Health & Safety News Brief
Occupational Health & Safety Information Service
Reactor Accidents – Institutional Failure in the Nuclear Industry
In the nuclear industry – or in any other industry where an accident can have potentially devastating consequences – when things go wrong it is invariably the operator that gets the blame. But is it really the case that the operators of Chernobyl or Three Mile Island were, at least for a brief moment, simply incompetent?
Reactor Accidents by David Mosey explores in detail the events leading up to seven of the most serious accidents in history of the nuclear industry. In each of the cases analysed it is shown that the root causes of these accidents were not design flaws or the mistakes of individual operators, however much these may have affected the accident sequence.
The root causes were rather deep-seated failings in the institutions involved in the operation of the nuclear plant – failings which allowed the adoption of flawed designs,the provision of inadequate operator support and guidance, and a dangerous overconfidence in the technology.
As Mosey points out in the Introduction to Reactor Accidents:
To simply characterise the Three Mile Island accident as a minor mechanical failure which was allowed to escalate into a major accident through serious operator errors is a gross and dangerous distortion of the truth, actively concealing important human errors in nuclear plant design organisations, operating utilities and the regulatory authorities. If we cannot identify these errors in the glare of hindsight, then we have little hope of anticipating them in the future.
Institutional failure is the root cause of not only all seven accidents, but countless others from within and outside the nuclear industry. Reactor Accidents is essential reading for anyone who considers safety to be the top priority, whether working in the nuclear industry or any other field where the cost of an accident is too high a price to pay.
Stephen Tarlton, Nuclear Engineering International, Wilmington House,
Maidstone Road, Foots Cray, Sidcup, Kent DA14 5HZ, UK
Tel: +44 20 8269 7773; Fax: +44 20 8269 7804; email: starlton@wilmington.co.uk
Reactor Accidents: Institutional Failure in the Nuclear Industry, by David Mosey
Reactor Accidents (2nd edition) by David Mosey ISBN: 1 903 07745-1 www.neimagazine.com/subscribeMenu.asp?priority=5&prodTypeCode=13&pDesc=Order+Reactor+Accidents)