AMSA realeased the annual report for the marine incidents for year 2024. Amsa analyses the incidnets reported by the vessel owners, operators and crew. The analysis of the date is to undertsand the safety risks affecting domestic commercial vessels (DCVs), regulated Australian vessels (RAVs) and foreign-flagged vessels operating in Australian waters.
The Marine Incident Annual Report 2024 presents key findings from the past year and identifies trends over the last 5 years, including common incident types, their impacts, and some of the contributing safety factors. These insights directly inform the development of AMSA’s 2025–26 National Compliance Plan, AMSA’s targeted strategy to improve vessel safety across the sector.
Key highlights of this annual report are:
- 5,625 marine incidents reported (up 2.8% from 2023).
- Larger DCVs (12 m and over) made up nearly 70% of marine incident reports, despite comprising only 20.6% of the DCV fleet. Bulk carriers accounted for the most marine incidents among foreign-flagged vessels.
- 5 fatalities were reported across all vessel types.
- Over 500 reported injuries with 157 of these serious.
- Most serious crew injuries were linked to navigation (DCVs) or maintenance and cargo handling (RAVs/foreign-flagged vessels).
- Collisions, groundings, and propulsion or system failures were the most common marine incident types with engineering system failures rising across all vessel types.
- Person overboard incidents on DCVs dropped by 12.9%.
- Common contributing factors included poor lookout, equipment failures, and gaps in risk assessments or risk management procedures.