This study has investigated factors that contribute to the rise of accidents in the Swedish Armed Forces. Through investigation of six accident reports human factors have been identified, classi-fied and compiled. The aim has been to seek answers to the question: Which human factors cause accidents in the Swedish Armed Forces' activities at sea? In the context of a case study the content of six accident reports, which were linked to the Swedish Armed Forces, was analysed. Documentary research was used to collect data. The analysis of collected accident reports was carried out with content analysis. A total of 134 human factors were identified in this study, compiled from 31 unique human factors. The results drawn from studying the survey concluded that human factors which appear most frequently in the accident reports are routine deviation, judgment, knowledge, sudden event development and communica-tion/information. The results also show that of all the 31 units of human factors identified, no single factor is represented in all accident reports. However, the human factors routine deviation, judgment, communication/information, education, job description and safeguard were repre-sented in five of six reports.

Human - Technology - Organization (HTO) is a well-established, general unifying concept in the Swedish Accident Investigation Authority (SHK) that represents an approach, knowledge and use of various tools regarding interactions between people, technology and organizational factors. The HTO-perspective is well described in literature but there are few studies on how SHKs staff experiences working according to this method in their investigations. The aim of this study was therefore to describe their HTO-perspective, examine how it is used in the investigations at SHK and describe the investigators experience of working with the HTO-perspective as well as the method's usefulness compared to old methods in accident investigations. A literature study has been conducted in the areas of HTO, Theory of planned behavior (TPB) and safety culture. TPB and safety culture are described in this paper since they highlight the different aspects of a HTO-perspective. The hypothesis was answered by using semi-structured interviews. The interviews were analyzed by a content analysis and themes were identified. Furthermore the material from the interviews was subsequently structured through a Strength – Weakness – Opportunities – Threats analysis (SWOT), i.e. the informants' view on the HTO-perspective was structured based on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats SHKs staff experience that the method has in the investigative work. The informants consisted of two investigators at SHK who 3have worked with accident investigations for a long time in various roles. The results yielded that the investigators had a positive attitude towards conducting investigations according to the HTO-perspective because they feel that this perspective provides them with cross-competence. A flaw is though that the perspective lacks a structured approach. As a result of this, the investigators own experiences and expertise play a major role in the quality of the investigation. As the study's aim is met and the informants are considered to be experts the validity requirements are also fulfilled.