This study analyzes maritime collision causation using an integrated Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) and Monte Carlo simulation framework based on 112 collision accidents involving 224 vessels, extracted from official accident investigation reports. A structured database of 18 basic events was developed and grouped into three intermediate categories: shipboard operation, shore management, and external environment. These events were used to construct a probabilistic fault tree model of collision occurrence. Analytical FTA was applied to identify minimum cut sets, calculate event probabilities, and evaluate basic-event importance using the Fussell–Vesely measure. The results show that all minimum cut sets are of first order and that shipboard operational factors dominate the collision risk profile. In particular, personnel and manning deficiencies, crew resource management failures, and shipboard social environment were identified as the most influential contributors. Shore management factors exhibited a secondary contribution, while external environmental factors showed a smaller influence. Monte Carlo simulation with 3,000,000 iterations validated the analytical results and stabilized the importance rankings, confirming the robustness of the findings. The proposed approach provides a transparent, data-driven framework for collision risk prioritization and supports targeted safety interventions focusing on onboard human and organizational performance.

A forensic investigation and simulation-based analysis of a chemical plant explosion accident.

Aviation safety is a fundamental element of the global aviation industry, regulated by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards, particularly Annex 13 on Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation. This study aims to analyze the concepts, distinctions, and causal factors of accidents and incidents from the perspective of Annex 13, as well as to evaluate its contribution to enhancing aviation safety. The research adopts a qualitative descriptive approach through the analysis of official ICAO documents, including Annex 13, Doc 9859 Safety Management Manual (SMM), and Doc 9756 Manual of Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation. Supporting data are derived from case studies such as AirAsia QZ8501 representing an accident and Batik Air 7703 TransNusa as a serious incident. The findings indicate that Annex 13 provides a clear framework for classifying occurrences based on severity level, aircraft damage, and investigation priority. The primary contributing factors include human factors, technical failures, environmental conditions, and organizational system weaknesses. Annex 13based investigations are objective, independent, and prevention oriented rather than fault finding. Overall, Annex 13 serves not only as an investigative guideline but also as a systemic foundation for building a global safety culture that is data-driven, collaborative, and preventive in nature

Abstract Purpose: This paper draws on a sociological analysis of the 2024 Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 incident to critique the Conflict Zone Information Bulletin (CZIB) normative-bureaucratic safety protocol. Sociological theories referenced include: passive and active learning; latent and active error; systems-thinking; organisational accident and the Swiss cheese model of accident trajectory. The Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J2-8243 incident followed earlier shoot-downs. For example: Iran Air Flight 655; Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17; Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752. Earlier shoot-downs confirmed the importance of risk-free routing.Design/methodology: The paper draws on authoritative secondary data, for example, the 2025 Preliminary Report published by Kazakhstan’s Commission for Aviation Investigation, to mount a critique of the Conflict Zone Information Bulletin (CZIB) normative-bureaucratic safety protocol. The paper: Describes the factors that contributed to the shoot-down; Tests the efficacy of normative-bureaucratic defences against shoot-downs, such as the sharing of information via International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Annex 13-compliant investigations and the issuing of CZIBs; Asks whether accident investigators pay sufficient attention to the social, economic and political context of a near-miss, incident, accident or shoot-down when establishing causation; Assesses the workload implications of considering the social, economic and political context of a near-miss, incident, accident or shoot-down.Findings: It is concluded that Azerbaijan Airlines failed to act on the relevant CZIB for two reasons. First, Azerbaijan’s government expected the airline to maintain an air bridge with its influential neighbour. While a private concern, Azerbaijan Airlines is the country’s de facto flag carrier, and is expected to act as such by the government. Secondly, the authoritarian character of Azerbaijan’s government discouraged the airline from questioning its government. It is concluded that the European Union’s CZIB normative-bureaucratic safety protocol is compromised by realpolitik without and within the aviation industry. Normative-bureaucratic safety protocols such as CZIBs may create a false sense of security, given this reality.Originality/value: To the best of the author’s knowledge, at the time this paper was written the 2024 Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 accident trajectory had not been subjected to a holistic, sociological analysis. The paper’s value lies in that fact that it examines the immediate and proximate causes of the flight J2-8243 incident through a powerful sociological lens that draws on the work of risk-management luminaries such as Professor James Reason, whose Swiss Cheese model of system failure is used by many aviation accident investigators.

Dynamic ejection phenomenon and modeling of velocity driven by internal pressure in thermal runaway of high-capacity NCM523 lithium-ion batteries: Advancing safety design and fire accident investigation

This article expresses the author’s thoughts and recommendations regarding the consequences of violations of vehicle control, speed, and road rules in the occurrence of road traffic accidents, issues related to examinations appointed in the investigation of road traffic accidents, the condition of the vehicle at the scene of the accident, and actions to be taken in cases of road traffic accidents involving pedestrians related to vehicle speed.

