Accident Investigation is something that is carried out to determine the causes or cause of an accident, this can also be the investigation of a series of accidents. Accident investigation is performed by a range of experts; these include health and safety advisors, forensic engineers and or forensic scientists and are done to prevent accidents of a similar nature occurring again.



Accident Investigation is also known as Accident Analysis.

The sequence in which Accident Investigation is performed

i. Fact Gathering – When an accident has occurred police or forensics (depending on the seriousness and nature of the accident). The Officer or Forensics team will start off by gathering all the relevant facts they can obtain which will contribute the Accident Investigation.

ii. Fact Analysis – The 'big picture' is put together at this point. A reconstruction of the events that took place leading to the accident is performed, this will check for plausibility and consistency. This cannot take place however until the Fact Gathering has been completed and some results has been delivered (enough reliable facts to create the big picture'

iii. Conclusion Drawing – Conclusions about the contributing factors and causation can be formed if the accident history is sufficiently informative.

iv. Countermeasures – To prevent this type of accident from re-occurring recommendations have to be issued and in some cases required countermeasures are to be laid down or developed.

The Methods of Accident Investigation

There are various ways Accident Investigation can be performed, they can be split into three different categories.

i. Organisational Analysis – is purely reliant on the systemic theories of organisation. The theory goes that if the person stays within the guide or ideals of the organisation then accidents simply cannot occur. The results from Organisational Analysis can be analysed and checked for objectivity and from there they can be falsified. Assuming that the person (system) to be analysed conforms to that theory then choosing Organisational Analysis can be the preferred choice.

ii. Causal Analysis – Causality is the principle used in Casual Analysis to determine the events that took place and the causes of that event. The 'Chain of Events' is what people usually speak of however the form of results when Causal Analysis is used tends to have the form of a direct a-cyclic graph / graphs. The edges of the graph are the cause-effect relation and the nodes are the events that took place. Respective notion of causation can cause the method of Causal Analysis to differ.

iii. Expert Analysis – Field experts will be required during this process, their knowledge, expertise and experience are relied upon during Expert Analysis. Their field must correspond to that of the accident under investigation. A rigorous methodological approach is usually lacking in Expert Analysis, this can effect objectivity of analysis and the falsify-ability. This becomes very important when disputes among experts take place, conclusions must be made but implications of falsify-ability and objectivity must be addressed.

Another method for of Accident Investigation is a method called WBA (Why-Because Analysis).