The Piper Alpha oil platform suffered a catastrophic explosion, leaving most workers trapped in an inferno at sea. This disaster led to major changes in offshore safety - but what really caused it?

Smoke rises from the wrecked oil platform Piper Alpha, foreground, in the North Sea, Thursday, July 7, 1988, following an explosion late Wednesday. The platform owned by the American oil company ...

The memorial to the men killed in the Piper Alpha disaster on 6 July 1988 is found in the Queen Mother's Rose Garden in Hazlehead Park and was unveiled by her in 1991. There is also the Piper Alpha ...

Examining events such as the Piper Alpha disaster, the Lockerbie bombing and the Polmont rail crash, this series revisits 12 disasters that have shocked Scotland over the last 50 years.

At 14,000 tons and 2.5 times the height of the Statue of Liberty, the Piper Alpha oil rig was one of the largest in the world. But on July 6, 1988, the entire structure became consumed by a ...

Flames and smoke still leap from the oil platform Piper Alpha off northeast Scotland, Thursday, July 7, 1988, after the rig was blown apart by a flash fire late Wednesday night, feared to have ...