With familiar operational hazards continuing to play a role in serious and costly accidents, America’s premier transportation safety agency is urging maritime operators to look more closely at their daily procedures and compare them with lessons learned from recent marine casualties.
The recommendation was part of the Safer Seas Digest 2025, the agency’s annual summary of marine investigations concluded the year before. The report calls on owners, operators, mariners and vessel designers to examine what happened on similar vessels, and apply lessons learned from those incidents to identify ways to prevent similar incidents.
Owners, operators, mariners and vessel designers should be aware of the circumstances of accidents aboard similar vessels when reviewing their own operations, the NTSB says in the report. The agency said lessons from its investigations and the experiences of operators can help mariners make changes to avoid repeating accidents.
The latest edition is 136 pages, more than three times the size of the first Safer Seas Digest that was published in 2013. The report includes 49 investigations into all kinds of casualties, such as capsizings, collisions, contact with fixed objects, fires, floodings, groundings and machinery damage.
Again, as in the previous two editions, the NTSB concluded that most of the casualties it investigated could have been avoided.
Among the cases in the 2025 digest are the investigation of the 9,962-TEU containership Dali, which experienced a total loss of power on departing the Port of Baltimore in 2024. When it lost power, the vessel struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge head on, causing the bridge to collapse.
The report also looks at the Aframax/LR2-class product tanker Hafnia Amessi, which experienced extreme hydrodynamic bank effect and shoaling while transiting the Cooper River near Charleston, South Carolina, in 2024.
Another high-profile case was the 210.92-meter con-ro vessel Grande Costa D’Avorio that caught fire in 2023 while loading cargo at Port Newark, New Jersey.
The casualty to Grande Costa D’Avorio drew particular attention from NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy, who cited emergency preparedness and training as key to mitigating the effects of an accident.
“Having emergency procedures in place, continually reviewing and updating them and providing regular training to crews and other personnel on procedures can go a long way in reducing the impact of an accident,” Homendy said.
She said that there were no such measures in place at the time of the Grande Costa D’Avorio fire. The land-based firefighters that responded to the vessel were not provided the emergency procedures or training to properly respond to a shipboard fire.
The fire spread because the emergency response was ineffective due to a lack of preparation. Two firefighters died and six emergency responders were hurt in the process.
Following its investigation, the NTSB issued 11 new recommendations aimed at addressing the shortcomings identified in the response to the casualty.
The agency said investigators also identified a series of recurring issues across the cases completed last year. Those common factors, it said, should be considered by mariners and operators as they review their own practices:
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Performing maintenance effectively.
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Ensuring effective voyage planning and management.
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Detecting and containing vessel fires.
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Assessing the condition of waterfront infrastructure.
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Maintaining watertight integrity.
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Accounting for bank effect.
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Addressing fatigue and distraction.
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Properly securing and monitoring lithium-ion batteries.
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Mitigating the risks associated with a loss of electrical power.
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Planning and training for emergencies.
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Operating safely in strong currents or heavy-weather conditions.
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Operating equipment and machinery systems as designed.
Taken together, the findings reinforce the NTSB’s central message: reviewing known hazards, maintaining effective procedures and continuously training personnel can help maritime operators identify preventable risks before they become major casualties.
