Safety Awareness Dispatch
SA 26-07 Disregarding Shipboard Alarms
Today’s topic of discussion covers disregarding shipboard alarms. Before we dive into these examples, let’s first discuss a phenomenon known as alarm fatigue, which is when personnel become desensitized to electronic safety alerts. Addressing alarm fatigue involves improving the culture to take alarms seriously. Human factors continue to play a significant role in how we respond to a shipboard alarm. A Sailor or Marine may display a lackadaisical attitude toward a flooding or fire alarm, especially if the alarm has proven to be erroneous in the past. If disregarding alarms becomes normalized, then a culture of noncompliance develops and that is something we cannot afford to happen. The naval enterprise needs leaders who understand risk identification and control and who promote a culture of procedural compliance within their departments and divisions. Examples below outline where these risk controls were ignored or neglected.
| Published: | June 2, 2026 |
The Safety Awareness team creates concise, readable (and sometimes funny) safety lessons to help Sailors, Marines and civilian employees (and their families) avoid repeating a mishap. Our goal is to make people think! We do our best to tell a story that people will remember – that they’ll recall when going through their normal day – that empowers them to identify hazards, accept “ownership” and responsibility for those hazards (in their community, command, and home), and take action.
