The Norwegian Navy frigate Helge Ingstad was declared a complete loss after colliding with a tanker on November 8, 2018. However the largest mistake was not associated to the collision itself.
Knowingly, and in contradiction to the official findings of the Norwegian Security Investigation Authority (NSIA), the Public Prosecutor dragged the officer-in-charge on the frigate into court docket.
Final week’s sentence was a two-month suspended jail sentence for the officer, though the accident involving the 113,700 dwt Sola TS (2017 make) has been proven to be the results of a posh mixture of a number of causes.
This authorized course of seems to criminalize one thing very human – doing an sincere fallacious. A aspect impact of criminalization is a rising reluctance to confess wrongdoing, and its impression can lengthen far past the Norwegian Navy to have an effect on the maritime business and society at massive.
The result’s a world with extra failures and undetected errors which will escalate into critical accidents, when it’s definitely the responsibility of the courts to make society safer and higher.
It’s typical in disasters that the particular person at all times is aware of what went fallacious earlier than the accident. Therefore, the wisest factor is to decrease the bar for expressing issues and highlighting errors, to handle issues earlier than it’s too late.
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We’ve to confess that all of us make errors – it is merely human, and we won’t make people free from failure. However by acknowledging errors, we are able to tackle failures earlier than issues worsen. This makes it pure to share our errors and attempt to perceive others’ errors, exactly as a result of we are able to all be taught from them. This mindset is the other of criminalizing sincere errors.
There have been examples in naval investigations the place watch officers watched a soccer recreation whereas on responsibility, intentionally carried out dangerous maneuvers or had been intoxicated. This conduct will be referred to as negligent. However that is very completely different from what occurred aboard the Helge Ingstad.
The very first thing the condemned officer did when he reached the bridge was to query a brilliant gentle on the horizon. Talk about this with the earlier probation officer. The 2 males and two observers every concluded that the sunshine was an object on Earth. Solely the helmsman thought it was one other ship, however he stored his suspicions to himself. Eight minutes later, the accident was actual.
They tried their finest. Sadly, all of them fail.
All of us are likely to assume that we’re good at reporting bugs and defects. However the fact is, we select to stay silent when the stakes are excessive – and stats present we’re turning into much less prepared to talk up.
One motive for this tendency shouldn’t be listening to those that specific their issues. One of many conditions for listening to somebody who speaks loudly is realizing that it’s troublesome to take action. This requires openness about errors, belief, group, maturity, will, and time. Criminalizing errors eliminates this openness.
The issues revealed within the NSIA investigation will not be mitigated by the imprisonment of the officer of the watch. As a substitute of in search of somebody in charge, we as an business ought to ask ourselves what we are able to be taught from this incident and from others.
It’s not sufficient to grasp why and the way the accident happens. Actual studying means implementing interventions to make sure comparable issues do not occur once more.
Nonetheless, the problem of doing this throughout time zones, ships, shifts and nationwide cultures should be acknowledged by all stakeholders, particularly regulators and prosecuting authorities. Implementation requires confidence, alertness and openness.
Encouraging an open thoughts and studying from errors is one of the simplest ways to deal with failures and cut back the danger of accidents.
Turkel Somma is Chief Scientific Officer of the Oslo-based security tradition group SAYFR
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