This paper examines how
investigators can reconstruct the role that people contribute to accidents in light of what has recently
become known as the new view of human error. The commitment of the new view is to move
controversial human assessments and actions back into the flow of events of which they were part
and which helped bring them forth, to see why assessments and actions made sense to people at the
time. pdf 
In this 2001 Dekker spends many pages explaining where the old view breaks down before itemizing five activities consistent with a more meaningful accident assessment.
Step 1: laying out the sequence of events in context-specific language.
Step 2: divide the sequence of events into episodes, if necessary.
Step 3: find out how the world looked or changed during each episode.
Step 4: identify people’s goals, focus of attention and knowledge active at the time.
Step 5: step up to a conceptual description.
See also Human Performance in Systems