Objective Motorcycle crashes constitute a critical safety issue in Taiwan, particularly in Tainan, a city characterized by exceptionally high motorcycle ownership, dense traffic environments, and complex street network designs. This study aimed to uncover latent crash typologies and identify key determinants of motorcycle injury severity across diverse crash contexts. Methods A total of 673 motorcycle-involved crashes from the Tainan City Traffic Accident Investigation Committee were analyzed. Latent Class Clustering (LCC) was used to classify crashes into six heterogeneous clusters based on rider demographics, roadway characteristics, environmental conditions, and crash configurations. Subsequently, cluster‐specific Multinomial Logit (MNL) models were estimated to assess how these factors influence the likelihood of mild, moderate, or severe injury outcomes. Results Six distinct crash scenarios were identified, reflecting meaningful heterogeneity across rider age, lighting conditions, lane configurations, and roadway speed limits. Across clusters, older riders (≥60 years) had a substantially higher probability of sustaining severe injuries, while crashes occurring on roadways with ≤40 km/h speed limits showed unexpectedly elevated severity risks, likely attributable to narrow lanes and high conflict density. Seasonal effects were also observed, with winter crashes demonstrating significantly higher odds of severe injury. Notably, several risk factors exerted different magnitudes and directions of influence across clusters, highlighting strong context dependency in motorcycle crash severity mechanisms. Conclusions This study provides robust empirical evidence that motorcycle crash severity in Tainan is shaped by a combination of rider characteristics, environmental conditions, and underlying latent crash patterns. The findings support the development of targeted, cluster-specific safety measures, including risk-tailored rider education, intersection and lighting improvements, and enhanced speed management strategies. Such interventions can help reduce motorcycle crash incidence and mitigate injury severity in high-risk urban environments.

Turkey has not been indifferent to these developments in the world and has benefited from these positive externalities by supporting the manufacturing sector with various instruments. One of these positive externalities is employment growth. Positive effects in technology and production methods have not completely eliminated the risks and hazards that employees face at work. Therefore, occupational health and safety is an issue that needs to be addressed meticulously by all actors in working life. The public, employers, employees, non-governmental organizations and trade unions in working life and local authorities have taken important steps on the subject. However, occupational accidents continue to occur for various reasons. In this study, occupational accidents resulting in injury of manufacturing sector employees in Amasya Province were examined. By focusing on the accidents in the metal sector and garment sector, which are the sub-branches of the manufacturing sector where most occupational accidents occur, it is aimed to help the occupational health and safety measures to be taken by employers, insured employees and other stakeholders operating in Amasya Province and thus the city economy.

This research aims to analyze the form and application of responsibility carried out by manufacturers to the families of victims of aircraft accidents based on international air law. This research examines the cases of Boeing 737 Max, Airbus Helicopters EC130 B4, and F-35 Lightning II, all of which show design defect, manufacturing defect, and failure to warn. The research method used is normative law with a conceptual, international agreements, statute and case approach. Data was collected from primary, secondary, and tertiary legal materials including the results of accident investigation reports and other supporting data. The results show that producer responsibility has not been regulated directly in international air law such as the 1999 Montreal Convention, therefore the lawsuit relies on the principles of product liability and strict liability in the national legal system, especially the United States, so that there is a legal gap that creates legal uncertainty for parties who feel harmed by an aircraft accident. This study considers the need for international air law reform that includes aircraft manufacturers as parties who should be held liable for aircraft accidents to ensure international aviation safety and victim protection.

This study aims to substantiate the creation of a unified public-law company "Maritime Administration of the Russian Federation" as an instrument for implementing state maritime policy and fulfilling international convention obligations (UNCLOS, SOLAS, STCW, MLC). The research analyzes Russian regulatory legal acts and international conventions governing maritime administrations' operations. The comparative legal analysis method was applied to examine maritime administration models in the UK (MCA), USA (USCG and MARAD), and Gibraltar (GMA). The study reveals the absence of a unified approach to defining maritime administration in Russian legislation, with its functions currently distributed among the Ministry of Transport, Rosmorport, and seaport authorities. Key functions of maritime administration have been identified: vessel registration, technical supervision, accident investigation, and compliance with convention requirements monitoring. The public-law company form is justified as optimal for establishing Russia's Maritime Administration. The creation of the "Maritime Administration of the Russian Federation" public-law company will centralize state regulation functions in the maritime sector. A three-tier management model is proposed while maintaining the coordinating role of Russia's Ministry of Transport. International experience confirms the effectiveness of unified administrative structures in maritime regulation.

