ABSTRACT
A wide range of investigations are conducted after unwanted events to identify causes of the incidents and identify measures to avoid hazards and accident situations that may lead to loss of life, personal injuries, pollution or loss of financial assets. Different approaches and perspectives are used to identify the causes. The HTO-perspective (Human, Technology and Organisation) is common in the petroleum industry on the Norwegian continental shelf. By comparing results from three separate analyses of causes of unwanted events in the petroleum industry on the Norwegian continental shelf, the main objective of the paper is to learn from past events, and the single objectives are twofold: 1) to evaluate whether there are similarities or differences in how causes to different types of incidents are explained and 2) to evaluate whether there are measures that the industry should focus on in their accident prevention regardless of type of incident.
