At approximately 9:50 p.m. on the evening of April 20, 2010, while the crew of the Deepwater Horizon rig was finishing work after drilling the Macondo exploratory well, an undetected influx of hydrocarbons, commonly referred to as a “kick”, escalated to a blowout. Shortly after the blowout, hydrocarbons that had flowed onto the rig floor through a mudgas vent line ignited in two separate explosions. Flowing hydrocarbons fueled a fire on the rig that continued to burn until the rig sank on April 22. Eleven men died on the Deepwater Horizon that evening. Over the next 87 days, almost five million barrels of oil were discharged from the Macondo well into the Gulf of Mexico.