AN ANALYTICAL STUDY ON THE CAUSE OF SHIP ACCIDENTS

Abstract

A systematic approach for the analysis of ship accidents is presented. A simple stochasticmodel as to the process of accident occurrence is provided, in which vulnerable behavior is involved as the state prior to the accident. Vulnerable behavior is human error in the ship navigation that has the possibility of resulting in an accident. Therefore, reducing the behavior has the effect on preventing accidents, and it requires understandings of the latent factors causing the behavior. Based on the concepts, an accident analysis and a vulnerable behavior analysis are made using the data of actual accident cases and those obtained through the questionnaire to ship captains. The results of these analyses demonstrate the vulnerable behaviors that have to be reduced corresponding to each accident category and reveal five factors that are concerned in the occurrence of such behaviors. It is concluded that improving the situations indicated by the factors is useful for preventing ship accidents.