166 Are Lost in North Sea in World’s Worst Rig Disaster : Oil Workers Leap 200 Ft. Into Ocean

ABERDEEN, Scotland — At least 166 people were killed or missing and feared dead in an explosion aboard a U.S.-owned offshore oil rig that sent men frantically leaping 200 feet into the flame-licked North Sea in the world’s worst rig disaster, officials said today.

Energy Secretary Cecil Parkinson told Parliament in London that the blast Wednesday night on Occidental Petroleum’s Piper Alpha rig was “so violent that the platform was effectively destroyed.”

He told a subdued House of Commons that 229 people had been on the oil platform. He said 65 survived and 16 bodies were found, leaving 148 missing. In addition, two of three rescuers who disappeared were missing and police said there was little hope of finding any more survivors.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. said a gas leak was apparently to blame. Derek Ellington, a survivor, described hearing a gas leak “screaming like a banshee” seconds before one explosion, then another, ripped through the Piper Alpha platform.

Most Killed in Their Sleep

A police spokesman in Aberdeen said he believed most of the missing were killed by the blast, which hit the platform while many of the crew were asleep. Others died while jumping as much as 200 feet into the flaming water.

Oil worker Roy Carey, who leaped into the sea to escape the flames after the explosion, told reporters: “It was a case of fry and die or jump and try.”

Carey, an instrument technician, lay in a hospital bed with his arm in a sling and his eyes closed by burns.

He said he was choked by smoke after hearing the first of two explosions.

“It was over the side or nothing. I just dived. It may have been 60 feet. I was totally enveloped,” he said.

‘My Head Was Being Cooked’

The second explosion sent bits of lifeboat raining into the water, he said. “There was a lot of debris floating around and the flames were billowing above us. I found my head was being cooked. I had to keep ducking down to get it cool.”

He saw bodies float past and then was rescued.

“Those who were lucky and able to escape were up and at work at the time and were able to jump straight into the sea and get into rescue vessels,” John Brading, Occidental’s executive vice president, told a news conference.

He announced an urgent inquiry into why lifeboats with room for 300 people failed to get off the platform.

Flames continued to leap into the air above the burning wreck of twisted metal today as an armada of rescue ships and helicopters scoured the chilly North Sea for the missing.

Bubbles of Gas Exploding

A Scottish radio station quoted a Royal Air Force pilot as saying that huge bubbles of gas were exploding on the sea surface, sending flames 700 feet into the air.

Most of the workers on the platform were British but they also included other Europeans, South Africans, Americans and Canadians.

Armand Hammer, Occidental’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement: “I wish to extend my deepest personal sympathy to the families of the men who have been injured or who have lost their lives in this tragic accident in the North Sea. We will continue to do everything we can to assist the injured and their families.”

Queen Elizabeth II sent a message of sympathy, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher expressed deep shock.

The previous worst oil rig disaster was the capsizing of the Alexander L. Kielland platform in Norwegian waters in March, 1980, when 123 people died.