Commercial Marine Shipping Accidents Understanding Risks Canada

22 Commercial Marine Shipping Accidents: Understanding the Risks in Canada
3 Incidents and Accidents
Key Findings
For Canadian ships and Canadian waters, the total number of marine shipping accidents involving solid cargo vessels and tankers
has been declining since 1998.
Incident and accident rates vary across Canada. Using publicly available data from 2004 to 2011, the rate on a per-vessel movement
basis was highest in Northern Canada followed by the St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes. Further research is needed to better
understand these findings.
Over the past 10 years, almost half of the marine occurrence reports involving cargo vessels described minor incidents rather than
serious accidents. Accidents in restricted waterways (e.g., harbours, rivers, canals) were less likely to lead to serious injury than those
in open water and, accordingly, the St. Lawrence River region had the lowest fatality and injury rate.
Fewer than 2% of commercial marine incidents and accidents in Canadian waters involved a known release of pollutants into the environment.
Though shipping incidents and accidents usually have multiple causes, the most commonly cited ones are human and organizational factors.
Insight into the risks associated with commercial marine
shipping begins with an understanding of i) the frequency,
types, and locations of incidents and accidents; 8 and ii) factors
that influence the probability of these events occurring.
Together, these elements help determine the overall
likelihood of an accident and provide insight into where,
when, and why different types of incidents and accidents are
occurring. The marine shipping risk characterization process
is dependent on accurate, complete data on incidents and
accidents, which can facilitate the development of regulations
that reflect the realities of the marine shipping industry
(Psarros et al., 2010; Hassel et al., 2011).
This chapter relies on Canadian data to determine the
most common incident and accident types and locations
for commercial cargo ships. Although these data are
useful for helping understand shipping risks, it should be
noted that they do not provide insight into catastrophic
(Black Swan) events, which are characterized by their rarity,
low predictability, and extreme impact (Taleb, 2010). A
Black Swan event is an outlier because “nothing in the past
can convincingly point to its possibility” (Taleb, 2010); thus,
it falls outside the realm of risk models, which use existing
data to predict the future.
The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) maintains Canada’s
most comprehensive data set, which is generated by mandatory
reporting of incidents and accidents by a ship’s crew
(GOC, 2014a). Under the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, these
reporting requirements apply “to Canadian vessels operating
in all waters and to all vessels operating in Canadian waters”
(TC, 2012c). The TSB data has proven superior to national
data from other countries in terms of completeness — it
includes approximately three-quarters of the estimated true
number of incidents and accidents in Canadian waters
(Hassel et al., 2011). However, unlike its American equivalent,
the TSB database does not report on the stage of shipping
during which an incident or accident occurred.
Crews are also required to inform the owners of their vessels of
any incidents or accidents (Lappalainen et al., 2011). Owners,
in turn, are expected to report damage or deterioration to
the classification society under which they are certified, and
may report to a marine insurance agency if they decide to
make a claim (IACS, 2011; Allianz, 2012). Data from all of
these sources may be analyzed to help characterize marine
shipping risks. However, as Box 3.1 explains, the data suffer
from numerous issues that make accurate analyses of marine
incidents and accidents difficult.
8 There are no universally accepted definitions for the terms marine incident and marine accident. Some organizations divide adverse events into accidents
and near misses (ABS, 2014), whereas others categorize an event as either a casualty or an incident (EMSA, 2014). In Canada, the Transportation
Safety Board uses accident and incident. Accidents are events such as collisions, sinkings, groundings, or fires/explosions that may result in death,
serious injury, ship damage, or total loss of a ship. Incidents are events that pose safety threats but do not result in consequences (e.g., mechanical
failure, bottom contact without going aground) or events that could have resulted in more severe consequences under different conditions
(e.g., intentional grounding to avoid an accident) (TSB, 2015a). See Appendix C for the full list of the events that are considered marine incidents
or accidents.