A database study of accident contributors in the chemical process industry (CPI) was carried out. All 364 CPI-related accidents available in the Failure Knowledge Database were analyzed to identify the main and the subcontributors of the accidents. The accident contributors were ranked in accordance with their frequency and importance in accident prevention. The most common accident contributors were the human and organizational aspects in operation (19% of contributors), contamination (11 %), flow-related issues (11 %), and heat transfer (10 %). In the main contributor analysis, the same classes of contributors were also the most frequent causes of accidents. A four-quadrant analysis identified the most important contributors to be focused on in accident prevention: contamination, flow-related and heat transfer categories. The relationships between the contributors were also studied using an interconnection matrix, which revealed three functional groups of accident contributors. Their relationships were illustrated through an interconnection diagram.