incident data. So, while a direct comparison cannot be made, the data were sufficiently rich to give us insights into
the incidence of human and organisational issues in the maritime sector as compared to aviation.
3.3. Occurrence Analysis
Maritime: According to the European Transport safety Council, passenger fatality rates in shipping are
14.8 passengers per 100 million passenger hours and 0.46 per 100 million passenger kilometres. The data obtained
from the MAIB (Maritime Accident Investigation Branch) was analysed under three levels: Underlying accident
factor category, underlying accident factor and underlying accident sub-factor. It was found that the majority of the
factors leading to accident is related to the human factor category (74% of the underlying main factors) while 26%
are listed under the technical category. For each accident there are more than one root cause recorded in the MAIB
database. Therefore, it is very common that the number of accident sub-factors is higher than the actual number of
accidents. This confirms the view in the maritime and aviation domains that accidents are results of a chain of events
rather than a single point failure.
Under the human factors category, when underlying accident factors are analysed it can be seen that over 50% of
the underlying accident factors under the human factors category are related to ‘people’ and their poor performance.
The second largest group is ‘system-crew factors’ (15%). ‘System-company and organisation’ percentage is 9%,
which is followed by ‘working environment’ (8%) and ‘system-equipment’ (8%). All safety-related issues on board
are directly influenced by the company that the vessel belongs to. Therefore management factors are recognised as
extremely important and should form a core element of the resilience framework.
When the underlying sub-factors under the ‘people’ category are analysed it reveals that inattention was found as
the cause of the majority of the accidents reported. Inattention results as the main cause leading to human error
(19%) while perception of risk (9.3%) is the second most frequent underlying sub-factor of ‘people’ related to
marine accidents. 8.8% of human errors are caused by inadequate communication or situational awareness and 8.1%
of human related errors are caused by perception abilities. 6% are caused by complacency and 5.8% by the
competence of people. Under the ‘system-crew’ factor, 42% of the underlying sub-factors are related to inadequate
procedures which may be misleading or may give insufficient information. This is followed by lack of
communication or coordination between crew members with 18%. These occurrence analyses clearly highlight the
gaps in various areas, which are related to human and organisational issues.
Aviation: The Global Fatal Accident Review 2002 to 2011 was carried out to provide a ten-year overview of
worldwide fatal accidents involving large jet and turboprop aeroplanes engaged in passenger, cargo and
ferry/positioning flights (CAA, 2013). There were a total of 250 worldwide fatal accidents, which resulted in
7,148 fatalities to passengers and crewmembers on-board the aircraft. The proportion of aircraft occupants killed in
these fatal accidents was 70% which indicates that, on average, 30% of occupants survived. The overall fatal
accident rate for the ten-year period from 2002 to 2011 was 0.6 fatal accidents per million flights flown or 0.4 when
expressed as per million hours flown. The corresponding on-board fatality rate for the same period was
22.0 fatalities per million flights flown or 12.7 when expressed as per million hours flown. According to European
Transport safety Council, passenger fatality rates in aviation is 0.035 per 100 million passenger kilometres. Factors
related to the human element are by far the main explanatory factor, in view of the data submitted to the UK CAA´s
Mandatory Occurrence Reporting (MOR).