When critical safety requirements for hazardous work are not clearly identified in a project, the risks of prioritizing schedule over safety become invisible to the real risk owners (project managers and operators physically exposed to hazards). If the all-important discussion fails to occur at the risk-owner level, going forward by cutting technical margins can be seen as being efficient from a cost/schedule/quality risk viewpoint. It may also result in a tragedy like the Xcel confined space tunnel fire, where risk owners became blind to latent hazards awaiting nine industrial painters recoating the inside of a hydroelectric station’s penstock tunnel. Failure to mitigate the dangers of flammable thinners in confined spaces resulted in the needless deaths of five of those nine painters.