You may recall I once posted here a situation of an "extra trail" just like you mentioned, it occurred while I ws hiking in Penn's woods on a cold and sleety day near Pymatuning, PA. Let me know if you don't recall it and I will post it here again.

Many disasters, as you point out, are caused by cumulative errors or risk-taking. No one action or failure to act is the cause, but enough of them add up.

Although crises are often binary situations, they either happen or they don't, very often they are the result of a series of missteps, none of which by themselves would have been critical.

Sailing taught me to leave nothing to chance, drill all your potential responses to trouble ahead of time, and constantly think to yourself what you would do if X happened unexpectedly. Always have a plan B. None of this is a guarantee against failure, or can predict the unexpected, but they keep the probabilities low.