Abstract This article presents key learnings by BP's Wells Team on the Thunder Horse project after responding to a major incident— the break of the drilling riser on the Discoverer Enterprise drillship in May 2003 in the Gulf of Mexico. Even though BP has established policies for the immediate incident response phase and conducts training exercises, there is less focus on the later recovery phase. This paper increases the awareness of critical project management issues that may arise during transition from the response to recovery phase after a major incident.