A STAMP-based causal analysis of the Korean Sewol ferry accident

•Conducted an in-depth STAMP-based accident analysis of the 2014 Sewol tragedy.•Uncovered rationales behind the decision-makings leading up to the huge death toll.•Unsafe interactions among components played a vital role in leading to the hazards.•Systems thinking can be applied to the safety of maritime transportation domain.•Recommendations are generated for continuous improvements and corrective actions. The increased complexity of socio-technical systems has revealed the limited contributions of existing event-based accident analysis methods on sustainable safety improvements. Systems-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) – constructed upon Systems Theory – deploys a holistic approach to safety and provides broad insights into accident causality via the integration of the analysis from both direct and indirect factors involved. A dedicated STAMP-based analysis is conducted in this paper by taking the recent Sewol ferry tragedy as an example, to illustrate the utility of applying the STAMP-Model to the maritime transportation domain and to stimulate a broader view of accident mechanisms that expands casual analysis beyond immediate physical failures to a systemic view. Some recommendations are developed for continuous improvements and corrective actions to prevent such catastrophic accident from future occurrences.