Mitroff and Alpaslan

Types of accidents

There are various types of accidents:

Natural accidents - such as natural disasters, like earthquakes and hurricanes
Normal (coined by Perrow, 1984) – such as high technology industries. Hard to prepare for, but it is possible
Abnormal – intentional accidents, such as terrorism. This is the most common type of accident, increasing sharply in the last decade or so. These are very difficult to prepare for, as the concept goes against what we believe about society and people. It seems completely illogical