Devastating cost of ignoring human factors exposed in ferry sinking (Roger Kline, October 2022)

Summary

In this article, Roger Kline, Research Fellow at Middlesex University, explains what caused the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry.

The sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise on March 6 1987 with the loss of 198 lives was an accident waiting to happen, highlighting the devastating consequences of abandoning safe working practices in the name of financial savings.

Human factors science learned from the Herald disaster is widely applied in sectors as diverse as nuclear power stations and healthcare.