CMSP CMSP Accident Investigation & Analysis 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: According to Heinrich's Industrial Accident Prevention Triangle, for every one major injury there are approximately how many minor injuries?
- 10
- 29 (Correct answer)
- 100
- 300
Correct answer: 29
Heinrich's Triangle proposes a ratio of 1 major injury to 29 minor injuries to 300 no-injury incidents, highlighting the base of unsafe behaviors.
Question 2: James Reason's 'Swiss Cheese Model' of accident causation illustrates:
- The layered structure of mine roof support systems
- How holes in multiple defensive barriers can align to allow accidents to occur (Correct answer)
- A food safety process used in mining cookhouses
- A method for detecting hidden gas pockets in strata
Correct answer: How holes in multiple defensive barriers can align to allow accidents to occur
Reason's model shows that accidents occur when gaps in multiple independent defensive layers simultaneously align, allowing a hazard to reach a vulnerable target.
Question 3: 'Immediate causes' of accidents are commonly classified as:
- Root causes and latent conditions
- Unsafe acts and unsafe conditions (Correct answer)
- Management failures and organizational weaknesses
- Energy sources and hazardous materials
Correct answer: Unsafe acts and unsafe conditions
Immediate causes are the direct precursors visible at the time of an accident, categorized as unsafe acts by people or unsafe conditions in the environment.
Question 4: In accident investigation, a 'contributing cause' differs from a 'root cause' in that:
- Contributing causes are always attributable to human error
- Contributing causes increase accident likelihood but alone would not have caused the event (Correct answer)
- Contributing causes are determined solely by management review
- Contributing causes are documented separately from all MSHA reports
Correct answer: Contributing causes increase accident likelihood but alone would not have caused the event
Contributing causes are enabling factors that increase the probability of an accident but are insufficient by themselves to cause it without the presence of the root cause.
Question 5: The primary purpose of developing 'corrective actions' following a root cause analysis is to:
- Assign individual blame and accountability for the accident
- Prevent recurrence by directly addressing identified root and contributing causes (Correct answer)
- Satisfy MSHA reporting documentation requirements
- Calculate and document the financial cost of the accident
Correct answer: Prevent recurrence by directly addressing identified root and contributing causes
Corrective actions address the identified causes of an accident to eliminate or control the conditions that allowed it to occur, preventing recurrence.
Question 6: The 'iceberg model' in accident cost analysis refers to the concept that:
- Underground temperatures increase accident risk in cold conditions
- Visible direct costs are small compared to the much larger hidden indirect costs (Correct answer)
- Most accident causes are buried deep in mine geology
- Safety management should focus only on documented financial losses
Correct answer: Visible direct costs are small compared to the much larger hidden indirect costs
Like an iceberg, direct accident costs (medical bills, compensation) are visible above the surface, while indirect costs (lost productivity, investigation time, retraining) are far larger but hidden.
CMSP CMSP Accident Investigation & Analysis 2
According to Heinrich's Industrial Accident Prevention Triangle, for every one major injury there are approximately how many minor injuries?