UK Marine Accident Recommendations and Statistics Report 2022

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has launched its Marine Accident Recommendations and Statistics Report 2022 which covers the United Kingdom.

The MAIB examines and investigates all types of marine accidents to or onboard UK vessels worldwide, and other vessels in UK territorial waters. Located in offices in Southampton, the MAIB is a separate, independent branch within the Department for Transport (DfT). The head of the MAIB, the Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents, reports directly to the Secretary of State for Transport.

Year	Marine Casualties and Marine Incidents	Investigations Started	Investigations Started Involving Loss of Life
2022	1263	16	08
2021	1530	22	14
2020	1217	19	10
2019	1090	22	13
2018	1227	23	07

 

In the introduction of the Report, the Chief Inspector of the MAIB, Andre Moll OBE said:

“I am pleased to introduce MAIB’s annual report 2022. For many reasons, as I outline below, it was a challenging year, but the branch remained focused on improving safety at sea and kept up its usual output of safety investigation reports, safety digests and safety bulletins. Across the year, the branch received 1,263 reports of marine casualties and marine incidents involving UK vessels worldwide or other nations’ vessels in UK waters and commenced 16 investigations.

Speaking on the UK fishing industry, Captain Moll said it had been a particularly bad year for the loss of fishing vessels:

“2021 was a particularly bad year for fatalities in the commercial fishing industry, so I am cautious about reading too much into the much lower, but still tragic, figure of three fatalities recorded in 2022. That said, the data indicates that the accident rate for boats of less than 15m length overall was much lower across the board than in previous years. There is a huge amount of effort going into safety campaigns and education, from the online messaging of the Home and Dry1 campaign to the, literally, immersive experience of the environmental pool training events where fishers get to experience falling in without a personal flotation device. If the downward trend of accidents continues these efforts will have paid off, so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

“Conversely, the number of larger fishing vessels – 15m to 24m and over 24m registered length – that were lost is the highest it has been since 2015. The nature of the accidents tells its own story (see the summary of investigations started on page 9), but more generally we are seeing an increase in the number of collisions, groundings and flood-related founderings among the larger vessels. Of particular note has been the number of recent flooding incidents that can be attributed to trawl doors striking and penetrating the underside of the hull during hauling. With crews focused on recovering the fishing gear, flooding has often been well advanced before it was discovered, leaving crews little time to react.”