Find the Facts › Accident investigations (NTSB)
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Marine accidents
Ship, boat and ferry accidents investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board, from 1962 on: groundings, collisions, fires, sinkings and deaths aboard commercial vessels.
The NTSB looks at the more serious cases; the Coast Guard handles many more, and its records are listed at the bottom of this page.
Recent cases are preliminary and can change. Names and addresses of owners or operators who are unincorporated individuals are not shown. Companies and agencies are shown in full.
How to use this page (tips and what to expect)
- Just open it: with no choices you see the last 92 days of marine cases, newest first. Click a case number to open the full NTSB record.
- Going back in time: change the From and To dates. One search covers up to 92 days, so for a year, search it in pieces. The State and word filters work only on the dates you chose.
- Few results is normal. The NTSB investigates a small share of marine accidents, and a quiet stretch can have none. For ordinary boating accidents see the Coast Guard sources below.
- Word filter: try a vessel type (tug, ferry, fishing, tanker, barge) or a place. It filters the cases already found for those dates.
- Rescues: we found no public, searchable Coast Guard rescue (search and rescue) data. The Coast Guard's news releases and the Freedom of Information Act are the routes.
- New cases are preliminary. The probable cause is blank until the NTSB finishes, often a year or more later.
- What is not shown: names and addresses of owners and operators who are individuals. Companies and other organizations are shown in full.
1 marine case from 2026-07-16 to 2026-10-15.
Coast Guard and boating records (not searchable here: where to find them)
- Recreational Boating Statistics (U.S. Coast Guard)
The yearly report on recreational boating accidents, deaths and injuries, with the causes and the kinds of boats, for 2019 to 2024 (as PDFs). Earlier years and the underlying accident database can be requested from the Coast Guard's Boating Safety Division at rbsinfo@uscg.mil.
- Marine casualty and pollution data (Coast Guard Homeport)
Downloadable files on vessel casualties investigated by the Coast Guard since 1982 and pollution incidents since 1973. The files are bulk spreadsheets, not a search, and the main one stops in mid-2015. This site cannot load them for you: open the page and download them.
- NTSB marine investigations
The NTSB's own marine pages: major casualty investigations, reports and recommendations. Cases searched above come from the same agency.
- Wrecksite.eu (shipwreck database)
A worldwide database of shipwrecks, with each vessel's history, loss details, position and photos, including many World War I and II losses. Basic searching is free; fuller details need a free account. This site does not search or copy it: open the page to look a wreck up.
- NTSB CAROL
The NTSB's own case search, including dockets and documents we do not copy.
Credit: marine investigation data from the National Transportation Safety Board public API, searched live. Names and addresses of unincorporated individuals are not shown. Preliminary information can change; the NTSB’s own reports are the final word.
