IN 1988, Geoff Bollands escaped the Piper Alpha fireball with seconds to spare.

It was the end of his career in the oil industry and for 25 years he never went near a platform again. The demons were too strong.

Then, just a few days ago, the former control-room operator went back on an oil rig for the first time since the destruction of Piper on July 6, 1988. It was not an easy decision for Mr Bollands and, right up until the night before, he was close to changing his mind.

"When I fixed up the trip, I told the organisers I might back out at any minute," he said. "The night before, I phoned my wife and told her I was going to go offshore and I expected her to say 'don't do it'. But she said 'I think it's a good idea, it'll deal with some demons'."

The hardest part of the trip, to the Central Platform in the Irish Sea, was getting on the helicopter, the first time Mr Bollands, 65, had done so since heading offshore for the shift on Piper that ended in disaster.

"Once I did that and landed on the rig, it was okay," he said. "There was definitely fear, but I'm glad I did it. When I'm reminded of Piper, it's as if it was yesterday."

Mr Bollands was in the control room on the day of the disaster – in which 167 people were killed – and was one of only 61 people, out of a crew of 228, to survive. Today, the 25th anniversary, will be marked by a remembrance service at the Piper Alpha Memorial Garden in Hazlehead Park in Aberdeen. A Sea King helicopter will perform a flypast and the names of all those who died will be read out.

Mr Bollands, who now travels around the world talking about Piper Alpha and offshore safety, believes the industry is much safer than it was in the 80s. In the aftermath of Piper, a report by Lord Cullen said there had been inadequate safety procedures on the rig and made more than 100 recommendations for improvements.

"I think the Cullen report was good," said Mr Bollands. "The industry has learned, but the thing I can't get across enough is the workers weren't complacent, we weren't sloppy, we weren't fools, we thought we were doing a good job and we were conscientious. And yet it happened to us. Some of the reports shortly afterwards gave the impression that none of us cared less and that's not true."

Carol Banks, an offshore worker from Aberdeen who has raised money to renovate the Piper memorial gardens, agreed that safety has improved offshore. "It's a much safer place to work now," she said, "and that's because of the tragedy. Everybody has learned more about the safety issues. That's why we can't forget. The industry has changed."

Some believe it hasn't changed enough though. Yesterday, Jake Molloy, an organiser of the RMT union in Aberdeen, said the safety rep structure offshore was poor or completely dysfunctional on 40% of platforms. He also said there was a real danger of a disaster like the BP Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 happening again.

Mr Bollands, who lives in Middlesbrough, accepts this risk exists and says there will always be danger offshore. Before Piper happened, he says, the crew were aware of the dangers but thought they could handle them.

"We did think hard about safety and we knew we could have an incident, but we always thought we had the equipment and the skills to contain it," he said. "But the escalation was much quicker than any of us thought it could be."

When the first explosion happened, Mr Bollands was thrown across the control room and hurt his hip. He was evacuated and taken down a rope over the side of the platform to a rescue ship. Two minutes later, the second explosion happened and the platform was destroyed.

According to Mr Bollands, there were three key reasons for Piper, which remains the world's worst offshore disaster: the original gas leak, insufficient record keeping, and a failure of shift handovers. "If we'd managed to get any one of those right, the disaster wouldn't have happened," he said.

The longer-term lesson, he said, is awareness – never relax, never think it won't happen again. "The oil industry can never be completely safe," he said, "so you can't afford to be complacent for one minute."

l Piper Alpha: Fire In The Night is on BBC Two at 9pm on Tuesday.