What could be interesting, and usually is to me, are the reasonable but wrong theories. To use the EV example, if reasonable and experienced mariners thought Valdez was taking a dangerous shortcut could it be that ships have tried to take that dangerous shortcut in the past? In other words, was the shortcut a ticking time bomb that didn’t go off that time?
Or more recently, it was strongly believed that Tote pressured El Faro to sail into danger when, in hindsight, that wasn’t exactly the case. Reasonable mariners believed it was possible. Wouldn’t that show the possibility of company pressure on a master as a ticking time bomb to future accidents?
Incorrect but widely believed theories can be useful to study to prevent them from becoming reality in the future.