Incident investigations Identify human failure as the key cause of almost all accidents, creating the impression that people cause incidents. However, human error is not simply a feature of individual failure, but is caused by work-place factors, equipment, and task design, among others. Mistakes are typically due to conditions and systems that make work difficult.
This is the third guiding principle of the eight OCIMF principals on human factors, highlighting the importance of not putting the blame on a specific person for an incident but try to see why the system allowed it to happen. A poorly designed activity might be prone to a combination of errors and more than one solution may be necessary. Incident investigations should seek to identify why individuals have failed rather than stopping at 'operator error'. In any case, human failure is normal, predictable and, most importantly, manageable.
Source: Safety4Sea Log