Last week it failed in its attempt to close the well with a “top kill” that filled it with mud.

上周，英国石油公司的‘灭顶计划’即，通过向井填泥土来堵漏的计划宣告失败。

youdao

This "top kill" was meant to get enough mud into the pipes to seal the well and stop the flow of oil.

这种“灭顶法”是一种为了封闭油井，阻止油漏而将足够的重液打入管道的方法。

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"Our anticipation is that it will be another seven to ten days to complete all of the preparations that we need to exercise this option and then at that point, we'll pump the kill mud and hopefully have this well killed, and well shut off, and the flow shut off."

VOA: standard.2010.05.17

With that leak sealed, the plan is to inject heavyweight "kill mud" into the lower part of the blowout preventer, followed by cement that will effectively entomb the well.

WSJ: Spill Fight Shows Progress

For instance, as I talked about yesterday, in a normal process, there are choke and kill lines that are supposed to -- that in some cases will force mud, as they did under the top kill, into the blowout preventer.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

This is what this data is supposed to monitor, but the well flow evidence would appear to have been ignored, because at this point the BP rig supervisors should have gone to a well kill operation and started to pump heavy mud back into the well bore to restore the primary control mechanism.

WSJ: The Oil Disaster Is About Human, Not System, Failure