On the Prevalence of Organizational Factors in Recent U.S. Transportation Accidents

Critics often claim that transportation accident investigations focus on finding someone to blame at the expense of deeper inquiries into the organizational factors that may have contributed to the accidents. Our independent analysis of the results of major National Transportation Safety Board investigations into aviation, marine, rail, highway, pipeline, and hazardous materials accidents refutes this claim. This analysis shows that organizational factors are consistently explored by the NTSB, and are more frequently cited in the reports than are ‘simple’ human errors.