Chris Allen
Founder, Aletheia Reliability
I was studying petroleum engineering when Macondo happened. It shaped how my generation was taught to think about failure, and I've come back to that investigation more than once since.
I ran the public investigation record through Aletheia to see whether the methodology holds up on something genuinely complex.
This is that investigation.
Deepwater Horizon: A Full Investigation in Aletheia
22 minutes. Based entirely on the public investigation record.
How the investigation was run
The Macondo well loss of control and the Deepwater Horizon explosion is one of the most thoroughly investigated industrial disasters on record, which makes it a demanding test case. Aletheia was given a basic description of the event, not the known root causes.
- Started from a plain description of the event, with no root causes supplied
- Aletheia generated investigation questions to direct evidence gathering
- Additional evidence was analyzed as it was entered
- A structured cause tree was developed from that evidence
- Corrective actions were recommended and made trackable
- The investigator remains responsible for every conclusion
The point is not to replace the investigator. It is to test whether a guided methodology produces a more rigorous and more consistent investigation than an unaided one.
This video discusses a real industrial disaster in which 11 people were killed. The case is used here because it has been extensively investigated and documented in the public record, which makes it a rigorous test of the software.