Human factor analysis of container vessel?s grounding accidents

Container shipping plays an important role in maritime transportation. Though container ships are mostly new construction ships equipped with modern and sophisticated devices, sea accidents continue to occur. The major parts of marine accidents belong to ship grounding accidents. In the context of the study, data obtained from International Maritime Organization and Global Integrated Shipping Information System, countries research/report accidents within national and international framework and accident reports from 1993 to 2010 prepared by related institutions are analyzed. For this purpose, in the general information section literature about ship, container ships, International Maritime Organization, accident, risk and human error is reviewed; definitions, information about terms and concepts are given. In literature review section grounding reports of container ships are examined; causes of accidents are categorized and evaluated in accordance with content rate, Fault Tree Analysis and Monte Carlo Simulation. In the grounding rates of container ships it is determined that human error caused 64,49% of accidents; uncontroable factors caused the 35,51% of accidents. The distribution of human errors is found that, 38,58% voyage management errors, 26,02% physical problems, 23,96% mental problems, 11,42% shift management errors. As a result, 50% of human error is human performance disorder, the other 50% is team errors.