Publication Shipping Occurrences Report

Occupational accidents continue to happen in the Dutch shipping sector. It appears that that a lot of attention is drawn to serious and very serious accidents involving the loss of a ship and the consequences thereafter, but incidents  occurring during daily routine work receive less attention. The Dutch Safety Board stated in their first edition of the Shipping Occurrences Report, published today. The report contains eight summaries of recently published reports, eight new investigations announced in which the Dutch Safety Board is involved and it includes 25 accounts of occurrences that are not investigated intensively within November 2014 till May 2015.
 
In this report, the Dutch Safety Board presents descriptions of shipping accidents on board ships flying the Dutch flag as well as accidents occurring within the Dutch territorial waters. It appears that that a lot of attention is drawn to serious and very serious accidents involving the loss of a ship and the consequences thereafter. Accidents occurring during daily routine work receive less attention than serious accidents involving the loss of ships. Investigations into these individual occupational accidents show that risks are sometimes underestimated and that there is a lack of focus on personal safety amongst seafarers.
 
They accept safety risks as part of their job. For problems occurring during a routine job, pragmatic solutions are found without the safety risks being properly judged. These solutions often lead to dangerous situations. The Dutch Safety Board concluded that more attention should be given to the safety culture on board ships so as to reduce the number of accidents on board ships.