EXCLUSIVE Five men trapped in a 30-inch oil pipeline deep under the sea, air running out and left to die: Everything to know about America's No.1 podcast
On February 25 2022, five professional divers were working to repair a leaking section of oil pipeline off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago when something went terribly wrong.
Unbeknownst to them, there was a pressure differential between the inside of the pipe and the underwater room in which they were working.
When they removed a plug that was keeping the pipe sealed, the high-pressure air that was being pumped into the room rushed to fill the void inside the pipe with such horrifying force that it pulled the men in with it, trapping them deep beneath the Caribbean sea.
They were sucked into the 30-inch-wide pipe along with a rush of sea water, down 60ft down to where the pipe turned to run along the sea floor.
When they finally came to a stop along a 1,2000ft length of pipe, they managed to group together in a small air bubble. Lying on their backs in the pitch black, injured and covered in oil they strained their necks out of the liquid to breath.
Over the course of three grueling hours, one man, Christopher Boodram, 39, managed to drag himself out in search of help. And he had no choice but to leave his friends behind in the air pocket.
When he finally emerged from the end of the pipe, injured and exhausted, he told the crowd waiting above the waterline what had happened and begged them to rescue the others.
But officials from the state-owned oil company Paria - which owns and operates the pipe - allegedly refused. They reportedly insisted that a rescue mission was too dangerous and they blocked volunteer divers from staging their own rescue attempts.
The other four men who had dived with Christopher that day - Fyzal Kurban, 57, Rishi Nagassar, 48, Kazim Ali Jr, 37, and Yusuf Henry, 31 - were left to die.
Yet three years on, not one person has been held accountable. Neither Christopher nor the families of those killed have received a penny in compensation.
And while the world was captivated by the rescue of 15 young footballers from a Thai cave in 2018 and horrified by the Titan submersible disaster of 2023, few outside the Caribbean have heard of the 'Paria Diving Tragedy'.
The Daily Mail set out to change this and to tell these men's stories with our investigative podcast, Pipeline.
We found evidence of failing safety standards, lucrative contracts and secretive political relationships, and confronted some of Trinidad and Tobago's most powerful men including its then prime minister, Keith Rowley.
This week, Pipeline became the top series in US Apple Podcasts when we reached number one in their American charts and number two in Australia.
Today we are sharing some of the most shocking revelations that we uncovered in our bid to expose the truth of the scandalous tragedy that claimed four lives and scarred countless others.
The Autopsies
In the hours after Christopher escaped from the pipe, waiting volunteer divers tried to communicate with the men still trapped inside. They did so by tapping out emergency signals onto the pipe's metal sides and waiting to hear if the men tapped back. They did.
In fact, the volunteers could still hear the men deep inside the pipe in the early hours of Saturday morning - almost 12 hours after they were sucked in.
But despite this clear proof of life, and the agonies the men must have been experiencing in their hellish prison, Paria repeatedly blocked volunteer divers from staging a rescue. They insisted it was too dangerous.
Two days later Paria announced their efforts would be focused instead on recovering the men's bodies. On Monday 28 February 2021, they started flushing them out of the pipe.
The dead divers were so swollen and covered in oil that they were almost unrecognizable to the family members who went to the mortuary to identify them.
But most horrifying of all, their autopsies confirmed what the tapping signals had suggested - the men had not died quickly.
In fact, one of the men, Kazim Ali Jr, may have been alive for up to 39 hours in those unimaginable conditions: trapped and terrified in the dark, desperately hoping rescuers would arrive soon.
Past accidents
Forty years before the four men died, one of their fathers was killed while working on exactly the same stretch of pipe.
In 1985, Ramjohn Kurban, Fyzal's father, was working to recommission the pipe in which his son would later die, when gases escaped from the line and caught fire. There was a huge explosion that killed 14 workers.
Fast forward four decades and in December 2021, just three months before the accident, Christopher, the sole survivor of the 'Pipeline' tragedy, and Rishi Nagassar - who would perish in it - were both involved in another incident.
They were working on a nearby gas line - also owned and operated by Paria - when it caught on fire, sending flames spewing across the platform.
