There are always several major screw-ups before a tradegy that costs lives and this kind of money.
Part of the problem will eventually be tied back to the corporate culture that probably rewards risk takers when things go well. Of course they will punish the present set of risk takers, that is the way the cookie crumbles.
What is needed is a system safety risk management approach that requires certain safety critical hazards get reported over local management to someplace high in the organization where the CEO can get involved. (It was pretty damning that Tony had to keep saying that he did not know when they asked him questions.)
The big problem is that the people on the rig who had comand authority had no comprehension of how badly the corporation would be hurt by an uncontrolled blow-out. But at the same time no one had the responsibility to test the BOP at that depth with the pipe they were using. (This type of thing should be mandatory.) So the little decisions being made in this article do not cover all the errors that were made by BP at some level in the corporation. I would imaging there are safety people who will also be fired eventually over this, as well as some program managers and a few higher ups for balance.
They had been testing the BOP but at lower than normal pressures. On safety and procedures the BP rigs are a big fail, apparently they have had 700 odd infractions and Exxon Mobil only 1. I don’t have numbers on comparable numbers of rigs though. Right now it seems as if BP lives on the edge that others won’t go near.