psneeld
Guru
Reducing this a bit to the very basics of safety in the workplace. Even the best people make mistakes, have accidents. Good safety practices are designed to minimize the likelihood of those mistakes leading to accidents and provide protection against that. This may be done due to government regulations or just company policy. When an accident occurs then it's a combination of both human error and of a breakdown in following the company rules and practices. We develop safeguards knowing humans will make err.
Most accidents then are the result of human error and failure to use best practices to protect against those errors.
Please remember that the accident stats that say most accidents are human error go all the way to oversight (company and government), design issues (ergonomics, system, vessel, navigation, routing etc...etc...), input to operations.....including management, weather resources, manning for conditions, etc.....
Human error accounts for the vast majority of accidents...however it is not the crew on the water that is the issue for a huge number of human failures.