Human Error Analysis in USA Marine Accidents Reports

Abstract

The analysis of accidents is the most useful instruments to avoid accidents. In the case of marine accidents, from a collision of a boat in a port to the wreck of a gigantic tanker ship, the study of the causes of the accidents is the basis of a large part of the marine legislation.

Some countries have official institutions who investigate the accidents in their shores or in which a ship with their flag is involved. In the case of the USA, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is responsible for these researches. The NTSB, after a deep investigation into each accident, publishes a Marine Accident Report with the possible cause or causes of the accident.

This paper analyses all the Marine Accident Reports published by the NTBS between June 1975 and April 2015, and focuses its attention in the hum       an errors that led to reported accidents. In this research, the different human errors made by crewmembers are catalogued in 10 different groups.

After a complete analysis of all the reports, the statistical analysis on the human errors typology in marine accidents is presexnted in order to use it as a tool to avoid the same errors in the future.