Lashing failures lead to lithium-ion battery fires aboard cargo ship

Lashing failures lead to lithium-ion battery fires aboard cargo ship

The 410-foot-long Genius Star XI steamed into poor weather on Christmas Day, 2023, while en route from Vietnam to Long Beach. The cargo vessel was transiting the North Pacific Ocean southwest of the Aleutian Islands when it met typical winter conditions: 30-mph winds and 20-foot seas. Below deck, the ship’s cargo of 192 lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) units…
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Mississippi pilot fails to factor in low- water, runs towboat aground

Mississippi pilot fails to factor in low- water, runs towboat aground

At a narrow, congested bend in the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, La., and during historically low water levels in late 2023, the towing vessel John M Donnelly maneuvered across a channel to pass a downbound vessel. The 186-foot, 9,000-plus-hp, steel-hulled John M Donnelly, which was pushing 25 empty dry cargo barges, steamed past two other pushboats and their tows…
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Maintenance error causes fatal lube oil fire on dredger

Maintenance error causes fatal lube oil fire on dredger

A routine maintenance error led to a deadly engine room fire aboard a U.S.-flag dredging vessel in Florida when pressurized lube oil sprayed from an auxiliary generator and ignited, killing the ship’s first engineer, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded. The fire aboard Stuyvesant, a nearly 393-foot-long U.S.-flagged trailing suction hopper dredger (TSHD), occurred while the vessel was holding…
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Hot work fire dooms octogenarian bulk carrier at Ohio dock

Hot work fire dooms octogenarian bulk carrier at Ohio dock

A March 2024 fire linked to hot work conducted aboard the bulk carrier Cuyahoga while docked in Ashtabula, Ohio, was fueled by an epoxy coating applied to the ship’s cargo hold, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Cuyahoga was moored for winter layup at Ashtabula’s Kinder Morgan Pinney Dock on March 15, 2024, when a cargo hold welding…
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Fire in boxship cargo hold forces evacuation from berth

Fire in boxship cargo hold forces evacuation from berth

A fire aboard the 1,047-foot containership One Henry Hudson forced a large, multi-agency response in late November 2025 in the Port of Los Angeles, prompting a unified command to relocate the vessel offshore while firefighters worked to contain the blaze. Authorities said the fire was reported shortly after 2000 while One Henry Hudson was moored at Berth 218. Nearly 200…
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Overloaded barges and complacent crew lead to capsize in the Arctic

Overloaded barges and complacent crew lead to capsize in the Arctic

A barge transporting cargo in the Canadian Arctic capsized in October 2023 after being loaded beyond its stability limits, according to a report by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB). The cargo vessel Sivumut was anchored in Frobisher Bay, Nunavut, while transshipping cargo to the city of Iqaluit using barges and tugs when the incident occurred. The capsize sent one crewmember,…
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Inadequate engineering and poor oversight lead to submersible Titan disaster

Inadequate engineering and poor oversight lead to submersible Titan disaster

More than a century after Titanic sank and became part of maritime and popular culture lore, the wreck claimed another victim — the submersible Titan. While diving at the Titanic site in June 2023 in the North Atlantic, the 22-foot submersible imploded and killed all five passengers aboard. Last year, the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board…
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Dozens of containers tumble off boxship offloading in Port of Long Beach

Dozens of containers tumble off boxship offloading in Port of Long Beach

Just as a viral video taken on Sept. 9 zoomed in on a pile of containers that seemed to have “spilled” off the aft-most stack of the boxship Mississippi, another stack in a bay just forward of the bridge slowly began to lurch. Piled at least approximately seven containers high, the stack crashed aft of the ship’s starboard beam onto…
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Winds push Mississippi River tug into dock walkway

Winds push Mississippi River tug into dock walkway

The sudden onset of strong beam winds likely caused a March 2024 undocking mishap on the Lower Mississippi River. The tug Cocodrie wound up with a 100-foot walkway sitting on its aft deck after contact at the Valero St. Charles Refinery in Louisiana, where the vessel was attempting to depart with a barge in tow.   The 69-foot-long, steel-hulled Cocodrie and…
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