Investigating Human Error

Strauch brings current error theory to people who investigate accidents, and to anyone who wants to know why a critical mistake was made, how it set off an incident, and what can stop it from happening again. The book is written for students of human error and for working investigators, who will come away with a grounding in the research on error and its role in real events. Its examples range from aircraft crashes and bus crashes to a bonfire disaster, and each is tied to scientific work and official investigation reports.

The guidance is practical. The author lays out a step-by-step method for carrying out an error investigation, designed so that readers with no prior experience in the field can apply it. Alongside the method, he summarises recent transport accidents and the human factors literature, linking each to the human errors that contributed to it.

Drawing on more than eighteen years of accident investigation and of teaching aircraft accident investigation and human factors psychology, the author reviews recent research, describes major transport accidents, and shows how to examine the kinds of errors that tend to arise in high-risk industries. The model of error causation he presents is shaped largely by the work of James Reason and Neville Moray, and it is connected to concrete guidelines for collecting and analysing evidence. The book suits human factors psychology and industrial engineering students and instructors, and investigators in aviation, mass transport, nuclear power, or any field where error causes harm.