Investigating the Truth of Heinrich's Pyramid in Offshore Helicopter Transportation

Abstract

Several hazardous industries have embraced Heinrich's premise that incidents of negligible safety consequences are precursors to accidents in a statistical sense. However, in few such industries has research verified the truth of that assumption. This paper explores the relationships between accidents and reported incidents in the context of oil and gas–related offshore helicopter operations by using the accident investigation reports published by the UK Air Accident Investigation Branch and the incidents filed under the British Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Scheme between 1997 and 2010. Classification frameworks were developed to enable the independent analysis of accidents and incidents in relation to specific variables of interest. Frequencies and statistical associations that could have indicated the precursor relationship were explored. From the results of the analysis, the paper highlights potentially severe shortcomings in the assumptions underpinning incident data collection as well as the process with which incident data are generated. For example, the paper unveils the existence of sudden failures that cannot be reliably anticipated or reported and draws attention to a potentially flawed incident-reporting culture. Given the results, the paper informs stakeholders in the industry of specific initiatives to ensure that the right lessons are learned from past occurrences (e.g., through ways of collecting incident data that will not rely solely on reporters) and how these could be used to inform future interventions, for example, through the analysis of potential consequences of incidents, as a complement to the analysis of frequencies.

Seeing through the mist: an evaluation of an iteratively designed head-up display, using a simulated degraded visual environment, to facilitate rotary-wing pilot situation awareness and workload

“…Pilots' awareness of the various parameters was maintained to levels similar to those observed in clear visual conditions without the HUD, indicating that the presentation of a synthetic external environment allowed the pilots to continue to fly in an anticipatory fashion, and not shift to be reliant on cockpit instrumentation, typical with such conditions (Snow and French 2002;Harris 2011;Wickens 2002). As awareness of obstacles at the destination; sufficiency of visual cues for approach; stability of visual cues and sufficiency of visual aids for landing are primary performance factors for pilots during flight (Nascimento et al 2013) it is clear that the HUD actively facilitated the pilots' task.…”

“…The cockpit instrument scanning behaviour of pilots supports the notion of confirmatory information 'check', whereby time is dedicated to the sampling of information only if an unexpected discrepancy is observed (Wickens 2002). Supporting the importance of visual cues, one analysis of helicopter accidents near offshore drilling platforms identified awareness of obstacles at the destination; sufficiency of visual cues for approach; stability of visual cues and sufficiency of visual aids for landing as the primary performance factors (Nascimento et al 2013).…”

Examining Factors that Influence the Existence of Heinrich's Safety Triangle Using Site‐Specific H&S Data from More than 25,000 Establishments

“…Although Heinrich's ideas have been very influential to OSH policy and management, their prominent place in accident prevention theory has recently been questioned. (6)(7)(8) Recent criticisms center on the legitimacy of the fixed ratios as well as the idea that high severity OSH incidents can be prevented by controlling the hazards and risks revealed through cause analysis of lower severity OSH incidents.…”

Night-time offshore helicopter operations: a survey of risk levels per phase of flight, flying recency requirement and visual approach technique

“…Well-discriminated phases of flight reflect analogous environmental hazards, aerodynamic loads, task complexities and pilot activities. Hence, phases of flight receive prime consideration during both the investigation of safety occurrences and the development of pilot training syllabi (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14) . However, the phases of flight uniquely performed by helicopters are still poorly discriminated (5,15) because the current taxonomies are ill-adapted from fixed-wing operations (16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21) .…”