Prueba de hipótesis general:

If a nonconformity case developed into an accident, it would be dealt with more seriously.

Both companies’ management systems showed that they adopted a similar definition of the term ‘accident’, as was given in section 2.5.3 (safety reporting). Should an accident happen on board, the crew should first respond according to the emergency action procedures, which included immediate telephone contact with the shore management. In C1, the form

‘Accident Report’ should be filled out and sent to the company. The report should include an initial cause analysis of the accident and any relevant written and photographic evidence.

In C2, the report was made at two sequential stages, the first ‘Initial Report on Shipboard Emergencies’ and the second ‘Accident/Incident Follow-up Report’.

In both companies, the scales of accidents were well structured and defined. In C1, all the accidents were divided into four scales: catastrophe, major accident, average accident and minor accident. In C2, they were divided into five scales: from A to E, A standing for the most severe while E was the least severe. To illustrate this, the different scales of an accident in C2 are given (Table 6). If the consequence of an accident met any one of the three index standards, i.e., casualties, property loss and environmental impact, the corresponding scale was applied.

Table 6: Categories of Accidents

Consequences of Accidents

Scale Casualties Property Loss Environmental Impact

A Fatalities Explosion/Collision/Ground ing etc. Total Loss ≥ 200,000 Yuan^xiii

Major oil spill≥ 100BBLS^xiv or uncontrolled gas release＞ 10 tons or equivalent

xiii Yuan: a base unit of Chinese currency. 1 Yuan = 0.095 British Pounds (6 Feb 2011)

B DAFWC^xv Ship Not under Control etc.

Regional environment impact and violation of environmental law at moderate level, having potential impact on company’s credibility

No environmental impact, minor violation of environmental law and minor impact on management according to the reporting procedures. In the previous sub-section, various factors affecting a crew’s nonconformity reporting were discussed. However, the impact of an accident on a crew became significant provided that one could not escape the charge of work negligence. Apart from the deduction of safety bonus, rank promotion, job appointment and security would all be affected (see section 6.3.2 for the impact on a crew).

A common view was that if an accident occurred, for whatever reason, it meant someone

‘had not done his work well’. In C1, one of the special disciplines applied to the crew member who caused an accident was rank degradation. A junior officer gave an example:

One of our company’s ships collided with a small ship, and the latter was sunk.

Investigation showed that it was the chief officer’s problem. That chief officer was degraded to second officer. (2O, S2 C1)

In C2, the common practice was to terminate an employment contract immediately after an accident. During my field work on both ships in C2, a few similar cases were heard, for example, the ‘collision with wharf’ (S3 C2) and the ‘loss of anchor’ accidents (S4 C2). The crew member who caused the accident would never be employed by the company again.

Despite the fact that an accident could not be covered up and it had to be reported, the data showed that some of the accident reports could still be biased, particularly for minor

Concern of Liability

According to the management systems of both companies, all the accidents had to be immediately reported to the shore management. Simply, the consequences could not be handled properly without the intervention of the management. An accident report would be drafted by the head of the department on board and verified by the captain. Principally, the report was meant to be based on the facts. However, this was not always the case in practice.

On some occasions, a report could be purposefully biased. For example, I met the chief engineer on S3 C2. Before he had come to C2, he had worked for C1 for almost thirty years.

He talked about his observations and experiences in dealing with an accident report:

In the past, when I was in C1, the way of dealing with this was: first, it (report) should not link to your responsibility; second, (it) should not be attributed to your colleagues (responsibility); and third, (it) should not be linked to your company leaders (responsibility). If you throw (discharge) all the responsibilities to your company, do you mean that the shore management is not effective? Definitely, this is not good. Then what to do? Try to find some causes from yourself, and some from the external natural environment. The rationale is not to affect anyone, or to affect everybody as little as possible. (CE, S3 C2)

A similar view was held by some other senior officers who had experienced one or more accidents. In general, the common feeling for drafting an accident report was that there was a tendency to attribute the accident to more objective causes rather than human-error related factors. Once an accident had been reported, it would be investigated by the company. The initial report would be seriously considered given the unavailability of a real-time monitoring process on board. It would serve as important evidence for the

‘distribution of responsibility’ for the persons involved in the accident. Therefore, it was understandable that the wording of the report was of particular concern for the crew.

‘Violation of Procedures’

After an accident had been reported to the shore management, an investigation team might be formed for further investigation depending on the nature of the accident. In the management systems, provisions were made to guide the investigation. In C1, it was stated specifically that the focus of any accident investigation should be on the crew’s compliance with procedure and their competence. The research showed that the ‘perceived investigation result’ would not encourage a crew’s reporting:

Basically, as for the investigation results, more than 90 percent (of accidents) were caused by the violation of operational procedures. They (shore management) thought if an accident was not caused by the crew’s violation of procedures, it would not happen. If you read many circulars, they are all about a crew’s violation of operational procedures ... He he! (Scornful laughter) (3E, S1 C1)

Apparently, this situation discouraged crews from making honest accident reports.

Although it was clearly stated that an accident must be reported to the company, it was found that the minor accidents (C1) and accidents located in Category E (Table 6) in C2 – the personal injury accidents – were most likely to be underreported. My field notes recorded a few personal injuries on the four ships, and none of them were reported. Among those, one bloody injury case was described:

The motorman showed his finger covered in blood. The finger had been hit by a roller in the engine room, and his thumbnail had come off. He pressed the root of the finger that had been hurt, gnashing his teeth and showing pain on his face.

(Field Notes, S1 C1, 8 February 2010)

The cut was treated and shore medical assistance was called for on arrival at a foreign port.

On the returning voyage, I asked the second engineer how the shore management had responded. He said the accident had not been reported. Then I raised further questions:

Q: How do you deal with the shore commission fees?

A: (In the name of) seeing a doctor.

Q: If it was reported, how would it be dealt with?

A: If it was reported, the company would think it was mainly because of the violation of procedures. The safety bonus would be deducted from top to bottom (all crew). But the real cause was fatigue. (2E, S1 C1)

On board S1 C1, almost all the crew members I met thought the injury was caused by fatigue (also see section 6.2.3 on hectic schedules and long working hours). The crew’s past experience told them that if the accident were reported, the result would be, as a Chinese proverb says, ‘to lift a stone to drop it onto one’s own feet’. Therefore, the crew would prefer not to report an accident. The literature review showed that the ‘human error’

investigation approach (Psarros et al., 2010; Oltedal and McArthur, 2011) or the

‘person-oriented’ focus (Oltedal and Wadsworth, 2010) might lead to negligence in the identification of ‘real causal factors’, which achieved only ‘limited success’ in reducing unsafe practices. The example described above showed a similar situation to those described in the literature. The study showed that the ‘perceived’ investigation result significantly affected the crew’s willingness to report. Typically, the consequence was that a significant number of minor personal injury accidents were not reported, and the shore management would not be ‘informed’ unless an accident caused a loss of property or environmental pollution.