The Marine Incident Annual Report 2025 analyses marine incidents across domestic commercial vessels (DCVs), foreign-flagged vessels (FFVs) and regulated Australian vessels (RAVs), identifying trends across the entire fleet over the past five years.
In 2025, we received 4,174 marine incident reports, providing a whole-of-fleet view of where safety risks are emerging and how they are changing over time to inform safer operations.
What's driving marine incidents
Across the fleet, marine incidents are most often linked to routine vessel operations and system reliability. Collisions, groundings, and power, propulsion and system failures remain among the most common incident types.
Operational shortfalls were involved in over half of DCV marine incidents, most commonly related to vessel control and navigation, including maintaining an effective lookout. Technical failures, particularly involving power, propulsion and steering systems, continue to present a consistent risk across all vessel types.
These patterns show that many marine incidents occur during everyday activities, where gaps in onboard practices, planning or maintenance can increase risk.
The impact on people
Behind every marine incident is the potential for serious harm.
In 2025, DCV marine incidents resulted in 4 fatalities, 228 injuries (including 44 serious injuries), and 92 person overboard incidents. That's a 19% increase in person overboard incidents compared to 2024.
Across RAVs and FFVs, a further 206 injuries were reported, the majority involving crew.
The most serious injuries were linked to operational activities, particularly navigation on DCVs, and maintenance, operational access and cargo handling on RAVs and FFVs.
These outcomes highlight the real-world consequences of breakdowns in safety controls, especially during everyday tasks where risks can be underestimated.
Why this matters
Understanding what is driving marine incidents helps vessel owners, operators and crew focus on where action will have the greatest impact, strengthening onboard procedures, maintaining vessel systems, and managing risks before incidents occur.
Every marine incident report contributes to a clearer understanding of emerging risks across the fleet. These insights help target compliance and education activities to improve safety outcomes.
Read the full report to see what these trends mean for your operations.
