It has been claimed that the huge devastating BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill explosion in the Gulf of Mexico had been triggered by the leaking of the oil rig's safety apparatus that had begun several weeks prior to the explosion. This has been said by an oil worker, who was able to escape the explosion.

There is a device called the Blowout Preventer (BOP) in the rig, which is meant to halt the well in case of any accident. Tyrone Benton said that he had witnessed a leak on this BOP. The rig was owned by both BP and Transocean, and they had the responsibility to check the defected part, the control pod.

It was then switched off, but wasn't revamped. Benton said, "We saw a leak on the pod [and] we informed the company. They have a control room where they could turn off that pod and turn on the other one, so that they don't have to stop production".

The massive gas explosion took place on 20 April, and Benton said that he is still unsure of the fact that whether this pod was turned at the time of explosion or not. This led to the killing of 11 workers on the spot.