Employer duties

What is the major accident scenario document?

This is an obligation specific to the Turkish regime, and it applies at both tiers. The document sets out the major accident scenarios that could occur at the establishment, how each could develop, and the preventive and mitigating barriers placed against them. Its difference from the safety report is coverage: the scenarios are not limited to the upper tier.

The regime difference comes first

This document is an item of the Turkish regime and has no exact counterpart in the EU obligation list. An establishment that copies one country's list to the other either never prepares it, or produces it needlessly for a country that does not ask for it.

What it does

The document answers three questions together:

  1. Which major accident scenarios could occur at this establishment?
  2. Through what chain of events does each develop — initiating event, loss of control, consequence?
  3. At each link in the chain, which barrier stands, and how is that barrier tested?

Thinking in barriers

The point of writing scenarios is not to generate alarm but to show what has been put in between. Barriers are of two kinds: preventive ones that stop the event happening, and mitigating ones that limit the consequence once it has. Every barrier needs an owner, a test method and a record; a barrier with no owner disappears quietly at the first maintenance shutdown.

Where the scenarios come from

Three sources: the plant's own process hazard analysis, real events in the sector, and the establishment's own near-miss records. The third is usually the most valuable, because it is specific to this site — and usually the least used.

Relation to the other documents

The scenarios are the input to the internal emergency plan, which says what will be done if they occur. If the two carry different scenario lists, the plan is preparing for an accident that does not exist.

Manage this in Optifora

Optifora is not a single program but a compliance platform assembled from modules. The catalogue states which module is ready today and which is on the roadmap.

See what Optifora is