Chile has come out of this looking like a very advanced country with direct, strong leadership. This incident would not have turned out this way in most countries. Can you imagine how Iran or China or Russia would have handled this? They would have sealed the hole right after the cave in.
Don’t overlook the U.S. role in this. Codelco turned to Geotec Boyles Bros., a U.S.-Chilean company, to handle the “Plan B” escape shaft, one of three simultaneous drilling efforts that raced to reach the miners. They began simultaneously but “Plan B” was months ahead of reaching the miners and possibly saved their lives.
Geotec operations manager James Stefanic said he quickly assembled “a top of the line team” of drillers who are intimately familiar with the key equipment, including engineers from two Pennsylvania companies — Schramm Inc., which makes the T130 drill, and Center Rock Inc., which makes the drill bits.