Incidents in the Process Industries

This section provides an overview of some of the seminal events that led to the formation of the modern Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) and Process Safety Management (PSM) programs.

The Incident Investigation page provides guidance to do with conducting an investigation and analyzing an event for root causes.

• Bhopal
• Blackbeard
• Flixborough
• Piper Alpha
• Santa Barbara Oil Spill
• Valdez

Each incident description page provides a brief description of the incident, and then provides an analysis in terms of the key elements of Inherent, Process and Technical / Formal Safety.

Inherent Safety

1. Eliminate
2. Substitute
3. Minimize
4. Moderate
5. Simplify

Process Safety

Technical Safety