Counter-Errorism in Diving: Applying Human Factors to Diving

In this blog, Jenny Lord explores the “herbs and spices” of diving: the small techniques and habits that are rarely found in standards manuals but can make a big difference to performance. Like cooking, becoming a great diver, instructor, guide or teammate is not just about following a recipe; it comes from practising small skills such as setting clear expectations, building shared language, asking about goals and risks, and using simple debriefs to understand what happened and improve the next dive. The blog gives examples from teaching, liveaboards, guiding and recreational dives, showing how these techniques can improve psychological safety, communication, teamwork and decision-making without making diving feel like a formal training exercise. Simple questions such as “What’s your goal for this dive?” and “What’s the most likely thing to go wrong?” can reveal important information, while short debriefs can help people understand each other’s decisions and build a shared mental model. It also introduces the idea of “three lemons”, where each diver notices things that increase their own stress, helping them recognise when their capacity is being reduced and when it may be time to stop. The overall message is that knowing what to do is not the same as consistently doing it, and that small, practical changes can turn a good dive into a great one.

Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/the-herbs-and-spices-of-diving

Tags: THD-English| THD-HFiD-Conference

This blog introduces Learning From Emergent Outcomes (LFEO), a new approach to analysing diving incidents that looks beyond what went wrong or who was responsible and asks how the outcome emerged from the whole system. It explores the gap between how we imagine work happens and how it actually happens, as well as common problems such as hindsight and outcome bias, blame, normalisation of deviance and the use of counterfactual language such as “should have” or “could have”. The main practical tool is PETTEOT, which examines the roles of People, Environment, Tasks, Tools and Technology, External Influences, Organisation and Time, helping a team identify how different factors interacted to create pressure or reduce its ability to cope. These interactions may amplify problems, constrain available actions, enable safer behaviour, create a chain of events over time, or protect against a worse outcome. The process also examines barriers and defences to see whether they were missing, ineffective or overwhelmed by the situation. By analysing real diving events as a team, LFEO can reveal insights that may be missed when focusing only on individual actions, and can lead to changes in procedures, training and behaviour. The overall aim is to move from blame to understanding, from isolated errors to system interactions, and from judging the past to improving future performance.

Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/lfeo-course-conference

Links: Blog about the fatality in Cenote Nariz: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/mx-singlefatality-report

A mistake that was examined in detail during the course: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/my-biggest-mistake

Full details for the course: https://www.thehumandiver.com/lfeo

Tags: THD-English| THD-Learning, Incidents & Just Culture| THD-HFiD-Conference

This blog explores why telling divers to “speak up” or “call the dive” is not enough to create a culture where people actually feel able to do it. Speaking up can have an immediate social cost, while staying quiet may feel like the safer choice, particularly for newer divers, people who have paid a lot for a course, guests who want to be invited back, or professionals who are challenging someone with more power or status. Labels such as instructor, divemaster, technical diver or dive leader can influence who gets heard, while senior people may not realise how often others choose not to challenge them. The blog argues that this is not mainly a problem of individual courage, but a problem of how teams and organisations are designed. Leaders can make speaking up easier by showing curiosity when someone raises a concern, treating a called dive as good judgement rather than a problem, sharing their own mistakes and doubts, and creating safe ways to discuss near-misses. The goal is not to have more dives called, but to make raising a concern the normal and easy thing to do. Ultimately, people with the most power have the greatest ability to reduce the social cost of speaking up for everyone else.

Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/ive-got-the-power-speaking-truth-to-power

Links: Andrzej’s blog about applying Human Factors: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/technical-skills-are-not-enough-you-need-applied-human-factors

Nic’s blog about speaking up: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/what-are-we-pretending-not-to-know

The resources community: https://www.thehumandiver.com/resources

Tgas: THD-English| THD-Sense-making, Decision-making, & Psychology| THD-CRM, Leadership & Teamwork

This blog looks at what happens between having an experience and actually learning from it, particularly when that experience is frightening or traumatic. Our brains constantly take in information, process it and store what is useful, allowing experiences to become learning that changes how we behave. The blog compares this to a block-building game, where information needs to be sorted and fitted into place before we can move on. Trauma can interrupt this process, leaving the experience unprocessed and creating a gap between what happened and our ability to understand it. The brain may then search for explanations, influenced by things such as hindsight, negativity and the need to find someone or something to blame. When the experience remains unresolved, people may avoid certain situations, become overly controlling or analytical, or struggle with communication, awareness, decision-making and performance. In diving, particular sights, sensations, places or situations can sometimes trigger an unprocessed experience and cause someone to relive it rather than simply remember it. Understanding how we process difficult experiences is therefore important not only for reducing suffering, but also for recovering the useful lessons they contain. Human Factors can help create an environment where people can process what has happened, learn from it and reduce the risk of further trauma.

Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/metabolising-experience

Links: Downloadable summary: https://www.fittodive.org/products/digital_downloads/metabolising-experience-scuba-diving

Blog about the conference: https://blog.fittodive.org/2026/06/22/reflecting-on-the-talk-about-trauma-and-stress-in-diving/

Tags: THD-English| THD-HFiD-Conference

This blog compares two diving emergencies at the same dive centre to show why technical competence alone is not enough. In the first incident, a diver survived, but the instructors struggled to coordinate because they had only received a basic introduction to Human Factors in Diving. Roles were unclear, communication became fragmented and attention narrowed to the immediate problem. Before the second incident, the centre had changed how it worked: instructors had completed HFiD: Applied Skills, and the Course Director had made Human Factors part of everyday operations. When a student suffered a fatal heart attack during the second dive, the instructors were able to divide responsibilities, protect the other students, communicate clearly and follow a plan they had already practised. The outcome was tragic, but the response was professional and disciplined. The two incidents show that training does not guarantee a good outcome, but it can influence how well a team adapts when things go wrong. Human Factors skills such as leadership, followership, communication, workload management and shared mental models need to be practised before they are needed, and supported by the wider organisation. They also help teams make sense of an incident afterwards, creating a clearer account of what happened and why decisions made sense at the time. The key lesson is that there is no time to become coordinated during an emergency: teams can only rely on the coordination they have already built.

Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/technical-skills-are-not-enough-you-need-applied-human-factors

Links: Dr Laura Walton’s Fit To Dive: https://www.fittodive.org/pages/dive-trauma-resource-index

Tags: THD-English| THD-Learning, Incidents & Just Culture| THD-Education & Content Type

This episode explores how social media shapes the way the diving community responds to serious incidents. When an accident happens, discussions can quickly move from sympathy to certainty, with people assigning blame and explaining what the victims or divers “should” have done before the facts are known. The problem is that social media rewards strong emotions, certainty and disagreement, while complex, context-rich explanations are less likely to attract attention. This can turn real people into simple characters and discourage divers from sharing their own mistakes and near-misses for fear of being criticised. The result is that some of the experiences with the greatest potential for learning may never be shared. The episode argues that accountability and standards still matter, but that understanding should come before judgement: instead of asking who was at fault, we should ask what conditions influenced the decisions people made and how the situation made sense to them at the time. The next time a diving incident appears online, the challenge is to consider whether our contribution is helping the community understand what happened, or simply adding to the cycle of outrage and certainty.

Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/asking-better-questions-be-curious

Tags: THD-English| THD-Learning, Incidents & Just Culture| THD-HFiD-Conference

When should a diver call off a dive, even when everything seems to be going well? Using the 1996 Everest disaster as a starting point, this episode explores why we often celebrate people who reach their goals while overlooking those who make the difficult decision to turn back. In diving, fatigue, minor equipment problems, rushed briefings and tension within a team can seem manageable on their own, but these warning signs can build up over time. The money, time and effort already invested in a trip can also make it harder to walk away, while previous successful dives may lead us to believe that taking the same risks is acceptable. The episode explains why knowledge alone is not enough and how divers can make better decisions by agreeing on clear exit criteria before entering the water. It also explores the importance of psychological safety, so people can say “I’m not diving today” without facing pressure or criticism. Ultimately, a good decision should be judged by the information available at the time, not by whether the dive happens to end safely. Knowing when to turn back is a skill that needs to be practised, and sometimes the best dive is the one you never make.

Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/quit-while-you-stil-can

Links: Escalation of commitment: https://archive.org/details/entrapmentinesca0000broc

Tags: THD-English| HITS-Decision-making

This episode explores what diving insurance can—and cannot—do, drawing on insights from two highly experienced dive insurance underwriters. Insurance can help cover the financial consequences of an incident, but it does not make diving safer or prevent harm, and policies may have conditions that limit when they will respond. The discussion also highlights how difficult it is for the diving industry to learn from incidents because insurers hold much of the claims data but cannot normally share it with training agencies. At the same time, qualifications and certificates may give little indication of a diver or instructor’s actual current ability. The result is a system that can focus heavily on paperwork, standards and insurance while missing opportunities to improve real-world competence. The episode argues that insurance should be the last line of defence, not a substitute for capability, ongoing learning and honest reflection. Reducing risk means understanding how decisions are made in real situations, learning from mistakes and near misses, and continuing to develop long after the certificate has been earned.

Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/the-insurance-illusion

Links: Ineffective reporting of incidents and accidents: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/why-does-nothing-change

Vetinary Defense Society: https://www.thevds.co.uk/aboutvetsafe

Tags: THD-English| THD-Education & Content Type

In this episode, Brent Webb explores the idea that Human Factors should be more than a collection of concepts or courses—it can become the “operating system” of an organisation. Drawing on his experience running Scuba Adventures in Plano, Brent explains how psychological safety, Just Culture, systems thinking, debriefing and curiosity have become part of the way the business operates, influencing how staff handle mistakes, customer complaints, disagreements and everyday decisions. He reflects on how his own Human Factors journey began in 2022, when he realised that his behaviour under pressure could affect those around him, and how this led to a focus on personal growth alongside scuba diving. Brent also describes why successful events and near-misses are worth debriefing, using a recent lost-buddy situation as an example of how reflection can identify gaps before they become problems. The episode concludes by looking at the role of leadership in turning Human Factors from something written down into something people actually experience, with every interaction either reinforcing or undermining the organisation’s culture.

Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/human-factors-as-operating-system

Links: Join us at next years conference: https://www.hf-in-diving-conference.com/

HFiD Products: https://www.thehumandiver.com/your-learning-journey

Scuba Adventures, Plano: https://www.scubaplano.com/

“If Only…” Documentary: https://www.thehumandiver.com/ifonly

Tags: THD-English| THD-Education & Content Type| THD-HFiD-Conference

In this episode, Connor Tate shares her experience of attending the Human Factors in Diving Conference while struggling with imposter syndrome as a researcher with limited diving experience. Despite understanding the science behind stress and decision-making, Connor discovers the difference between studying these concepts and experiencing them first-hand when a mask-clearing problem at depth triggers the early signs of panic. With the calm assistance of an experienced diver, she completes the dive and later reflects on how the experience connects directly to their research into detecting stress underwater. Through structured debriefs, practical training and an environment where people can discuss mistakes without blame, the conference demonstrates the value of psychological safety, teamwork and learning from experience. Connor also discovers that these lessons apply beyond diving, using human factors tools to improve communication and accountability at work. Ultimately, the experience shows that everyone has something valuable to contribute, regardless of their level of experience, and that progress comes from being willing to learn, reflect and be better than yesterday.

Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/am-i-enough

Links: Join us at next year’s Gathering: https://www.hf-in-diving-conference.com/

Tags: THD-English| THD-Education & Content Type| THD-HFiD-Conference