When the crew objected, saying that it would not be safe to do so, he insisted, and threatened to fire them and bring in another crew unless they followed his orders. So they obeyed his orders and what they feared might happen did!

So a BP executive (whatever is supposed to be meant by that - I have worked offshore on many rigs and never seen any Oil Company Executives onboard them) threatenned to fire Transocean employees? How was he going to do that? Not really a logical step even if the executive could fire the employees of another company, I mean lets face it if his complaint was the time they were taking, his threat to fire them would mean halting operations, casting round to find another crew, get them out there and up to speed in operating an unfamiliar rig, that is an enormous amount of time simply wasted, sorry not a very credible threat.