm changing the implications of the content of the section I choose to quote from in relation to the point I'm using it to illustrate - which is not the case. As is patently obvious from the bit of my post you quote, I was making a point about confusion, not "truth".

To repeat, (as it appears that I'm not the only individual suffering from a dose of "confusion"), my attitude throughout, fairly obviously, has been that ANY conclusion reached on this matter using the sources available is flawed, and all you appear to have done in misrepresenting the point is trip over yourself in your eagerness to attack the details, and back it up.

Am I to take it that you're objecting to me not having made a hard and fast decision on this issue because I don't believe the information available is sufficient or reliable enough? And if so why is then pointing out that the information available is not necessarily reliable not simply a tautology, how does it counter the argument?

There's a significant difference between, "said he had been told the woman genuinely believed..." and "The girl apparently believed there was a bomb on board and it went round like Chinese whispers."

Which is exactly my point, whichever portion of the source story you use too illustrate it...

So, your apparent confusion is probably mostly down to selectively quoting from Telegraph spin.

...so who's confused?

(edited for crossness)

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

...

There's a significant difference between, "said he had been told the woman genuinely believed..." and "The girl apparently believed there was a bomb on board and it went round like Chinese whispers."

Which is exactly my point, whichever portion of the source story you use too illustrate it...

So, your apparent confusion is probably mostly down to selectively quoting from Telegraph spin.

...so who's confused?

(edited for crossness)

If you really can't spot a case of bad people management, then ask yourself, 'why didn't whoever was in charge, or other responsible person, take five minutes, to sit down somewhere quiet with the woman and find out exactly what was going on?'

No. No. Whatever else, it was a major cock up and it would appear that it is the person at the bottom of the heap that is taking the heat.

 

[Spookdaddy]

If you really can't spot a case of bad people management, then ask yourself, 'why didn't whoever was in charge, or other responsible person, take five minutes, to sit down somewhere quiet with the woman and find out exactly what was going on?'

For the fairly obvious reason that it is based on the supposition that those in charge knew the source of the rumour right from the kick-off.

Nothing I've written precludes your preferred scenario from being the correct one - I just simply don't see that there is enough hard and fast information at this point to claim it as unquestionably so. Keeping an open mind in the face of flawed sources and partial information would seem appropriate to me in any situation (especially, it might be added, on a Fortean message board) and I'm utterly mystified as to why such a course of action in this case should have caused your spleen such gyp.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

... and I'm utterly mystified as to why such a course of action in this case should have caused your spleen such gyp.

Probably the way that opprobrium has been heaped upon the woman in question's head. Not to mention her being charged with 'Breach of the Peace' and committed, after the fact.

And I'm utterly mystified as to how you can't smell the stench of bureaucratic arse covering, even from whatever lofty peak you survey humanity from.

 

[taras]

Get a room you two!

 

[rynner2]

I've just been looking for updates on this story - not much in the past week, it seems.

A Mail report of Feb 11th has a photo, and says of the incident:

There were reports that Ms Rosu, who worked as a caterer, had merely dreamed there was a bomb on the platform before making the claims.

Last night, the 23-year-old, who is thought to have been sedated, was detained by the offshore installation manager - the most senior member of staff - and police were making arrangements to fly her to shore.

Dana Rosu is described as Romanian here -
http://eaglespeak.blogspot.com/2008/02/ ... first.html
- which I never noticed first time round. A touch of Xeonphobia to add to the mix?

Other comments on the web are very abusive about this woman, on what grounds I do not not know. Sounds like knee-jerk reactions from fuckwits to me... (well, if they can go name-calling, so can I! )

Otherwise:

Oil rig bomb dreamer in court over north sea alert
Exclusive by Mark Smith12/02/2008
The woman said to have sparked the oil rig bomb scare arrived at court in handcuffs yesterday.

Dana Rosu, 23, triggered a major evacuation when she "flipped out" after dreaming there was a device on the North Sea platform.

Last night she was being cared for by medics after Aberdeen sheriff court remanded her into psychiatric care charged with breach of the peace.

And friends claimed she could have cracked under the strain of working on the rig. One said: "Dana is just a normal girl, the last person I'd expect to be involved. I wonder if the pressure of working offshore and being surrounded by strangers all the time has finally got to her."

All 169 workers were airlifted from hotel rig Safe Scandinavia 115 miles off Aberdeen after admin clerk Dana, who is said to be superstitious, panicked over her dream. Witnesses said she threw her bags in the sea and threatened to jump unless she was taken off.

One said: "She was pretty badly spooked. One of the bosses talked her down by promising to get her off."

Romanian Dana moved to Aberdeen three years ago and is popular among the offshore workers, who have a reputation for partying.

On her Bebo site she says she loves parties, dancing and Latino music.

Until six months ago she worked at the Highland Hotel. Owner's son James Colville said: "She's a nice girl. She cleaned and worked behind the bar."

Oilc union leader Jake Molloy called for a probe into the evacuation.

He said: "We need to look into why there was such a reaction."

http://tinyurl.com/36h49x

Can't find any news since...

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

I've just been looking for updates on this story - not much in the past week, it seems.

...

Last night she was being cared for by medics after Aberdeen sheriff court remanded her into psychiatric care charged with breach of the peace.

And friends claimed she could have cracked under the strain of working on the rig. One said: "Dana is just a normal girl, the last person I'd expect to be involved. I wonder if the pressure of working offshore and being surrounded by strangers all the time has finally got to her."

All 169 workers were airlifted from hotel rig Safe Scandinavia 115 miles off Aberdeen after admin clerk Dana, who is said to be superstitious, panicked over her dream. Witnesses said she threw her bags in the sea and threatened to jump unless she was taken off.

