Introduction and purpose

Each year, AMSA receives several thousand notifications of marine incidents involving foreign-flagged vessels, regulated Australian vessels (RAVs) and domestic commercial vessels (DCVs).  

This overview provides a summary analysis of marine incidents reported in the 2021 calendar year with trends from 2017-2021 for foreign-flagged vessels and RAVs¹ and trends from 2019-2021 for DCVs².  

Analysis of marine incident data is used together with other safety data (e.g. inspection data) to support identification of focus areas for targeted compliance activities. Targeted activities for 2022-2023 are in the National Compliance Plan.  

This summary overview is supported by a more detailed analyses in the Annual overview for marine incidents 2021 PDF2.75 MB with Appendix 1 containing a glossary and descriptions of classifications used throughout this report.   

The annual incident report is not a complete overview and/or comprehensive technical analysis. Marine incident data alone does not provide enough evidence for the in-depth analysis required for the identification of safety issues – this requires a more holistic analyses of other safety data including inspection and investigation data with further supporting analyses. AMSA performs these analyses in the development of the National Compliance Plan. 

Footnotes

¹ Incident data for Australian commercial vessels for 2021 is reported against the certification status as either a RAV or a DCV at the time of the marine incident.

² DCV incident reporting to AMSA commenced in July 2018 hence analyses limited to the 2019 – 2021 data. 

Increases in reported marine incidents 

Reporting of marine incidents and ensuing control measures put in place to prevent re-occurrence is indicative of a good reporting and maturing safety culture.  In 2021, marine incident reporting continued to increase over previous years, which suggests improvement in reporting culture in the commercial vessel industry as a whole. In spite of this positive trend the maritime industry generally still suffers from widespread underreporting of marine incidents, which presents a challenge for AMSA as a safety regulator, as incident reporting is one of the more important safety improvement strategies.

Reporting trends in DCVs

Marine incidents are classified by AMSA into one of three severity levels: very serious, serious, and less serious. In 2021 for DCVs, less serious incidents comprised 70.6% of all reported incidents. This is consistent with 70.3% in 2020.  

Considering DCVs by class, number of reports received from passenger and non-passenger vessels increased whilst the number reported by fishing and hire & drive vessels remained steady.  Passenger vessels reported a much larger share of incidents compared to their share of the DCV fleet, suggesting that the operators of passenger vessels continue to have a better reporting culture.  Fishing vessels continue to have a much smaller share of reported incidents compared to their representation in the DCV fleet (figure 2) and from the reports that are received, they rate of very serious and serious incidents is nearly double that of the other vessel classes. 

There was also a lower proportion of incident reports from vessels under 7.5m in length, which form the majority of the DCV fleet.  

AMSA recognises there are issues to be addressed to foster a positive reporting culture among operators of smaller vessels and fishing vessels and will continue to work with operators of these vessels to improve reporting culture.  

Reporting trends in foreign-flagged and regulated Australian vessels (RAVs)

Low numbers of vessels and therefore reports mean RAV data lacks statistical significance to support trend analysis. 

In foreign-flagged vessels in 2021, less serious incidents comprised 92.6% of all reported incidents.  

Bulk carriers reported the majority of incidents and were over-represented in incident reports compared to vessel arrivals.  Bulk carriers together with vehicle carriers reported a lower proportion of very serious and serious incidents compared to the average for foreign-flagged vessels. The highest proportion of very serious and serious incidents were reported by livestock carriers and ‘other’ ship types including tug boats, wood-chip carriers, special purpose ships, heavy load carriers, ro-ro cargo ships and NLS, oil/chemical and oil/NLS tankers.

AMSA classifies all reported marine incidents into one or more “occurrence type” categories to consistently describe what happened. This provides a description of what happened and helps identify patterns and areas for further investigation.  
In addition to classifying types of incidents based on what happened, AMSA reviews investigation reports into DCV incidents to identify how and why the incident occurred. Marine incidents are a result of many factors and underlying safety issues that often are not directly linked to the incident – such as organisational issues. To capture underlying safety factors, AMSA developed a maritime safety framework based on research and data to classify investigation findings.

Marine incidents by occurrence type – analyses and findings

As indicated all marine incidents reported to AMSA are coded using the occurrence type framework. High level occurrence types include technical, operational, non-operational, consequence, environmental and infrastructure and support.  Consequence occurrence sub-types include consequences to people and consequences to the vessel.  

While 87.3% of incidents reported from foreign-flagged ships were classified as technical, 85.8% of incidents reported from DCVs were classified as operational.  This suggests foreign-flagged ships will report technical incidents even when they do not result in consequences; whereas DCVs are less likely to report incidents that do not result in consequences.

