Turkish search and rescue area is of strategic importance in terms of international transportation and shipping, particularly Istanbul and Çanakkale regions are the output port of the Black Sea countries to the trans-boundary waters. An accident that may occur in these regions may cause heavy traffic to slow down or even stop the transportation. Slowing down or stopping the transportation and shipping will cause high economical damage to the countries of the region. At the same time marine accidents taking place in these regions will most likely result in human casualties and environmental disasters. Hence, it is necessary to evaluate the cause of the accidents occurring in this region to comment on the common precautions. In this study, 1247 marine accidents occurring in Turkish search and rescue area were investigated in 2001–2009. These were sorted with frequency analysis and analyzed by using the Decision Tree method. Many of the ship accidents (60%) result from human error. Besides, most human error-induced accidents in Turkish search and rescue areas occurred in Istanbul region (50%). Finally, the risk of a collision-contact accident in cargo vessels in Istanbul region is stated to be 10% by reason of human error.

The Turkish Straits comprising the Strait of Canakkale, the Strait of Istanbul and the Sea of Marmara are unique in many respects. All dangers and obstacles characteristic of narrow waterways are present and acute in this critical sea lane. This research reveals the simulation of Canakkale (Dardanelle) Strait under different traffic conditions and identifies risky areas. The results of this simulation show that an increase of 25% in the existing traffic grows 43 times in the number of waiting ships (from 1.663 to 73.73), whereas waiting time increases 29 times (from 24.267 to 737.07). As a result of simulations and risk analysis, it is found that Nara turning point is the bottleneck point of the strait due to its topographic structure and the current system.

The Istanbul strait, which is a part of Turkish Strait System (TSS), is a narrow and navigationally risky waterway for ships. This risk increases daily due to oil transportation from Central Asia and Russia. In this study, four high risk areas were identified after analysing accident statistics for the strait. Then, a simulation was run for 1,000 tonnes of oil spill at each station and the distribution of oil determined by using GNOME