Podcasts
Process Safety with Trish and Traci explores real-world process safety incidents and the lessons organisations cannot afford to ignore. Drawing on recent events in chemical and high-hazard industries, the podcast shares practical insights to help prevent repeat accidents and support safer decision-making at plant level.
Piper Alpha Disaster: The Jenga Tower that was always going to fail
Forensic engineer Dr. Sean Brady joins Trish Kerin and Traci Purdum to revisit Piper Alpha, the 1988 North Sea platform disaster that killed 167 workers. They explore how failures in permit-to-work, design and safety systems combined with devastating consequences. Using the “Jenga tower” metaphor, Brady explains how safety systems can degrade unnoticed until they collapse, and why organisations must focus on consequence, controls and leadership culture to prevent the next catastrophe.
Who is taking care of your Safety Pro?
In this episode of Process Safety with Trish and Traci, they welcome back Valerie Stakes, Safety Engineer at General Atomics, to discuss well-being in the safety profession. Together, they explore compassion fatigue, burnout, the challenge of setting boundaries, and the emotional impact of working in safety. The episode also shares practical strategies for protecting your well-being and concludes with a guided breathing exercise.
GKN Aerospace Incident Offers Lessons in Reactive Hazard Management
Trish Kerin breaks down the runaway reaction that triggered a mass evacuation in Orange County, California, and explains what facilities handling reactive chemicals can learn about instrumentation, warning signs and emergency communication in this latest episode of Process Safety with Trish and Traci
1 1 Fires, 60 Days: What's Really Behind the 2026 Refinery Crisis
Recent refinery and fuel facility fires across four continents have highlighted the growing pressures facing high-hazard industries. In this episode of Process Safety with Trish and Traci, they explore how deferred maintenance, operational pressure and the normalization of risk can quietly erode safety barriers, reinforcing the importance of understanding the controls, verifying the work and maintaining open conversations with people.
Leading Safely in a VUCA World
When economic pressures mount, safety vigilance can quietly erode and that is when incidents happen. In this episode, Trish introduces APTBED, a practical decision-making framework for navigating volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times.
Preparing Chemical Facilities for NATECH Events
When natural disasters strike industrial facilities, the results can be catastrophic – and most companies are not ready. This episode explores NATECH events, where natural hazards collide with industrial risk.
Revalidating Process Hazard Analysis: Getting Real Value
When revalidations are treated as a formality, risk hides in plain sight. Creeping change, shifting conditions, and outdated assumptions can erode safeguards. This episode explores how to strengthen PHA revalidations and avoid false confidence.
Challenger Disaster 40 Years Later: The Deadly Cost of Reversing Safety Burden
Engineers could not prove danger, so managers launched anyway. Seven astronauts died when O-rings failed in freezing temperatures. Apply the lessons learned to help avoid future incidents.
Young Engineer champions Process Safety vs Social Media
Hayley Little shares her LinkedIn project tracking global incidents quarterly, using AI and virtual reality innovation ideas.
Buncefield Explosion: 20 years later, critical lessons on Tank Storage safety
The 2005 disaster resulted from redundant safety failures at a tank farm, highlighting the critical importance of monitoring weak signals.
Henry David Thoreau of Process Safety – Trevor Kletz
Trevor Kletz revolutionized process safety through HAZOP advocacy, inherent safety principles, learning from accidents, and emphasizing design simplification over complex add-ons.
How equipment reliability impacts Process Safety
Equipment reliability failures at Longford, BP and Buncefield highlight process safety lessons, maintenance KPIs and industry risks.
Challenge the illusion of Safety
Chemical facilities miss critical safety insights by investigating the wrong incidents with the wrong questions. Learn from research that analyzed over 10,000 incidents across 12 countries and multiple high-risk industries.
Lessons from deadly Permit-to-Work failures
Permit-to-work failures killed 167 men on Piper Alpha. Learn critical safety lessons to prevent future disasters.
Lessons Learned from the Colombia Disaster
NASA normalized foam strikes over time, turning “lessons of failure into memories of success.”
Process Safety: AI and machine learning transform compliance, but humans still key
Risk assessment should still be a manual process, but AI can streamline data collection to enable sound engineering judgments.
Callide Power Station: 34 minutes to disaster
Switching operation triggers catastrophic power station explosion, proving that process safety principles apply beyond traditional chemical plants to any high-hazard environment.
Deadly lessons from BP disasters
Remembering the human toll of Texas City and Deepwater Horizon and applying those lessons learned can prevent similar tragedies.
The Four Cs of effective Process Safety Storytelling
Embrace new ways of safety communication because if we keep doing the same thing, we will keep getting the same results.
Can an AI Copilot streamline HAZOPs
A former Formula One engineer has developed an AI copilot that can suggest questions, reference incident databases and provide support. But don’t worry, humans still have the last word.
Job Hazard Analysis Makeover - 5 crucial steps
Safety experts share strategies to revitalize job hazard analysis programs. A piece of paper won’t save your life, but what’s on that paper could.
The full archive of the Trish and Traci podcast can be found here