BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – Donald Vidrine, who was one of two BP supervisors on the Deepwater Horizon when the drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, has died. He was 69.
Vidrine’s lawyer, Robert Habans, said the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, resident died Saturday. Habans said he couldn’t provide any additional information.
The rig explosion killed 11 workers and unleashed the nation’s worst offshore oil spill. Vidrine and fellow rig supervisor Robert Kaluza initially were charged with manslaughter in a criminal case that dragged on for years. Prosecutors said they botched a key safety test and disregarded abnormally high pressure readings indicating signs of trouble ahead of the blowout.
Defense attorneys cast them as scapegoats, and the federal case eventually fizzled. Vidrine pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor pollution charge. Kaluza was acquitted.