This overview and the annual incident report focus on consequence, technical and operational occurrence-types and their sub-types as there is limited data associated with the other types.  

Fatalities on DCVs

Between 2017 and 2021, there were 19 operational-related fatalities on DCVs; overall, the number of fatalities has been trending downward.  

The majority of fatalities from 2017-2021 occurred in Queensland, and 90% of those Queensland fatalities involved fishing vessels.  Fishing vessels also accounted for the majority of all operational fatalities 2017-2021.  
In 2021 there were three fatalities associated with DCV vessel operations.  

The fatality rate is the number of fatalities per 100,000 crew employed on DCVs.  In 2021 this was 4.5, lower than the five-year average of 5.5.

Injuries on DCVs

In 2021 there were more injuries reported than in 2020 or 2019; however the rate of incidents resulting in injuries dropped, due to the overall increase in incident reporting.  

Injuries are categorised as serious or minor.  In 2021, DCVs reported 39 serious injuries, similar to 2020 and 2019, but a smaller proportion of all injuries reported, suggesting that DCV operators are notifying AMSA of a greater number of incidents that result in less-serious outcomes, a potential success from AMSA promoting an ‘incident reporting culture’. 

The most common types of circumstances in which a crew injury was reported (consistent across very serious, serious and less serious injuries) were:

• operational and technical access, which involves the movement of people around the vessel and the condition of access equipment including ladders and stairs  
• injuries resulting from incidents where a loss of vessel control was reported 
• injury where water conditions and weather affected the operation of the vessel 
• handling of cargo and stores, and  
• maintenance operations  

Persons overboard on DCVs

In 2021, 73 of a total of 80 incident reports involved persons overboard from DCVs. 

This is consistent with contextual expectations given that the DCV fleet comprises smaller vessels, where the risk of falling overboard is correspondingly greater. 

Passenger vessels reported almost half (34) of persons overboard incidents on DCVs, and the majority of these persons were not wearing a lifejacket, or their life jacket status was unknown.  This is consistent with the context of vessels carrying passengers in groups and situations where it is less likely or practical for passengers to be wearing lifejackets. Of the incidents where it was reported that the person overboard was wearing a lifejacket, the majority of these (14 out of 22) were non-passenger vessels.  

There was one person overboard incident which resulted in a fatality on a DCV fishing vessel. The incident report noted that this person was not wearing a lifejacket.    

Fatalities on RAVs and foreign-flagged vessels

In 2021 three operational related fatalities occurred on foreign flagged vessels. Of these, one was classified as an operational fatality occurring during a crew transfer between vessels; the deceased crew member was wearing a lifejacket at the time of the incident. The remaining fatal incidents involved crew members who went missing from the vessel and are presumed to have died.  There were no RAV or foreign-flagged vessel reports of operational-related passenger fatalities in 2021.  

Detailed reporting on RAV and foreign-flagged vessel crew fatalities is contained in the 2021 Annual Report on the Maritime Labour Convention. 

In response access safety issues identified, AMSA has issued information and guidance on safe vessel access, including Marine Notices on pilot transfer arrangements and pilot ladders and a Safety Awareness Bulletin on safe vessel access.  

Injuries on RAVs and foreign-flagged vessels

A total of 77 serious injuries were reported for RAVs (18) and foreign flagged (59) vessels. The most common types of circumstances in which a crew injury was reported (which was consistent across very serious, serious and less serious injuries) were:

• operational and technical access
• maintenance
• cargo handling and stores
• ship control and navigation, and
• accommodation/hotel services.

As identified in the National Compliance Plan AMSA will continue to pay particular attention to MLC compliance in relation to seafarer health and safety protection and accident prevention.

Persons overboard on RAVs and foreign-flagged vessels

Seven persons overboard incidents were reported by foreign flagged vessels in 2021 and 3 of these were fatal incidents as per above. 

Consequences to vessels on DCVs

The three most frequently occurring consequences on DCVs were collision, contact (with something other than a vessel), and grounding.  Incidents involving collision, contact and/or grounding accounted for 60.8% of the very serious and serious incident consequences for DCVs in 2021. This is consistent with previous reporting.

Consequences to vessels on RAVs and foreign-flagged vessels

The most frequently occurring consequences for RAVs in 2021 were contact, fire and collision with another vessel. The three most frequently occurring vessel consequences for foreign-flagged vessels were vessel disabled, fire and total power failure.

The high frequency of vessels being disabled or losing ship’s power and the number of fire incidents have both informed the National Compliance Plan which are subject to further follow-up and action by AMSA.  

In relation to the high frequency of vessels becoming disabled or experiencing total power failure, and in conjunction with PSC reporting on deficiencies related to maintenance, AMSA has recently published a Safety Bulletin on the importance of planned maintenance, which has been identified as one of the contributing factors in incidents resulting in total power failure and/or a disabled vessel.  AMSA has also published a Marine Notice on this issue, highlighting AMSA’s focus on planned maintenance during port State control inspections. 

