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Introduction
Black swans represent the unpredictable. They represent "[...] our misunderstanding of the likelihood of surprises" ([50] Taleb, 2007, p. 2). A black swan is described by [50] Taleb (2007) as that which is an outlier, that which is outside the realm of regular expectations which carries with it an extreme impact such as natural disasters, market crashes, catastrophic failure of complex socio-technical systems and terrorist events such as 9/11. These "surprising events" reflect an organizations inability to recognize evidence of new vulnerabilities or the existence of ineffective countermeasures ([61] Woods, 2006, p. 24). This necessitates the requirement to readjust to their existence and thereby the need to consider the extremes ([50] Taleb, 2007, p. xx).
With consideration of emerging and systemic risks and inherent uncertainty associated with surprising events, planning for and managing risk, crisis and disasters requires understanding of the space of possibilities in order to avoid unrealistic expectations that can influence the management of disasters and catastrophes. Many of the systemic risks that characterize the safety problem space often arise from unanticipated consequences of interactions within and between different types of systems. Informing the domain of safety and security is systems thinking. [27] Jackson (2003, p. 65) defines systems thinking as "[...] a discipline for seeing the 'structures' that underlie complex situations [...] it helps us to see the deeper patterns lying beneath the events and the details" [49] Senge (1990) and challenges simplification, opening up to a space of possibilities.
Systems thinking, characterized by seeing wholes and interconnections is critical to understanding accident aetiology associated with complex socio-technical systems. As described in [39] Masys (2010), the systems lens can enable decision makers to see beyond events and detect underlying patterns as well as the forces and causal relationships that hold these patterns in place. [55] Van der Merwe (2008, p. 220) argues that "[...] a systems worldview, together with tools and techniques to make structure visible, is important for building quality scenarios". The systems lens "[...] acknowledges that knowledge is multiple, temporary and dependent on context - with different points of view providing a constant challenge to any existing viewpoint or system" ([59] Wilkinson and Eidinow, 2008, p. 9). For example, the 2003 US/Canada Blackout represents a black swan event in...