Autonomous vehicle (AV) accidents introduce uncertainty in liability attribution, as responsibility is divided between humans and automated systems. The 2018 Arizona crash highlighted growing societal concerns about accountability. To address these issues, prior studies proposed investigation processes considering perception sensors, driving control systems, communication infrastructure, and cybersecurity. However, conducting such investigations requires integrating large-scale data from multiple sources, including vehicle sensors, onboard recorders, V2X communications, and road infrastructure. Raw data often lack descriptive information, limiting their use in real investigations. This study establishes a structured mapping framework linking investigation procedures, responsible entities, items, and data across accident phases. With this backdrop, an autonomous driving–specific metadata schema extending DCAT was designed, comprising 10 Classes and 76 Properties. To demonstrate its applicability, a prototype data catalog user interface (UI) was conceptualized with data discovery and visualization examples. The proposed schema strengthens accountability and interoperability by explicitly aligning responsibilities and data relationships. It enables precise event localization and effective linkage of heterogeneous data. Future work will refine the schema by incorporating DSSAD, V2X, and security log data, and develop a user-tested UI prototype as a practical support tool for AV accident investigation.

ABSTRACT Industrial explosion accidents often cause severe casualties, property damage, and environmental impacts, posing major challenges to process safety and emergency management. This study constructs an industrial-explosion eventic graph grounded in a domain-specific ontology and implements a Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG) Q&A system powered by large language models (LLM) to support emergency decision-making. We designed an accident-emergency ontology that systematically captured accident characteristics and response workflows. A zero-shot information-extraction framework automatically identifies events from historical reports, and template-based matching extracts inter-event relations. Uncertainty modeling is introduced to ensure accurate knowledge representation. A semantic-similarity-driven knowledge-fusion method improves event abstraction and consistency, and the resulting graph is stored in Neo4j for efficient querying and analysis. By integrating the eventic graph with RAG, we created a Q&A system that significantly outperforms baseline models and traditional reasoning methods. A case study of the 8·12 Tianjin Port explosion demonstrates the framework’s ability to represent accident evolution patterns and causal chains. This integrated approach provides a practical tool for accident investigation, risk assessment, and emergency decision-making, contributing to improved safety management in industrial processes.

This study combines association rule mining and complex network theory to explore the key risk influential factors (RIFs) of container ship accidents and their interrelationship. Firstly, based on the 103 container ship accident investigation reports, five categories of accident RIFs such as human factors, ship factors, cargo factors, environmental factors and management factors are identified. Second, the Apriori algorithm is applied to find out the correlation between accident RIFs and the correlation between RIFs and each type of accident. Third, complex network theory is then applied to establish a vector-weighted network of container ship accident RIFs, and comprehensive network visualization is subsequently conducted. Finally, topological feature analysis is applied to comprehensively examine associations between RIFs, and robustness analysis is used to find the key container ship accident RIFs. The analysis reveals that collisions and groundings are the most frequent accidents in container ship accidents, with human factors (e.g. negligent lookout) and management factors (e.g. improper bridge resource management) being the primary RIFs. The interaction between human and management factors is most significant. Network topology analysis highlighted high-degree RIFs, enabling targeted risk mitigation strategies. This study aids in disrupting accident RIFs networks and supports intelligent shipping safety mechanisms and risk management optimization for maritime companies.

ABSTRACT This research develops a qualitative framework integrating Threat and Error Management (TEM) with Safety II principles, demonstrating how transitioning from “what went wrong” to “how work usually goes right” enhances accident investigation practice. Current accident investigation approaches identify failures but overlook how crews using similar decision‐making procedures achieve successful outcomes under comparable conditions. Traditional TEM analysis and Safety II principles have been applied separately, with limited research exploring their retrospective integration. The research employs a qualitative two‐stage methodology integrating traditional TEM analysis with Safety II principles through interpretive analysis of operational behaviours. Stage one employs conventional TEM analysis to identify threats, errors, and undesired aircraft states. Stage two integrates Safety II principles through Work‐as‐Imagined versus Work‐as‐Done analysis, Performance Variability Assessment, and Critical Decision Point Analysis. The Air India Express VT‐AYA runway excursion (2019) serves as the case study. Out of 18 identified TEM categories, 55% were managed effectively, and of the nine crew adaptation patterns, 67% represented beneficial or neutral performance variability, enhancing safety outcomes. Systematic breakdown occurred only when organisational goal conflicts exceeded the boundary where approximate adjustments could bridge procedural assumptions and operational reality, validating the Safety II principle that success and failure conditions are fundamentally similar. Integrated TEM and Safety II analysis reveals additional dimensions, goal conflicts, efficiency‐thoroughness trade‐offs, and adaptive capacity boundaries that conventional methods systematically overlook. While traditional TEM identifies what went wrong (threats, errors, undesired states), Safety‐II integration explains why the same adaptive processes that routinely ensure safety encountered systemic boundaries in this instance. The integrated methodology provides investigators a practical tool to operationalise Safety II principles. This approach contributes to the understanding of accident investigation from failure analysis to normal adaptive processes across high‐risk industries.

