Near Misses

A near miss can be reported on the spot with no connection, and worked on in the ship app or the office app, photos included. Changes wait on the device and are sent when the connection returns, and any conflict with a change made elsewhere is shown to you.

Each near miss records the broad areas its causes came from, people, procedures, equipment, environment or organization, and its root causes, chosen from your company's root-cause systems or from Navatom's own. The office links repeats of the same near miss on a vessel, so hazards that come back show across the fleet.

Close the loop from near-miss observation to safety improvement with three types of action. Interim actions keep people safe until the cause is put right, such as fencing off the area under a crane, and corrective actions address the specific conditions that led to the near miss.

Preventive actions update procedures, training, or equipment to eliminate the risk of recurrence.

Each action has its own due date and is verified by the office, which later reviews it for effect. Even though the near miss did not result in harm, the corrective actions ensure that the conditions that allowed it are addressed before they lead to an actual incident.

Write the investigation report on the near miss's Report tab, in a rich-text editor. Navatom AI can draft it from the record in neutral, factual language without blame, and the draft opens for you to edit before anything is saved.

Near-miss reports serve your safety committee, vessel management, and fleet safety program. The structured format ensures consistency across vessels and supports fleet-wide analysis of near-miss patterns.

Hard evidence is a photo or a document that supports the investigation, such as a photo of the place or a copy of a log page; soft evidence is a written statement, such as what a witness saw. Neither is needed to report, so a near miss can be logged first and evidenced later.

The evidence requirement is kept low to maintain reporting momentum. A photograph from a phone camera or a brief description is sufficient to document most near misses. More detailed evidence can be added later if the investigation warrants it.

List the people who saw the near miss: crew members on board that day, your company's employees, or third parties such as a pilot or a stevedore. What each witness said is recorded as soft evidence on the same investigation.

Witness accounts add perspective to the initial report. When multiple crew members observe the same event from different vantage points, the combined accounts create a more complete picture of the near-miss scenario and its contributing factors.

Every near miss follows a six-stage safety lifecycle from initial report through investigation, corrective action, and closure. The lifecycle is lighter than a full incident investigation but still ensures that every reported observation reaches a documented conclusion.

Clear status visibility means your safety officer always knows which near misses are awaiting investigation, which have open corrective actions, and which are fully resolved. Overdue items are immediately visible for follow-up.

Classify near misses by the severity of the potential consequence — even though the event didn't result in actual harm. A near miss with fatal potential receives more investigation attention than one with minor consequence potential.

Priority classification ensures that your safety team focuses investigation resources on the near misses that represent the greatest risk to your fleet. A high-potential flag marks the near misses that could realistically have caused a fatality or permanent disability.

Report and investigate near misses from both ship and office environments. Ship crews can submit observations directly from their workstation, and shore-based safety teams can review, investigate, and assign corrective actions without manual handoff.

The open reporting environment encourages participation from all crew levels. The easier it is to report a near miss, the more reports your safety program receives — and the more learning opportunities your organization captures.

Assign investigation and corrective action responsibility to specific crew members or shore personnel. On board, the near miss goes to the officer ranks assigned, with the master always among them; in the office, to the people who follow it.

Clear responsibility ensures that every near miss receives follow-up. Even routine observations are assigned to someone who will review them and determine whether corrective action is needed.

Five dashboard widgets show your near misses and the fleet's that are overdue or in progress, new ones waiting to be accepted, and unassigned ones. Each shows as a count or as a table you can open, for the vessels you choose.

Near-miss analytics are a leading indicator of safety culture health. Rising reporting rates often indicate an improving safety culture, while declining rates may signal that crew members are not comfortable reporting. The dashboard makes these trends visible.

Three pages of near-miss analytics. Flow shows how near misses move through their statuses; By Rank shows which ranks report them; Root Causes shows which causes come back across the fleet.

Access the complete history of every near miss across your fleet. Closed near misses remain searchable, building a knowledge base of lessons learned that supports safety briefings, training programs, and continuous improvement.

When a similar near miss occurs on another vessel, your safety team can search the archive for previous investigations and corrective actions. The fleet-wide history turns individual observations into shared safety intelligence.

Every action on a near miss is recorded in its event history, with who did it and when. From initial reporting through investigation, witness additions, corrective actions, and closure — every step is captured with full attribution.

The audit trail demonstrates to inspectors and auditors that your organization takes near misses seriously — reporting them, investigating them, and acting on them as part of a functioning safety management system.