Title :
Errors and evaluations: the lessons of Chernobyl
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Psychol., Manchester Univ., UK
Abstract :
The author summarizes the human failures responsible for the Chernobyl disaster and argues that, in considering the human contribution to power plant emergencies, it is necessary to distinguish between: (a) errors and violations; and (b) active and latent failures. He then presents empirical evidence, drawn from driver behavior, which suggests that errors and violations have different psychological origin. Finally, he outlines a ´resident pathogen´ view of accident causation, and seeks to identify the various system pathways along which errors and violations may be propagated.<>
Keywords :
accidents; failure analysis; fission reactor safety; Chernobyl disaster; accident causation; errors; human failures; nuclear power station emergencies; violations; Accidents; Automatic control; Human factors; Inductors; Power engineering and energy; Power supplies; Power system management; Psychology; Testing; Valves;
Conference_Titel :
Human Factors and Power Plants, 1988., Conference Record for 1988 IEEE Fourth Conference on
Conference_Location :
Monterey, CA, USA
DOI :
10.1109/HFPP.1988.27561