Aircraft accident investigation is a key element of ensuring safety in aviation. This process involves analyzing the causes of aircraft accidents and incidents to prevent future similar events. The article focuses on the legal aspects of aircraft accident investigation, considering international and national legal regulations. The basic legal acts, such as the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention), and regulations of organizations such as ICAO and EASA, are discussed. National legal frameworks are also presented, including the competences of authorities involved in aircraft accident investigation, such as the State Commission on Aircraft Accident Investigation (PKBWL). The study of the legal aspects of the investigation of aviation incidents was conducted based on the analysis of legal acts, international documents, and court decisions. The dogmatic-legal method was used to interpret the regulations concerning the investigation of aviation incidents, both at the international level (Chicago Convention, ICAO), the European Union (regulations), and the national level (acts and regulations governing the activities of the PKBWL). Case studies of selected aviation incidents were also indicated. The study found that the legal system governing air accident investigations is based on the principle of independence of technical investigations from criminal proceedings, which is crucial for effectively preventing future accidents. However, the analysis showed that in practice, there are difficulties in implementing the "just culture" principle. In particular, in some cases, there is a conflict between the requirement for transparency of technical investigations and the needs of law enforcement authorities. The analysis of the legal aspects of investigating aviation incidents indicates the need for further harmonization of international and national regulations to ensure adequate information protection and improve cooperation between investigative bodies and prosecutors. It is also advisable to strengthen the mechanisms for protecting people reporting incidents within the "just culture" system to increase reporting openness and minimize fear of legal consequences.

Abstract Hawai‘i sees a significant number of aviation accidents each year, many of which are caused by weather. In an effort to mitigate such incidents in the future, weather-related aviation accidents in Hawai‘i between 2003 and 2022 are investigated. A data catalog is created using the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reports, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather charts, satellite imagery, atmospheric soundings, Automated Surface Observing System/Automated Weather Observing System (ASOS/AWOS) surface winds, and Next Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) data. It serves as the basis for the analysis of the days on which accidents occurred. A machine learning algorithm is implemented to compare accident days to nonaccident days. Results show that most weather-related accidents take place during trade wind conditions and occur on O‘ahu, Moloka‘i, and Maui. When looking at the monthly distribution, there is a higher incidence of accidents during the winter months. This is due to the fact that in addition to trade wind accidents, over 75% of cases that are linked to a synoptic-scale disturbance occur during this time. Atmospheric stability and wind speeds below the trade wind inversion are deemed most crucial when assessing atmospheric conditions for aviation safety. For fatal accidents, surface winds are observed to be a factor. Shearlines and troughs are associated with the majority of fatal weather-related accidents. In particular, trade wind days during which a shearline is present account for the largest number of fatal cases. This suggests that the most hazardous days for aviation in Hawai‘i are not necessarily those with the most severe weather but those that subtly deviate from the familiar trade wind regime—conditions that can be easily overlooked. Significance Statement Weather is believed to play a significant role in aviation accidents in Hawai‘i. This study analyzes weather-related helicopter and airplane accidents in Hawai‘i from 2003 to 2022 with the objective to better understand the conditions that caused them and help minimize future accidents. We found that weather was indeed the leading cause or contributing factor for aviation accidents in Hawai‘i during this period and identified atmospheric stability and wind speeds below the trade wind inversion as the atmospheric variables most critical for aviation safety among those considered. Additionally, we were able to show that machine learning models have the potential to assist in determining the factors responsible for these accidents and recommend future research to further explore this path.

Abstract Aircraft accident investigators are professionals who are called to accident scenes, be they military or civilian, to analyze the causes. Accident investigators attempt to recreate the circumstances of the aircraft accident by studying wreckage distribution, damage patterns on the wreckage, and the physics involved so they may provide guidance for safer future air travel. Many of the field and laboratory techniques used by aircraft accident investigators, such as site mapping and wreckage identification, align closely with established archaeological methodologies. This study considers a Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat shot down during the Battle for Saipan in June 1944 that was subsequently excavated over the course of three field seasons during partner missions by East Carolina University and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency to locate the remains of the pilot. The Hellcat is used as a case study to test how aircraft accident investigation methods can be applied in archaeological research to examine the aircraft wreck site, recreating the aircraft accident, and creating a better understanding of the site’s distribution. Ultimately this research aims to reaffirm the value of interdisciplinary approaches to archaeology and proposes a number of field and analytical approaches for archaeologists studying aircraft to adopt in the future.

