GULF OIL SPILL TIMELINE
APRIL 20, 2010: An explosion rips apart British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon oil rig on which about 126 workers were aboard, of whom up to 15 were initially reported missing. The rig is located about 45 miles southeast of the Louisiana shoreline.
APRIL 21: Rescue efforts continue as figures are revised. Authorities now say 11 workers missing and 17 other injured in the blast.
APRIL 22: Fire on the rig is extinguished but the $560-million structure sinks soon afterward and authorities report a five-mile long oil slick.
APRIL 23: Coast Guard announces it is ending its search for the missing workers because they are all presumed dead.
APRIL 25: Coast Guard announces that there two leaks from the well leaking at least 1,000 barrels of crude oil daily. The estimate is based on video from remote underwater cameras. Later there are found to be three leaks.
APRIL 27: Coast Guard announces it may set leaking oil on fie to slow the spread and the U.S. Departments of Interior and Homeland Security announce there will be a joint investigation of the incident.
APRIL 28: Initial optimistic estimates of controlling the spill are dashed when the Coast Guard announces the spill is five times greater than previously estimated.
APRIL 29: The oil slick reaches the approaches of the Mississippi Delta and President Obama pledges to use "every single available resource" to contain the spill.
APRIL 30: British Petroleum Chairman Tony Hayward says the company takes full responsibility for the spill and will pay all "legitimate claims" and the cost of cleaning up the spill.
MAY 2: President Obama visits the Gulf Coast to inspect the damage and cleanup efforts and the area is closed to fishing.
MAY 3: British Petroleum struggled to attempt to install a shutoff valve on the leaks as the slick drifts toward the shorelines of Alabama and Florid.
MAY 5: British Petroleum reports it has plugged one of the leaks and is bringing a huge containment dome to the site in an attempt to seal another leak and siphon off leaking oil.
MAY 6: The first known patch of oil to hit the Louisiana barrier islands is found by the Coast Guard and workers begin lowering the containment dome at the site.
May 9: Many oil-soaked birds are seen near the the site of the Deepwater Horizon paltform.
May 11: Lamar McKay, president and chairman of BP America, testifies about his company's role in the oil spill during a Senate hearing.
May 12: Protesters gather in front of a BP station in Los Angeles demanding answers.
May 17: BP reported that a tube it had inserted into a broken pipe was gathering more than one-fifth of the oil gushing from the Gulf of Mexico spill.
May 18: Greenpeace volunteers check oil that washed up near the mouth of the Mississippi Rivier.
May 20: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials collected the bird to to test it for exposure to oil.
May 21: BP reported on this day that the amount of oil it was collecting from a tube inserted into the ruptured well fell from 5,000 to 2,200 barrels a day, saying that the amount collected is not always the same.
May 23: Herons and other wild bird are oil-splattered in Louisiana's Barataria Bay.
May 24: BP officials acknowledged growing public frustration that the company had been unable to halt the spill.
May 25: Members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee vowed to hold BP fully accountable for the disaster.
May 26: The "top kill" device being used to try to plug the oil spill.
May 27:The Coast Guard reported that the plug succeeded in blocking the oil leak.
