NEW ORLEANS — BP could have ended its massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico sooner if it had built a capping stack before the 2010 blowout of its well off the coast of Louisiana, a company executive said under cross-examination today at a trial over the deadly disaster.

James Dupree, who led BP’s efforts to seal its well, said engineers didn’t have the equipment they needed to attack this particular well at the time of the blowout and had to formulate several possible solutions “on the fly.” After several other methods failed, BP ultimately used a capping stack to seal the well 87 days after the blowout.

During cross-examination by a plaintiffs’ attorney, Dupree said it would have been relatively inexpensive for BP to build a capping stack before the Deepwater Horizon disaster.