'I was just seeing fire shooting out all over,' Christopher told the Daily Mail. 'I swam as far down to the bottom as I could and stayed as long as I could because I was expecting an explosion.'
Other workers did the same, diving off the platform and swimming down into the water to escape the flames, until a boat came to pick them up.
They told Paria what happened, but Christopher said the accident was 'swept under the rug' without investigation.
Cruel conspiracies
In the aftermath of the tragedy, the country's media descended on the small town of San Fernando, all trying to work out what went wrong, and why the four divers hadn't been saved.
The story was a national sensation and Christopher became an unwilling celebrity overnight.
'Everywhere we go, everywhere he go, people recognize us,' Christopher's wife, Candy told the Daily Mail. 'People would come up and want to ask him, 'Well, how did you get out?''
But as time went on, a lack of concrete answers created an information vacuum and conspiracy theories started to fill it.
People began to turn on Christopher, accusing him of lying. They said there was no way he could have survived in the pipe. They accused him of being fame hungry, or of trying to cover something up.
The vitriol grew so intense that even Christopher started to think he was going crazy.
When he began his escape from the pipe, he had left the other men with the promise that he would come back with help. So when he was discharged after three days in intensive care and realized that his friends hadn't been rescued, it was agony.
'I made promises that I eventually couldn't keep. And that is something that I can't let go of,' he said, 'What gives me that right to live?'
As he struggled with the aftermath of this trauma and survivor's guilt he found himself the target of trolls and critics who doubted his story so publicly he began to question his own mind.
'I went mad off reading social commentary. Sometimes I was even doubting my recollection of the events,' he told the Daily Mail.
Christopher was finally vindicated nine months later, at the government appointed inquiry into the tragedy.
There they played footage from a GoPro one of the men had been wearing when they were sucked in - it showed them alive inside the pipe and Christopher there with them.
'After the audio played, the whole country just went, 'man this man was telling the truth',' Christopher said. 'And it's only then that it gave me some mental peace - this was real, and I didn't make this up.'
To listen to the chart-topping podcast series, search for Pipeline now, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Daily Mail
7 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Five men trapped in a 30-inch oil pipeline deep under the sea, air running out and left to die: Everything to know about America's No.1 podcast
On February 25 2022, five professional divers were working to repair a leaking section of oil pipeline off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago when something went terribly wrong. Unbeknownst to them, there was a pressure differential between the inside of the pipe and the underwater room in which they were working. When they removed a plug that was keeping the pipe sealed, the high-pressure air that was being pumped into the room rushed to fill the void inside the pipe with such horrifying force that it pulled the men in with it, trapping them deep beneath the Caribbean sea. They were sucked into the 30-inch-wide pipe along with a rush of sea water, down 60ft down to where the pipe turned to run along the sea floor. When they finally came to a stop along a 1,2000ft length of pipe, they managed to group together in a small air bubble. Lying on their backs in the pitch black, injured and covered in oil they strained their necks out of the liquid to breath. Over the course of three grueling hours, one man, Christopher Boodram, 39, managed to drag himself out in search of help. And he had no choice but to leave his friends behind in the air pocket. When he finally emerged from the end of the pipe, injured and exhausted, he told the crowd waiting above the waterline what had happened and begged them to rescue the others. But officials from the state-owned oil company Paria - which owns and operates the pipe - allegedly refused. They reportedly insisted that a rescue mission was too dangerous and they blocked volunteer divers from staging their own rescue attempts. The other four men who had dived with Christopher that day - Fyzal Kurban, 57, Rishi Nagassar, 48, Kazim Ali Jr, 37, and Yusuf Henry, 31 - were left to die. Yet three years on, not one person has been held accountable. Neither Christopher nor the families of those killed have received a penny in compensation. And while the world was captivated by the rescue of 15 young footballers from a Thai cave in 2018 and horrified by the Titan submersible disaster of 2023, few outside the Caribbean have heard of the 'Paria Diving Tragedy'. The Daily Mail set out to change this and to tell these men's stories with our investigative podcast, Pipeline. We found evidence of failing safety standards, lucrative contracts