An increasing trend in fire incidents led to the inclusion of fire safety as a focus risk area in the National Compliance Plan; the issue has also been identified internationally in the 2023 Tokyo Ocean MoU Concentrated Inspection Campaign topic.  

Technical occurrence types on DCVs

The most frequent technical incident occurrence sub-type on DCVs was ‘power, propulsion and steering’.  The next most frequent sub-types were vessel systems, engineering systems, structure and access.  The increase in incidents involving power, propulsion and steering failures in 2021 was inconsistent with other technical sub-types, and disproportionately greater than the increase in total incident reports from DCVs in 2021.

Technical occurrence types on RAVs and foreign-flagged vessels

Two-thirds of technical occurrence types on RAVs and foreign-flagged vessels involved ‘power, propulsion and steering’. The next most frequent sub-types were engineering systems, ship systems and cargo and stores.  Of the serious incidents involving power, propulsion and steering, approximately half involved main engine and gearing failure.  

Operational occurrence types on DCVs

By far the most frequent operational occurrence sub-type on DCVs involved control and navigation of the vessel. The next most frequent sub-types were operational access, cargo handling and stores, maintenance and communication.  

The distribution of vessel control and navigation incidents across DCV classes is consistent with the overall incident distribution for 2021, and has remained consistent since 2019.  This indicates that issues around vessel control and navigation are occurring across the DCV fleet and are not concentrated within a particular use category.

Operation occurrence types on RAVs and foreign-flagged vessels

Vessel control and navigation was the most frequent operational sub-type reported in RAV and foreign-flagged incidents in 2021, followed by maintenance. The next most frequent sub-types were cargo handling and stores, and vessel control and navigation.  

With operational access and maintenance continuing to feature, AMSA has issued Marine Notices on pilot transfer arrangements and pilot ladders.  AMSA also issued a Marine Notice and Safety Bulletin on the importance of planned maintenance, and will focus on maintenance during port State control inspections. 

Safety framework coding analyses and findings – Domestic Commercial Vessels

This year’s report includes analysis from findings coded using the safety framework from 109 investigation reports over 2020-2021 which is contained in the Annual overview for marine incidents 2021 PDF2.75 MB.  

The majority of safety factors identified from the investigation reports related to people and internal organisational issues. People factors refer to observable behaviours such as decisions, actions and/or inaction by crew that increased risk. Safety management processes formed the largest percentage of internal organisational issues. Investigation reports in 2021 identified shortfalls associated with the processes an organisation uses to establish, maintain, and otherwise ensure the effectiveness of its risk controls as factors affecting onboard safety. Safety procedures and risk assessments continue to represent the majority of safety management process issues and hence continue to be included as key focus activities within the National Compliance Plan. 

This annual incident summary consolidates and considers marine incident reports across the spectrum of domestic and international commercial operations.  It presents a snapshot of the vessels that regularly operate in, or visit, Australian waters.  

This will assist AMSA to develop a more complete picture of the maritime industry to identify trends in safety, identify areas for research and recommend safety compliance actions. 

In 2021 it was encouraging to see the increased incident reporting from the DCV sector, but this is not consistent across all types of vessels and operations. AMSA continues to work in partnership with industry on the challenge of fostering a reporting culture to improve safety outcomes for the DCV fleet.

Whilst incident reports provide the frequency and nature of marine incidents, we also need to identify underlying safety issues - not just what went wrong, but why and how it went wrong, and how we can prevent recurrence. Through use of a safety framework to better understand what drives human behaviour and performance we support our risk-based approach in the identification of focus areas of concern. By doing so we can prioritise our compliance approach and design compliance initiatives to ensure we allocate our resources relative to the outcomes we aim to achieve.

The information in this report, in conjunction with the Port State Control Annual Report and Maritime Labour Convention Annual Report, formed the basis of the 2022-2023 National Compliance Plan.  Focus areas in the National Compliance Plan which have been informed by incident data include:

• Safety Management Systems (Risk Assessment):  AMSA will conduct a safety compliance campaign which will include education and focused inspections on risk assessment, targeting Class 2 (non-passenger vessel) operations in port limits, including towage and vessel transfer operations.
• Safety Management Systems (onboard familiarisation): AMSA will develop and conduct an education campaign focusing on the obligations of vessel owners to ensure that all personnel are qualified and properly inducted and trained in the operation of the vessel before assuming duties.  
• Fire Safety: AMSA will develop and publish a safety bulletin in 2022/23 on fire safety with a focus on adapting fire prevention and firefighting practices to cargo being carried on-board.