Mr Krause told BBC Radio 4's 'Oil: A Crude History of Britain': "We were on a helicopter flying over what was remaining of the platform. What was left was leaning and on fire.
"There was myself, my colleague Raymond Henry, Red Adair and Leon Daniels, who was the president of Occidental.
"We flew over it, making a number of passes, and I'll never forget it, Leon said: 'This is horrible, what are you guys going to do?'
"And Red said: 'We can't do anything. There's nothing left. It's too dangerous to get up there'.