Before The Explosion

GQ has a terrific, eye-opening account of the men who worked on the Deepwater Horizon rig before the disaster struck. The whole piece has a tragic irony to it. You can see what's coming, even if they can't. Money quote:

The problems with Macondo started on his last hitch, about two weeks into the job. Twice drilling had to stop—oilmen call it getting stuck—once to patch a crack in the bore hole, then again to drop a cement plug into a tender spot in the subsurface that collapsed around the...