Dead Ahead: The Exxon Valdez Disaster Dead Ahead: The Exxon Valdez Disaster Dead Ahead: The Exxon Valdez Disaster is a 1992 movie depicting the "Exxon Valdez" oil spill disaster off the coast of Alaska. Directed by Paul Seed, it stars Christopher Lloyd, John Heard, Rip Torn and Michael Murphy. Most of the film was shot in Vancouver, Richmond and Steveston, British Columbia, but it also utilizes archival film clips of the actual disaster and cleanup efforts. On March 24, 1989, the "Exxon Valdez" oil tanker struck a reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska. It was the worst oil spill of its time, releasing over of crude
Oil tanker designs suffered from stability problems caused by the free surface effect, where oil sloshing from side to side could cause a ship to capsize. But this approach of dividing the ship's storage space into smaller tanks virtually eliminated free-surface problems. This approach, almost universal today, was first used by Swan in the Nobel tankers "Blesk", "Lumen", and "Lux". Others point to , another design of Colonel Swan, as being the first modern oil tanker. It adopted the best practices from previous oil tanker designs to create the prototype for all subsequent vessels of the type. It was the first dedicated