HOLMES: Well, the BP oil spill, it dominated our news coverage for months here at CNN and it was here at CNN that we were the first to gain TV access to the government's clean-up tank. Our own Allan Chernoff takes a look back at this unprecedented event.</s>ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Allan Chernoff. The biggest story of the year had to be the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As soon as it happened, I wondered how were they going to clean up that mess? I wanted to show viewers exactly what BP was going to have to do. So I gained access to the government's oil spill test tank where the energy industry actually practices for such accidents. It was the very first time TV cameras had ever been permitted into that high security facility. I also investigated the industry's safety record, particularly with regard to the blowout preventers that are supposed to prevent a blowout. They're supposed to be fail-safe. Our investigation showed that indeed the oil industry knew blowout preventers didn't have a good record of reliability. Now the industry is working to try to improve those blowout preventers to ensure that a Deepwater Horizon accident never happens again.</s>HOLMES: Coming up, don't you just hate it when you try to crawl through a hole, not so sure you can fit and get stuck and can't get back out? We'll have a case in point right after a quick break. Stick around
Reflecting on the BP Oil Spill