New York Times
July 23, 2010

KENNER, La. — The emergency alarm on the Deepwater Horizon was not fully activated on the day the oil rig caught fire and exploded, triggering the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a rig worker on Friday told a government panel investigating the accident.

The worker, Mike Williams, chief electronics technician aboard the Transocean rig, said the general safety alarm was habitually set to “inhibited” to avoid waking up the crew with late-night sirens.

“They did not want people woke up at 3 a.m. from false alarms,” Mr. Williams told the federal panel of investigators in this New Orleans suburb. Consequently, the alarm did not sound during the emergency, leaving workers to relay information through the loudspeaker system.

A six-member panel is investigating the April 20 disaster that killed 11 people and unleashed the largest oil spill in United States history. At hearings this week, crew members have described repeated failures in the weeks before the disaster, including power losses, computer crashes and leaking emergency equipment.

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