In the present study, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to compare Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) with Tripod-Beta in order to determine the superior technique for analysis of major and complex accidents in process industries. This research was carried out in three main steps. In the first step, two major accidents were analyzed applying FTA and Tripod-Beta to find out the causal factors of the accidents. In the second step, a number of criteria were developed for the comparison of the two techniques. Finally, using AHP, the techniques were prioritized in terms of the criteria to choose the superior one. The result of the study showed that FTA with the total priority of 0.624 is superior to Tripod-Beta with the total priority of 0.35. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.