and secretive political relationships, and confronted some of Trinidad and Tobago's most powerful men including its then prime minister, Keith Rowley. This week, Pipeline became the top series in US Apple Podcasts when we reached number one in their American charts and number two in Australia. Today we are sharing some of the most shocking revelations that we uncovered in our bid to expose the truth of the scandalous tragedy that claimed four lives and scarred countless others. The Autopsies In the hours after Christopher escaped from the pipe, waiting volunteer divers tried to communicate with the men still trapped inside. They did so by tapping out emergency signals onto the pipe's metal sides and waiting to hear if the men tapped back. They did. In fact, the volunteers could still hear the men deep inside the pipe in the early hours of Saturday morning - almost 12 hours after they were sucked in. But despite this clear proof of life, and the agonies the men must have been experiencing in their hellish prison, Paria repeatedly blocked volunteer divers from staging a rescue. They insisted it was too dangerous. Two days later Paria announced their efforts would be focused instead on recovering the men's bodies. On Monday 28 February 2021, they started flushing them out of the pipe. The dead divers were so swollen and covered in oil that they were almost unrecognizable to the family members who went to the mortuary to identify them. But most horrifying of all, their autopsies confirmed what the tapping signals had suggested - the men had not died quickly. In fact, one of the men, Kazim Ali Jr, may have been alive for up to 39 hours in those unimaginable conditions: trapped and terrified in the dark, desperately hoping rescuers would arrive soon. Past accidents Forty years before the four men died, one of their fathers was killed while working on exactly the same stretch of pipe. In 1985, Ramjohn Kurban, Fyzal's father, was working to recommission the pipe in which his son would later die, when gases escaped from the line and caught fire. There was a huge explosion that killed 14 workers. Fast forward four decades and in December 2021, just three months before the accident, Christopher, the sole survivor of the 'Pipeline' tragedy, and Rishi Nagassar - who would perish in it - were both involved in another incident. They were working on a nearby gas line - also owned and operated by Paria - when it caught on fire, sending flames spewing across the platform. 'I was just seeing fire shooting out all over,' Christopher told the Daily Mail. 'I swam as far down to the bottom as I could and stayed as long as I could because I was expecting an explosion.' Other workers did the same, diving off the platform and swimming down into the water to escape the flames, until a boat came to pick them up. They told Paria what happened, but Christopher said the accident was 'swept under the rug' without investigation. Cruel conspiracies In the aftermath of the tragedy, the country's media descended on the small town of San Fernando, all trying to work out what went wrong, and why the four divers hadn't been saved. The story was a national sensation and Christopher became an unwilling celebrity overnight. 'Everywhere we go, everywhere he go, people recognize us,' Christopher's wife, Candy told the Daily Mail. 'People would come up and want to ask him, 'Well, how did you get out?'' But as time went on, a lack of concrete answers created an information vacuum and conspiracy theories started to fill it. People began to turn on Christopher, accusing him of lying. They said there was no way he could have survived in the pipe. They accused him of being fame hungry, or of trying to cover something up. The vitriol grew so intense that even Christopher started to think he was going crazy. When he began his escape from the pipe, he had left the other men with the promise that he would come back with help. So when he was discharged after three days in intensive care and realized that his friends hadn't been rescued, it was agony. 'I made promises that I eventually couldn't keep. And that is something that I can't let go of,' he said, 'What gives me that right to live?' As he struggled with the aftermath of this trauma and survivor's guilt he found himself the target of trolls and critics who doubted his story so publicly he began to question his own mind. 'I went mad off reading social commentary. Sometimes I was even doubting my recollection of the events,' he told the Daily Mail. Christopher was finally vindicated nine months later, at the government appointed inquiry into the tragedy. There they played footage from a GoPro one of the men had been wearing when they were sucked in - it showed them alive inside the pipe and Christopher there with them. 'After the audio played, the whole country just went, 'man this man was telling the truth',' Christopher said. 'And it's only then that it gave me some mental peace - this was real, and I didn't make this up.' To listen to the chart-topping podcast series, search for Pipeline now, wherever you get your podcasts.
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