Accident investigations and analyses across a range of different industries regularly identify noncompliance with safety regulations as a significant contributory factor (Hopkins, 2011). This is not only the case in investigations of occupational accidents with a relatively limited extent of loss, but is also a recurring finding in investigations of major accidents and catastrophes (Hudson et al., 1998). One of the best known examples of this is the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986, where five of the seven human actions that led directly to the accident were deviations from written procedures (Reason, 1987), and the Piper Alpha disaster two years later where platform managers’ safety practices were found to be contributory to the disaster and significantly diverging from written procedures (Wright, 1994). Another well-known example is the BP Texas City refinery explosion in 2005, where an important finding, among others, was that a casual attitude to compliance with safety procedures contributed to the explosion at the refinery (Hopkins, 2009).
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