i remember him distinctly saw 1:56. at 2 1:56. at 2 at some point, i saw the light from the flames over north toward the rig floor. someone looked out the port door and said they could see someone in the water. i stuck my head out and looked in that direction. ng in someone swimmin gi the water. it hhdmoved further away, but had lights in our direction. there was some discussion about things like going to the lifeboats. there was not an immediate consensus to do that. then some short period of time later, i looked at pat. comment was, ", let's go." it seemed that is where everyone was headed. i followed him out the starbird door we went down a couple of flights of stairs to the lifeboats. very orderly down there. pat and i were among the last to get in one of the life boats. then the was made to lower the boat and close the door. we lowered the boat down. that went well. we drove aw ay from the rig. we spend a while on a off everybody. -- getting everybody off. >> thank you a lot. upon arrival, you said you went and spoke with kalloza. can you tell me what you discussed? >> what we were doing and. he said we were getting lined up for-tests. for negative tess. we proceeded to talk of but a lot of other things. most were arco days and alaska days, no more talk about business. >> you went to talk to mr. harold? what did you talk to him about? >> i talked to jimmy. just some general . i had not seen him in about five months. he showed me their 2010 goals and some of their performance indicators. indicators. he had a new tracking chart he was putting together. briefly spoke to randy, senior tool pusher. we stopped in t galley for something to drink. then i went to find my bags and get room assignments. >> were you aware of any problems neg with theative test? no. >> >> a real where they ran a second one? , >>no at the time. >> was there any discussion at all about the negative test? >> there was no discussion at that time. don, our night well site leader, came to me when we were eating in the galley and asked if i wanted him to attend the 7:00 meeting. i told him, "no, we are not roing out any new material." nothing that he probablyad not heard. he seemed happy with that. that is what i recall of that. >> you save you discuss made his between welles. a gun in a knit were you going to be doing? >> -- what kind of maintenance were you going to be doing? >> rig about plans maintenance. i do not recall any specific maintenance we were discussing. it wasore of a plan that transocean was implementing a bit of the new strategy arod, prevented his maintenance. that played into buddy's visit. there was the rig equipment. maintenance is one of those stains. >> do you know [unintelligible] >> would you repeat that? >> do you know where teep water horizon was going after the mississippi canyon to 52? 252? >> the plan i recall was to go to a well that we called "nile/" it was a well that we were going to plug and abandon. it could be. i do not recall that ocs number. >> do you know when it was supposed to ride? >> whenever it got finished from mccondo. >> and dob [ you know when cemented -- to do you know when bp said they would stop operations? >> i do not know the date. >> i have no further questions. >> no questions at this time. >> no questions at this time. >> excuse me. good afternoon. i am with the coast guard. and i had a key questions for clarification. >> wouldou say your name again? >> hausler wheatley. ross wheatley. vips went into the burden on the clock. is the correct? i was there with pat o'brien and don winslow. bridge, you're on the you indicated that some of the personnel participated in use of the simulator. is that correct? >> that is correct. >> who was given instruction on how to use the simulator? >> certain conditions, ocean conditions are programmed in that exert forces on a simulated picture of the rig, and try to force it off location, and use the data to try to keep their with in a watch circle. >> was the captain participating in this exercise? >> i do not recall that he participated in that. i believe it was another of the marine croup would -- marine crew to would photograph the conditions and start the simulation. anyone could work withhe simulator. >> was the captain observing what was going on? >> the captain was observing everything that was going on on the bridge. i was not watching him the entire time, nor was i talking to him the whole time. i know that he was not standing there right next to me or pat when we were using the simulator. >> do you recall which members of your party participated in using the simulator? >> i tried it once, and i know that pat tried it. i cannot say for sure if anyone else did. >> in your estimation,ow much time was spent by members of your party in the instruction and participation in the simulator? simulator? >> 10 minutes. 15 max. >> was that per person or total participation by all of the members? >> that was total participation. >> at the time that you indicated that the incident began, was anybody utilizing the simulator? >> i cannot say for sure that i know. know. i was not, so i was not really ying attention to what was going on at the simulator. i know that pat was not that the simular, becau i remember where he was standing when we first heard the -- felt the vibration. he was standing up close to the front of the bridge looking at some screen up towards the front of the bridge. >> sir, if i recall your earlier testimony, you indicated that part of your trip out to the deepwater horizon on this occasion was to conduct safety audits. is that correct? >> that is correct. as it presents itself, that is one of the things that we would do. >> on this particular occasion, did you conduct any safety audits, and if so, what type? >> we went to an area on the aft deck of the rig, where the riser would be laid down if the riser was not in operation, not in use. we discussed an incident that had occurred, and talked about how it that same situation should have been on t horizon, what the differences were, what they had learned, or if they had adopted any earnings from that incident. we were asked to look at the -- there is a thing called the skate that moves pipe from that area up to the rig floor and back, and an area underneath it, kind of a day -- kind of a bay. it was the scene of an incident that had happened on another rig just a few days or a week before. we went to that area to see, again, how the horizon would be different or similar to this other rick -- to this other rig. we detected whether learnings from the other incident had been communicated, and how horizon had dealt with