On 12 June 2025, Air India Flight AI 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, crashed shortly after take-off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad, India, marking the first fatal hull-loss incident involving this aircraft type. Preliminary findings from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) indicated a dual-engine shutdown caused by either a fuel-control logic fault or inadvertent human activation. This paper investigates the event through a systems-engineering and safety-analysis lens, synthesizing official reports, eyewitness accounts, and technical data to identify how concurrent mechanical, software, and human-interface failures culminated in the disaster. The analysis explores failure propagation in Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) systems, redundancy architecture, and fault isolation, while assessing how predictive maintenance and artificial intelligence could enhance anomaly detection and prevent recurrence. It also examines the integration of robotics and drones in post-crash investigations and simulation-based pilot training. Beyond its technical scope, the study emphasizes the ethical imperative of designing resilient systems that balance innovation with accountability. The findings highlight that future aerospace engineering must combine empirical rigor with human-centered design, ensuring that technological progress remains aligned with safety, empathy, and public trust.

The article is devoted to the study of problematic issues of obtaining explanations and testimonies during the investigation of road accidents. In the course of the presentation of the main material, it is emphasized that the problematic issue of obtaining information from a participant in a road accident is the choice of the format for obtaining such information. The latter can be obtained during pre-trial criminal proceedings by taking written explanations or during interrogation. It is emphasized that, on the one hand, at the initial stage of the investigation, there is an urgent need to conduct interrogation of the participants in the road accident, and on the other hand, if a person is interrogated as a witness and subsequently informed of this person about suspicion, then the evidence obtained from such testimonies should be recognized as inadmissible. It is emphasized that the choice of the method of obtaining testimony from a participant in a road accident should depend on the content of the circumstances of the pre-trial criminal proceedings. If the factual data on the investigation of a road accident indicate that there is a possibility that a certain person will later acquire the status of a suspect, then the best option in terms of respecting the rights and freedoms of such a person is to announce to him a notice of suspicion and question him as a suspect. It is indicated that questioning a road accident participant as a witness can improve the procedural activities of the prosecution during the investigation of a road accident, but will create a risk of violating the right to defense. It is concluded that questioning a road accident participant as a witness is an ineffective way to obtain information about the circumstances of the accident. This is due to the existence of a risk of violating the right to defense and recognizing the witness’s testimony as inadmissible evidence in criminal proceedings. It is emphasized that the procedure for obtaining explanations from persons is not regulated by the current criminal procedural law, and accordingly does not provide for the specifics of obtaining explanations from persons, depending on their procedural status. Also, providing explanations in criminal proceedings is not provided for by criminal liability and is a voluntary act. At the same time, the voluntary provision of explanations by participants in a road accident regarding the occurrence of a criminal offense, even if one of such participants subsequently receives a notification of suspicion, will not in the future contradict the rules of admissibility of evidence. It is emphasized that in the case when, during the investigation of a road accident, there is no probability that a certain person will subsequently acquire the status of a suspect, the appropriate way to obtain information from participants in a road accident is to take written explanations, provided that they are familiarized with the rights of a suspect.

To address the limitations of current in-depth investigation systems for intelligent connected vehicle accidents, this paper analyzes the complexity and characteristics of modern self-driving crashes using the 2021 Annual Report on Intelligent Connected Vehicles published by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. A closed-loop framework is proposed, integrating human–vehicle–road collaborative data collection, reverse scenario reconstruction, and accident causation analysis. At the technical level, high-precision, time-sequenced motion parameters are extracted from vehicle log data. A two-wheel vehicle dynamics model is established, and a 20-second pre-crash spatiotemporal trajectory reconstruction is developed using MATLAB. OpenStreetMap (OSM) data is integrated and converted to the Open DRIVE format via SUMO tools, enabling accurate reconstruction of road geometry. To handle heterogeneous multimodal log data, Python-based algorithms are employed for data cleaning and feature extraction, capturing lateral vehicle displacement and surrounding traffic dynamics. Finally, a parameterized model of the pre-collision dynamic scene is built using the Open SCENARIO standard, achieving high-fidelity accident reproduction. This method offers scientific support for liability determination, safety enhancement of autonomous systems, and the development of standardized evaluation frameworks.