(Bloomberg) — Federal prosecutors dropped manslaughter charges against BP Plc's two top employees on the doomed oil rig that blew up in 2010, the latest setback for investigators probing the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
The dismissal of the most serious charges against Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine, who supervised testing on the Macondo well, means the two won't stand trial for the deaths of 11 men killed in the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon. Kaluza, 65, and Vidrine, 68, were among four BP workers to face charges in the aftermath of the spill.
The U.S. accused the pair of ignoring multiple signals that the well was dangerously unstable before the explosion. Kaluza and Vidrine were each charged with 11 counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of violating the U.S. Clean Water Act.
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