Abstract
The oil and gas industry is a risky business which has witnessed its fair share of accidents in the recent times with the North Sea Alpha Piper Accident which occurred in 1988 being one of the worst accidents. Human error has been recognized as one of the main contributing factors that have led to accidents in the oil and gas industry. The blow out at the Macondo oil rig was the result of the interaction of technical conditions and human failures/ errors. In fact, statistics indicate that about 83.70% of all offshore accidents occur as a result of human error. Accidents such as the Macondo oil rig blow out are rare and have disastrous effects hence the need to fully carry out an investigation whenever they occur. Accident investigation approaches can mainly be classified as traditional approaches and modern approaches. Traditional accident investigation models focus on the identification of discrete critical events that form the basis of faulty links within the system while modern approaches involve identifying the culmination of events that led to the accident . A literature review of reports, journals, books and articles was carried out in order to identify the role of human error in the Macondo oil rig blow out. The findings indicated that the blow out was the result of technical failures which to a large extent were the result of human error. Based on the findings, it is important for safety regulations to be revised by the government and oil and gas companies.
References
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