In an announcement released today, the commission said the Macondo MC252 blowout was due to a number of separate risk factors, oversights, and outright mistakes that combined to overwhelm the safeguards meant to prevent such an event from happening.

"But most of the mistakes and oversights at Macondo can be traced back to a single overarching failure - a failure of management," the commission said.

"Better management by BP, Halliburton, and Transocean would almost certainly have prevented the blowout by improving the ability of individuals involved to identify the risks they faced, and to properly evaluate, communicate and address them."

The commission also quoted parts of its as yet unreleased report that notes many of the decisions "that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean made that increased the risk of the Macondo blowout clearly saved those companies significant time".

However, the commission also took the entire oil and gas industry to task, with its co-chair William Reilly "reluctantly" concluding that given the documented failings of both Transocean and Halliburton, both of which served the offshore industry in virtually every ocean, there was a system-wide problem.

Fellow co-chair Bob Graham added the findings compounded the sense of tragedy as "we know now that the blowout of the Macondo well was avoidable".

"This disaster likely would not have happened had the companies involved been guided by an unrelenting commitment to safety first."

However, Graham did not spare US government regulators either, saying the disaster could have been averted if they had the capacity and will to demand world-class safety standards.

The seven-member commission has also been tasked by US President Barack Obama to recommend safety and environmental precautions the government should take to prevent future mishaps.