2 Americans Killed in Oil Rig Explosion
An explosion in a pump room of a North Sea oil rig killed two American workers and injured two men, an American and a Briton, Phillips Petroleum said Wednesday.
The blast occurred Tuesday night in a ballast pump room on the Glomar Arctic II rig as it was carrying out tests in the Joanne oil field midway between Britain and Norway, the company said. The cause was not immediately known.
The dead were identified as John Traut, 33, the rig’s chief engineer, from Ventura, Calif., and assistant engineer Mark J. Paradiso, 23, of Crawford, N.J.
The injured, Otto Brandt, 28, of Houston, and Michael Simpson, 27, of Leicester in central England, were airlifted by helicopter to a hospital in the east Scottish port city of Aberdeen. Brandt was released after his treatment but Simpson remained with a concussion.
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