those learnings. >> you mentioned that one of the areas you visited was eight skate. could you give us more details about that incident and what the lessons were? lessons were? >> well, the incident was a hydraulic line that had been leaking in that area on the other rig, and one of the drilling contractors had stepped down into that area to clean up the leak and lost his footing. in catching himself, he had hurt his shoulder. the learning's from that were around, as we always find learnings are around hazard recognition, making sure that you think about where you're going to step or where you are going to put your hand. having access to that area that could be improved. again, these are investigations that are ledy transocean. bp participate sometimes in bp participate sometimes in these, but we do both embraced the learnings and try to make sure those learning's get passed from grieg to rig -- from rig to rig. those were a couple of the learnings. we went to a rise in -- we went to horizon to see if those same learning's would apply, whether access to the area was the same. in fact, on the horizon, it was a little bit deeper skate. a little bit more difficult to get into. we discussed what transocean was going to do relative to the event and the incident. >> you mentioned that this was part of your safety audit. all was participating in the safety audit besides yourself? >> well, pretty much the group that was walking around was that was walking around was myself and pat o'brien , buddy, jimmy, and i cannot recall with 100% certainty the other folks who were with us. i think in total we were seven or eight. >> now, it is our understanding that you all have the safety measure program in place. is that correct? >> traocean has a safety management system that is followed on the rig. >> you mentioned that there were a number of lessons learned from this and prior incidents. how are those lessons learned communicated to the crew members on board a rig such as the deepwater horizon, and how do you validate and ensure that those lessons learned are being incorporated in all safety procedures of the future? >> that is the challenge that we are always trying to improve. transocean, when they have an event, an incident, has their own internal communications methods that share learnings and any actions from -- that results from investigations or analyses of the events. of the events. bp will also share with transocean learnings that have been in other operations, other operations. if there are places that we think are pertinent or relevant, we will share those in a variety of ways wh transocean, who then will tranche -- who then will pass along learning to the crew. >> during the course of your safety audits, do you utilize interviews, for example, drill core members, to try emphasize the safety members are actually being put in place and the crew members on therill core are aware of those and enforcing those? >> to the extent that we can do that without interrupting anything, we do that. anything, we do that. there is no -- there is no forced participation, i guess would behe best way to describe it. if we happened upon someone who appears to be doing something extremel critical, we might take the opportunity to have a conversation with them, but otherwise we generally try to be -- we do not cross any be -- we do not cross any barriers, and we do not interfere, for lack of a better word. >> i guess my question is a littleore directed towards the practice and execution of your audit plan. our queries or interviews of crewmembers part of your audit plan in trying to determine how effective your safety measures are being? >> in general, that would be a method of doing that. i can tell you that i do not recall on this trip having an opportunity to do that with anyone other than the group that was walking around with us. , any questions that i had or pat had were answered by one of our party rather than someone else. >> thank you, sir. i have no further questions, but i am sure other members do. i am sure other members do. >> hello, i am lieutenant robert butts, united states coast guard. >> it seems like you are coming in very broken. could you change my profound -- could you change microphones? >> sure. how is that? >> better. thank you. >> mr. sims, in the discussion over the last couple of days, i have heard of this visit from a corporate as a vip visit, even as a dignitary visit. does that seem surprising to you? >> you are coming in very broken. it is in and out. it is in and out. could you change your microphone? it is very scratchy. >> how is this? >> try that. >> well, is it clear the? >> it is working now, but what happens is, when you start talking, it comes in and out and we can oy hear parts of the conversation. >> my wife says that too. [laughter] mr. sims, over the past couple of days we have heard the characterization of your visit as a vip visit or even a dignitary visit. it does that surprise you? >> it surprises me, but i can understand possibly how that might be characterized by folks on the rig. it was not advertised as such. there was no agenda sent out there was no agenda sent out ahead of time, and so i cannot say anything other than what i know, which is that it was a routine, scheduled trip. >> yes, sir, and i am understand that. from your perspective, i imagine that is exactly how you would speak of it. but from the perspective on the rig, the guys doing the actual work, a kind of characterized as mylf being in a unit and an admiral coming to visit us. i passed the gentleman the other day as you were going through your tour. he commented that there was a discussion, and he was talking with the gentleman, and due to the tour -- >> could you hold on for just a second is it possible that we could hang up and call again? i do not know what is happening, but it is very difficult. >> maybe you could use somebody else's microphone. >> how is that? >> that is a little better. >> ok. the visit. the tour of the rig. well going across the drill bored, one of the gentlemen was confronted about the situation. we will not go into that. he said that in hindsight, if the tour was not going on, the gentleman would have stayed with e crew on the drill rig i just wanted you to recognize that the visit did have some impact on the way that lks were actually doing their job. you had said that you went to reenforced goals. reenforced goals. was that bp's goals or goals that the rig had set for themselves? >> that would be generalized, maybe a characterization of what we were doing. we have goals to reduce hand injuries. we and transocean together