An introduction of accidents’ classification based on their outcome control

•An accident classification tested, based on accident progress control.•Data from 808 accidents of a large aviation organization was explored.•The attempt of the end-users to intervene in the accident progress was researched.•The effectiveness of human efforts to control accident consequences was depicted.•A new accident classification is proposed for assessing safety performance.

Most safety oriented organizations have established their accidents classification taking into account the magnitude of the combined adverse outcomes on humans, assets and the environment without considering the accidents’ potential and the actual attempts of the involved persons to intervene with the accident progress. The specific research exploited a large sample of an aviation organization accident records for an 11 years’ time period and employed frequency and Chi-square analyses to test a new accident classification scheme based on the distinction among the safety events with or without human intervention on the accident scene, indicating the management or not of their ultimate consequences. Furthermore, the research depicted the effectiveness of personnel strains to alleviate the accident potential outcomes and studied the contribution of time, local and complexity factors on the accident control attempt and the humans’ positive or negative interference. The specific newly proposed accident classification successfully addressed the “controlled” or “uncontrolled” traits of the safety events studies, prior their severities consideration, and unveiled the effectiveness of personnel efforts to compensate for the adverse accident march. The portion between controlled and uncontrolled accidents in terms of the human intervention along with the effectiveness of the later may comprise a useful safety performance indicator that can be adopted by any industry sector and may be recommended through international and state safety related authorities.