One said: "She was pretty badly spooked. One of the bosses talked her down by promising to get her off."

...

Oilc union leader Jake Molloy called for a probe into the evacuation.

He said: "We need to look into why there was such a reaction."

http://tinyurl.com/36h49x

Can't find any news since...

Well, that certainly fills in a few more details.

 

[Spookdaddy]

And I'm utterly mystified as to how you can't smell the stench of bureaucratic arse covering, even from whatever lofty peak you survey humanity from.

Infuriating as it is it really doesn't matter how much effort you expend in attempting to make me appear arrogant, PM, because it's very simple - I'm the one who has accepted that you might be right - you're the one who can see absolutely no alternative to his own proclamations. But, let’s face it, I can't get too pissed off about it as accusations of arrogance from someone such as you are, when it boils down to it, simply funny - been hit by lightning yet?

Get a room you two!

Oh, how I'd love to. With a canvas floor and a bucket in the corner.

Other comments on the web are very abusive about this woman, on what grounds I do not not know. Sounds like knee-jerk reactions from fuckwits to me... (well, if they can go name-calling, so can I!

A lot of the web-based abuse I've read appears to have come from rig workers who therefore might feel they have more of a say in the matter, although it's difficult to see why this woman’s actions would inspire abuse rather than pity (and in fairness, many other workers have expressed an understanding at how the specifics of the job could tip someone over the edge). Maybe a couple of reasons - firstly, any down-manning is inherently dangerous and therefore anyone who appears to be the cause of an incident is seen as putting co-workers at risk, and secondly the individual in question is seen as having succumbed to the specific environmental pressures of the particular workplace to which everyone is exposed. So therefore maybe she's seen as having failed in some way that those who deal with it have not, although I'm sure 'there but for the grace of god go I', plays a large part of that. I work with heights and it’s not unknown even for experienced co-workers to bottle for no apparent reason – I’ve often noticed in such circumstances that the criticism they get seems exaggerated and I have no doubt that this is a reflection of the critics own, albeit controlled, anxieties.

If the report Rynner posted is correct then there doesn't seem much question that Rosu was acting beyond what might be defined as a bit upset and as such I simply can’t see that reacting to the threat in the prescribed manner, even if it is deduced that the chance of that threat being ‘real’ is minimal, is symptomatic of failure. The vast majority of workplace evacuations are the result of false alarms – but do we really accuse those in charge of incompetence for following procedures? Interestingly I found the story of her throwing her bags into the sea and having to be talked down, on one of the above mentioned websites within a short time of the incident, but hesitated to mention it as I knew the source would be vilified by a certain individual. However, this source also claimed that the woman stated there was a device in the bag she threw into the sea.

I also can't really see what evidence there is, at present, to suggest that the authorities are trying to stitch Ms Rosu up like a kipper. Her treatment at the time might seem harsh but does it really seem out of the ordinary given the circumstances? (Or am I really being obtuse? If so, what was the alternative course). The abuse aimed at her is web-based and appears to be peer centred. No-one’s denying that the evacuation was unnecessary, no-one’s denying the incident was a hugely expensive false alarm and no-one appears to be accusing Rosu of being anything but disturbed at the time of the incident. As such the accusations of ‘bureaucratic arse covering’ seem strained. It's surely not how Rosu was treated then that's the question, but how she's treated now.

I’m no apologist for bureaucracy or ‘management’ – I’m a self-employed sub-contractor who works in often hazardous conditions and therefore I’ve been the expendable by-product of ‘hi-vis+necktie’ bullshit myself, but I hope I’m realistic enough to accept that this shouldn’t condemn the whole community.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

...

Can't find any news since...

I keep checking the Press News & Journal site:

Link:
'BOMB ALERT': WOMAN, 23, FOR COURT

Press New & Journal. 19 February 2008

A woman charged in connection with an alleged offshore bomb scare is to go on trial.

Dana Rosu was charged with breaking the peace after the biggest ever North Sea alert was sparked on an accommodation platform 130 miles off Aberdeen.

The 23-year-old's case called for a second time at Aberdeen Sheriff Court yesterday where the case was fully committed for trial.

No plea or declaration was made to the breach of the peace charge and Rosu ... will remain at the city's Royal Cornhill Hospital.

 

[rynner2]

A woman charged in connection with an alleged offshore bomb scare is to go on trial.

Dana Rosu was charged with breaking the peace after the biggest ever North Sea alert was sparked on an accommodation platform 130 miles off Aberdeen.

Legal point: does Scottish law have jurisdiction that far offshore?

 

[Spookdaddy]

Legal point: does Scottish law have jurisdiction that far offshore?

Fell over some stuff on that subject here when I was surfing around the story a week or so back. Obviously not a definitive source, but nonetheless interesting, and gives a few pointers. I believe there are also some questions arising from whether an oil-rig should be classified in the same way as a ship.

 

[markbellis]

A woman charged in connection with an alleged offshore bomb scare is to go on trial.

Dana Rosu was charged with breaking the peace after the biggest ever North Sea alert was sparked on an accommodation platform 130 miles off Aberdeen.

Legal point: does Scottish law have jurisdiction that far offshore?

Interesting question - her court appearance was in Aberdeen, so she currently is under Scots law. The 'flotel' (a ship moored alongside the oil rig that houses the workers) that she was taken off of belongs to a Norwegian company but is leased to an Aberdeen based company, so Aberdeen might be considered its home port, and it would be the same as when a crime occurs in international waters, where it would be under the laws of the ship's home port.

 

[taras]

For fishing purposes the North Sea countries extend out 12 NM, and for oil purposes there's a line down the middle of the sea.

Regardless of who has legal jurisdiction though, it would be common sense to try her in the same place as she, her co-workers, and the company are based...