The human element: safety lessons from other domains

摘要

No one actively involved in the maritime industry would deny the continued relevance of Joseph Conrad's observation in Mirror of the Sea that the "sea never has been friendly to man ... Its fickleness is to be held true to man's purposes only by an undaunted resolution and by a sleepless, armed, jealous vigilance." Despite this awareness and many technological advances, we continue to experience significant maritime casualties. Recent examples include the sinkings of the ferry al-Salaam Boccaccio 98 in the Red Sea with more than 900 fatalities and the cruise ship Sea Diamond off the Greek island of Santorini, the strandings of APL Panama on the Pacific Coast of Mexico and the British Columbia ferry Queen of the North, structural compromise of the containership MSC Napoli in the English Channel and the catastrophic fire on Hyundai Fortune in the Gulf of Aden, to name but a few.