They are the little big guys who pulled off the
unprecedented Chilean mine rescue. We got to know them over the last few weeks
as Plan B forged ahead and eventually freed the 33 men trapped underground at
San José mine, Chile.
When the miners were discovered alive on August 22, initial estimates of the rescue operation were a minimum of six months. Nobody had been trapped at such a depth before.
But Brandon Fisher, who runs a specialist drilling firm called Center Rock Inc., in Berlin, Pennsylvania, was convinced he could do the job quicker. Fisher had been involved in the rescue at Quecreek, Pennsylvania, in July 2002, in which nine miners had been saved after having been trapped for over 78 hours. But despite his experience, Fisher couldn't get anyone to listen to him.
The NOVA film crew interviews driller Greg Hall during the height of the crisis.
Enter stage left the hulking figure of Greg Hall, who runs his own small firm, Drillers Supply International, in Cypress, Texas. Hall has a long-standing connection with Chile ("it's my second home"), speaks impeccable Spanish, and runs his South American operations out of Antofagasta, about 300 miles north of the San José mine.
Hall's general manager there, Mijali Proestakis, and Proestakis's nephew Igor, had been involved in the early stages of the rescue operation, and Hall quickly persuaded the Chilean government to listen to Fisher's pitch.
It was a bold plan: to sacrifice one of the narrow supply lines being used to keep the miners alive, supplying them with food, water, air, and, later, communications and electricity.
When the miners were discovered alive on August 22, initial estimates of the rescue operation were a minimum of six months. Nobody had been trapped at such a depth before.
But Brandon Fisher, who runs a specialist drilling firm called Center Rock Inc., in Berlin, Pennsylvania, was convinced he could do the job quicker. Fisher had been involved in the rescue at Quecreek, Pennsylvania, in July 2002, in which nine miners had been saved after having been trapped for over 78 hours. But despite his experience, Fisher couldn't get anyone to listen to him.
The NOVA film crew interviews driller Greg Hall during the height of the crisis.
Enter stage left the hulking figure of Greg Hall, who runs his own small firm, Drillers Supply International, in Cypress, Texas. Hall has a long-standing connection with Chile ("it's my second home"), speaks impeccable Spanish, and runs his South American operations out of Antofagasta, about 300 miles north of the San José mine.
Hall's general manager there, Mijali Proestakis, and Proestakis's nephew Igor, had been involved in the early stages of the rescue operation, and Hall quickly persuaded the Chilean government to listen to Fisher's pitch.
It was a bold plan: to sacrifice one of the narrow supply lines being used to keep the miners alive, supplying them with food, water, air, and, later, communications and electricity.
The third paloma -- literally "pigeon," as in
carrier pigeon, a cylinder used to lower supplies to the miners -- would be
used to guide Hall's drilling pipe equipped with Fisher's air-powered,
tungsten-tipped drill heads, and punch their way through 2,050 feet of granite.
Driller Jeff Hart from Denver, Colorado, was brought in because he is, quite simply, the best in the world at doing what he does.
Plan B rolled into operation on Sunday, September 5, as our film team arrived at Campamento Esperanza. But the rock was harder than expected, and after four days the drill bits shattered while drilling the pilot hole of about 10 and a half inches. It took another four days of painstaking effort to remove the drill bit before the work could resume.
The first pilot hole broke through on September 17 but then had to be widened, and problems still lay ahead because of the twisting, sinuous nature of the hole.
I sat with Hall the afternoon before the breakthrough, as only 130 feet lay between the miners and their way to freedom. The drillers had to change the drill bits, which meant a 10-hour operation taking the pipes out of the hole and then feeding them back down.
Greg Hall sat nervously with me, and as the drill tower shuddered, he said, "That's really what you don't want to see. You want a slow, smooth movement. But we'll get there."
Hall later confided that he wasn't quite as sure as he sounded, and that in those dreadful twilight hours on Friday, October 8, he feared that Plan B, so close to success, was about to fail at the last hurdle.
If they hadn't got the pipes down, they would have lost the hole.
But thanks to Jeff Hart they managed the feed, resumed drilling late at night, and at 8:02 the following morning they made the great breakthrough.
The rest is history.
Watch NOVA's "Emergency Mine Rescue" on Tuesday, October 26, at 8pm on PBS.
Driller Jeff Hart from Denver, Colorado, was brought in because he is, quite simply, the best in the world at doing what he does.
Plan B rolled into operation on Sunday, September 5, as our film team arrived at Campamento Esperanza. But the rock was harder than expected, and after four days the drill bits shattered while drilling the pilot hole of about 10 and a half inches. It took another four days of painstaking effort to remove the drill bit before the work could resume.
The first pilot hole broke through on September 17 but then had to be widened, and problems still lay ahead because of the twisting, sinuous nature of the hole.
I sat with Hall the afternoon before the breakthrough, as only 130 feet lay between the miners and their way to freedom. The drillers had to change the drill bits, which meant a 10-hour operation taking the pipes out of the hole and then feeding them back down.
Greg Hall sat nervously with me, and as the drill tower shuddered, he said, "That's really what you don't want to see. You want a slow, smooth movement. But we'll get there."
Hall later confided that he wasn't quite as sure as he sounded, and that in those dreadful twilight hours on Friday, October 8, he feared that Plan B, so close to success, was about to fail at the last hurdle.
If they hadn't got the pipes down, they would have lost the hole.
But thanks to Jeff Hart they managed the feed, resumed drilling late at night, and at 8:02 the following morning they made the great breakthrough.
The rest is history.
Watch NOVA's "Emergency Mine Rescue" on Tuesday, October 26, at 8pm on PBS.
October 28, 2010 2:40 PM
Great coverage! I would appreciate more information about how they steer these underground drills. Are the drilling shafts segmented with universal joints? I had the same question about the under-ocean drilling at the Gulf oil spill which had a target only a fraction of an inch wide and was drilled at a relatively shallow angle. What kind of device makes the bit change its course, and how is it controlled from the top and what kind of sensor provides feedback on where the bit is going?
October 31, 2010 6:03 PM
Thank you for noting the invaluable work of my General Manager and Partner Mijali Proestakis and our technical manager Igor in Plan B of the Chilean miner rescue.
Please note that I did not facilitate the Chilean government's listening to "Fisher's pitch." We incorporated Center Rock's cluster hammer into our overall plan which Igor Proestaki pitched on behalf of Drillers Supply SA (please note that Igor reports to Mijali but Mijali was on vacation at the time). As I have stated before, Plan B was a team effort and Center Rock was an integral part of the overall plan; the sum was truly greater than the individual parts.