The Coast Guard is backing off its earlier report that an oil sheen about a mile long was spreading following a platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.
Coast Guard Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau said Thursday afternoon that crews were unable to confirm the oil sheen. The Coast Guard says platform owner Mariner Energy reported a sheen about a mile long and 100 feet wide. But the company has said in a statement that an initial flyover didn't find an oil spill.
Ben-lesau says the fire on the platform has been put out. All 13 crew members were rescued from the water.
No one was killed in the explosion and fire on the offshore petroleum platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
Thursday's explosion happened about 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay along the central Louisiana coast. That's west of the site of the April explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig leased by BP that caused the massive oil spill.
Unlike the BP Deepwater oil rig that exploded and killed 11 in April, though, Thursday's accident involved an oil production platform that was only 340 feet under water.
The Department of Homeland Security says the platform is in about 2,500 feet of water. DHS says it's owned by Mariner Energy Incorporated of Houston and wasn't producing oil and gas.
Seven Coast Guard helicopters, two airplanes and three cutters were dispatched to the scene from New Orleans, Houston and Mobile, Ala.
