Developing maritime aids for emergency responses

Human factors are considered among the most important cause of accidents/incidents at sea and in harbours. In the light of this a new trainings program is developed targeting correction of human behaviour in emergency situations. The EU funded Maritime AIds Development for Emergency Responses (M’AIDER) project is looking at developing training programmes for officers and cadets working onboard vessels by studying accidents and incidents that have occurred in the past. Through this study the human factors leading to emergency situations will be identified providing information as to how various scenarios could be prepared and simulated in various types of simulators including integrated and full-mission ship simulators. This paper demonstrates the recent research carried out on analysing ship accident and incident reports selected over a period of 20 years using the database provided by the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB). The report also elaborates on how the results of this analysis are incorporated into the above mentioned research project.