The Petrochemicals Division of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) operated many plants with large inventories of flammable chemicals at its Wilton site (including one in which cyclohexane was oxidised to cyclohexanone and cyclohexanol). Historically good process safety performance at Wilton had been marred in the late 1960s by a spate of fatal fires caused by faulty isolations/handovers for maintenance work. Their immediate cause was human error but ICI felt that saying that most accidents were caused by human error was no more useful than saying that most falls are caused by gravity. ICI had not simply reminded operators to be more careful, but issued explicit instructions on the required quality of isolations, and the required quality of its documentation. The more onerous requirements were justified as follows: