The BP Oil Commission’s lead investigator, Fred Bartlit, refused to blame any firm involved in the Gulf of Mexico spill, saying that a combination of factors caused the deadly explosion at the Macondo oil well on April 20.
Bartlit presented preliminary findings at the opening of the presidentially appointed commission’s Nov. 8-9 public meeting in Washington, D.C. He said BP and workers on the oil rig made conscious decisions to depart from the planned procedures in light of unexpected developments, and some of those decisions may have made sense.