Safety reporting trends show that confidential incident and near-miss reporting play an important role in improving safety at sea. Yet, certain vessel types report fewer incidents than others, writes Adam Parnell, Director (Maritime) at CHIRP, as he explores the reasons behind it.
Despite the benefits of reporting safety incidents at sea and the learnings it can offer to improve standards in our industry, some vessel sectors report incidents much less than others. Why are seafarers holding back?
The most common vessel types that sent safety incident reports to CHIRP are superyachts (36%), oil/chemical tankers (13%), container vessels (9%) and bulk carriers (6%). This doesn’t mean they experience more incidents than other sectors, these numbers reflect the global fleet and suggest a good reporting culture. However, this is not the case for other sectors, most notably RORO/ROPAX (~2%), cruise vessels (~2%) and commercial fishers (0%).
We know from industry data that these sectors experience safety incidents and accidents like any other, albeit to varying degrees. So why are seafarers working in these vessel sectors not reporting their experiences to independent and confidential organisations such as CHIRP? General reasons for people not reporting tend to be a lack of top-down safety culture, fear of being judged, fear of enforcement, reprisals or reputational damage to their career or their company. So too can a lack of education on the benefits of reporting.
For those that are unaware, let’s quickly demonstrate why reporting safety incidents to a third party is of benefit to everyone. For every incident resulting in major harm, there can be 30 resulting in minor harm, and 300 ‘near-misses’. For this reason, we encourage organisations, managers, and sea-going and shore-based personnel to actively champion and encourage near-miss and incident reporting not just internally but to third parties like CHIRP too. By understanding why those 300 near-misses happen, we stand a better chance of preventing that one serious incident.
We also make sure any report is completely unidentifiable – no personal or company details are included. What you’re left with is a powerful tool that helps the entire industry learn from the experiences of others instead of that knowledge being left only with a select few. Of course, each vessel sector faces its own unique operating challenges and there is a need to ensure that valuable lessons are not being missed out due to a lack of reporting in one area of our industry.
Shunning the spotlight
Each vessel sector will also have its reasons for underreporting. When we look at fishing vessels, these are generally family-run or single-owner businesses that do not necessarily have a formal reporting culture. They may not see the value in reporting a safety incident on their vessels externally and only share incidents and learnings with their employees.
The collection of safety data for fishing vessels is complicated. As there are no international safety standards in place for small fishing vessels, they will instead operate under national regulations and safety standards, which can vary from one jurisdiction to the next. Sometimes, vessels will be operating across multiple jurisdictions, making compliance and reporting procedures for incidents complex. All the more reason, then, to make use of a third-party organisation like CHIRP.
Instead of working in silos, imagine the benefits that could be gained if all small and family-run fishing companies shared their safety incident information, confidentially, but openly. It is mutually beneficial in accessing lessons you would otherwise have no access to. It raises the levels of safety in your entire sector, leading to fewer injuries and loss of life, less downtime, greater ability to attract and retain talent and healthier happier crews. This is of course a benefit for any sector choosing to be open and allowing others to benefit from their near misses and safety incidents.
Underreporting in the leisure and cruise sector is also likely in a bid, at least in part, to protect its reputation. These sectors are built on the perception of providing a happy holiday experience, and they would not want to negate this by shining a spotlight on safety incidents. This is also likely true for RORO/ROPAX ferries where commercial success is tied in with passengers believing the service is safe and reliable. However, this logic is flawed – being seen as a sector that is open to sharing safety issues shows a willingness to learn and address them rather than sweeping them under the rug. However, to gain access to best practices and lessons learned from others in your sector, everyone must be open to sharing information, not just a willing few.
We know many incidents happen when operating close to shore in busy ports, so reporting should be much higher in these sectors than it currently is. This is where confidential services like ours can help. We remove identifiable information when we share reports with the industry, protecting people and companies from reprisal while allowing the valuable lessons learned to be shared with everyone. Where the reporter has expressed they are happy for us to do so, and there is a need for it, we’ll also confidentially follow up with the organisations, Flag States, Classification Societies or Unions to help prevent similar incidents from occurring going forward.
Nurturing a culture of sharing
It is not surprising that the vessel sectors that report most to CHIRP often have their own well-established safety and reporting protocols (for tankers there is SIRE and for containerships the Cargo Incident Notification System). This means a just and open culture of sharing is more likely to be valued and encouraged amongst its workforce at sea and ashore.
I have repeatedly heard from people using CHIRP that what has prevented them from reporting in the past has been fear of not being believed, or that they could be blamed or punished for the incident or considered bad at their job. Without a just culture in the workplace, it is understandable why people would feel this way. At CHIRP, we believe you and make sure there will be no blame or backlash as a result.
Ultimately, though, we need buy-in from leaders to get underreporting sectors sharing their safety incidents more widely, and helping to raise standards across their sectors and the maritime industry as a whole.
All too often incident investigations determine it was the seafarers who were at the root cause. However, our data from 2023-24 showed that several of the factors which contributed to incidents, from insufficient personnel levels, safety culture, safety management, originated ashore – at the senior management level.
When you look at the causal factors for incidents reported to CHIRP across all vessel types they can be broadly grouped as lapses in communication, operational leadership, insufficient personnel, as well as design weaknesses that do not account for safety. However, with reporting lagging in some vessel sectors we may be missing important parts of the picture and key safety lessons will remain unlearned and continue year on year.
It is essential to create that culture of sharing knowledge if we are to better understand where our industry’s challenges truly lie.
We must remember that learning is a shared experience and is an active process: once we know where the problems really lie we need to take proactive steps to resolve them.
All too often, when dealing with statistics the human impact can feel distant, but we must remember the effects each incident can have on the people involved. Unfortunately, over 50% of reports submitted to CHIRP during 2023-2024 resulted in one or more fatalities, almost all of which resulted from entry into enclosed spaces that had been insufficiently ventilated. The next leading cause of reported deaths was of people unintentionally falling into the water without life jackets. Preventing further seafarer deaths by better sharing of all safety incident information should be our common goal.
The need for visibility of safety issues industry-wide has been recognised in the recent updates to the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC). All deaths of seafarers employed, engaged or working on board ships should be adequately investigated, recorded and reported annually to the Director-General of the International Labour Office to be published in a global register. This is another step in the right direction to understanding the real scale of safety issues in our sector and the human impact they have.
Our experience over the years and the analysis of maritime reports underscores the important role that confidential incident and near-miss reporting can have in improving safety at sea. I encourage the industry to improve the rate of near-miss reporting in all sectors. The benefits for the long term are clear.
The views presented are only those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.
