Commercial fishing is an important industry that generates income directly or indirectly to many people in the world. It is impossible to carry out a fishing activity on this scale without a vessel. Therefore, fishing vessels are the most important element of modern fishing industry. Fishing vessels play a key role in fishing, transporting and storing fish. Thousands of people die every year as a result of fishing vessel accidents. In order to carry out sustainable fishing operations, fishing vessel accidents should be investigated and measures should be taken to prevent them. Therefore, in this study for analysing of accidents occurred between 2008 and 2018 in fishing vessels, with full lengths of 7 m and above, Bayesian network, chi-square methods were used. As a result, recommendations were made to prevent accidents. Also, Accident (Bayes) Network, which summarizes the occurrence of accidents on fishing vessels, is presented. These networks allow to understand the occurrence of accidents in fishing vessels and to estimate the occurrence of accidents in variable conditions. It was also found that there was a significant relationship between accident category and vessel length, vessel age, loss of life and loss of vessel. •In this study, an accident network is presented which summarizes the occurrence of fishing vessel accidents.•The accident (Bayes) network makes it possible to evaluate the occurrence of fishing vessel accidents.•How influencing factors may individually or in combination lead to the occurrence of an accident is demonstrated.•General findings of the study show that it is necessary to review the safety measures applied in fishing vessels.•Chi-square test results show that there is a significant relationship between the accident type and ship characteristics.