BP oil spill?

I think that instead of focusing solely on plugging the pipe, they should have contained the area all around the well by forming a circle with some kind of curtains dropped down from the surface extending all the way to the bottom. Then pull up some tankers and let them suck up all the oil/water mix, separate it with on-board machines, and off-load the oil onto other tankers to carry it off to refineries. No oil would reach the coastlines.

Everybody was too fixated on fixing the leak to think about the problem in another way.