had a hand injury prevention program that we were, you know, that was going on. >> i wrote what you had said were the goals. from your perspective, they were company goals that were just being refreshed? >> bayh worm -- they were, yes. >> good enough. that igood enough. usually when i want to refresh a goal, it means that i have potentially missed a goal, and someone needs to remind me of it. i just wanted to touch on that. was the corporate office providing any recognition of the day, or identifying any persons on board that did something above their normal job or any of ose other things? >> we, again, did not have that as an objective for the trip, but during that time after 9:00 p.m., we talked about a number of things. one of those was pointed out that one person had been awarded, had been given a transocean award, so everybody said, "great job. keep up the good work. " there was a bit more conversation about that, but then we went on to another topic. >> it has been my experience on board transocean and regs and the past -- transocean rigs in the past that rewards are given to individuals, whether it be walmart gift cards othings like that. i was wondering if that was the flavor of the day? >> not intentionally. >> good enough. >> when you were in at the bridge, and you went through a very good description of the events of the night, and i appreciate that. you had mentioned that a bp operator had put out a mayday. was that a verbal mayday across the radio? >> it was a radio. i do not know what type of radio it was. sh i believe her name was andrea, plus speaking into what looked like a radio. >> -- was speaking into what looked like the radio. >> was she given any instructions for doing so or criticized for doing so? >> i was not aware of any instructions or any criticism. >> all right. as you were going through, you made several comments about a general question that went out to the room, and overhead question to all. it was some reference to ees? was that true? >> i think he said eds. >> was there a general question to the room regarding something about e.d.s.? >> i apologize for and in complete memory about all of the events at at moment, but that is what it seems like i said. >> after that, at someone hesitated. >>gain, there we a lot of things going on. we were thinking about something else, thinking about that, i don't know. very shortly thereafter, within seconds, very few seconds -- and i doubt even know why i noticed. i am just telling you everything the kind of came through my head. i remember he went straight over towards the panel, is my recollection. >> we appreciate your clarity, because it is extremely important when we are putting a time line together. you said that the captain hesitated and then late said that the captain agreed to e .d.s. we do have some records e that.d.s. -- we do have some record that e.d.s. was activated. >> i do recall tt. >> there was also some discussion about going to the light post. >> probably a portrait of words, but there was not -- when the words first came out it was not a, not a command or an order. i do not know how to spell it -- who spoke it, but in general the feeling was, i guess, that we were starting to head in that direction. >> yes, sir, i am understand. you went on to say that there was not a consensus on the brid to actually move forward with that. you said mr. pat -- is that pat o'brien? >> pat o'brien. >> he said let's go. >> i remember looking at him, and i think that is what he said. >> also in the testimonyou provided, you mentioned something about john -- >> john winslow. i am not sure. could you be specific about which comment? >> he was wanting to excuse himself and you had made a comment something like, that is all right. all right. >> that was in reference to him asking if i wanted him to participate in the 7:00 meeting. >> did he explain to what he may not want to attend this vip dignitaries visit? >> i cannot recall with 100% certainty if he said anything about what was going on outside or not. >> outside meaning the drill floor? >> yes. >> thank you very much, mr. sims, for making yourself available. i believe someone else has a few questions. >> we have no questions at this time. >> ' not getting new at all. >> and thank you, captain. we have no questions at this time but would reserve the right to present questions at a later time. >> did he say no questions? >> yes, but he reserves the right to ask questions when the witness appears before the board at a later time. >> ok, and who said that? we did i get it at all. >> that was the counsel for the republic of marshall islands. party of interest, bp, do you have any questions for your witness? >> [unintelligible] >> thank you, sir. >> what was that? missed that? >> could you relate to anything they are saying. we cannot hear them in the audience. >> yes i can. bp did not have any questions. >> council for anadarko? no questions from anadarko. douglas brown? >> doehe have questions? >> yes, he has questions for mr. sims. >> what is his name? >> mr. steve gordon. can you hear me sir? >> and not real clear. >> steve gordon. counsel, c you hear me? >> yes, what is your name? >> steve gordon. mr. sims, once again, your drillings operations manager for bp, correct? >> currently for the elite well by the d d three. >> what is your other title? >> that is it right now. >> that is it right now. before -- >> was the word "completion of" title?rt of her title stocyour >> iw ould say it has been -- the tle has been written a number of ways. the wells ops manager. both ways. written >> has the word "completion" ever bombarded your title? >> that is what the "c" sants for, yes. >> thank you can you tell me rew fort look of the c the deepwater horizon? >> would you explain? >> i have been told by bp they thought they were considered the "a" team. is that true? >> what bp said? >> what did he income of the deep water rise in crude? -- deepwater horizon crew? >> i think the crew and the rig had good performance. associated with that rig. >> do you have knowledge of whether peoe in had management in ha asked transocean to try to clone the deepwater horizon crew because they were so efficient? >> clone? >> put them on the other transocean vessels. >> would you ask the quesion over? >> into you have knowledge that management in bp stock transocean to try to "clone othercrew so the transocean vessels would bable to operate as effectively? cannot honestly say i recall that word being used. i think that bp felt like it was a good rig, crew and i do not recall the word "clone." >> would you have like to have a a crew like deep