Reported marine casualties and incidents involving ships flying an EU flag or within EU waters fell in 2022, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) says.

Its annual overview says 2022 was “a positive year in terms of the reduction or stabilisation of many accident indicators, such as the number of occurrences, ships lost, fatalities or injuries”.

EMSA says that a total of 2,510 marine casualties and incidents were reported last year, representing a reduction of 182 marine casualties and incidents in comparison with the year 2021 and 84 marine casualties and incidents in comparison with the year 2020.

“Overall, the total number of marine casualties and incidents reported from 2014 to 2022 was 23,814 with an annual average of 2,646,” it says.

“The number of casualties and incidents in 2022 is 5.1% under the annual average and the average of 2,670 occurrences before the pandemic,” it says.

“Moreover, after a peak of 106 very serious casualties reported in 2018 and a total of 75 in 2019, the number of very serious marine casualties was 51 in 2020, 58 in 2021 and 44 in 2022, confirming the reduction in the trend,” it states.

There were 2,701 ships involved in marine casualties last year, a decrease of 212 in 2021.

“This decreasing trend applies to cargo ships and fishing vessels,” it says.

The EMSA overview presents statistics on marine casualties and incidents which involved ships flying the flag of one of the EU member states, which occurred within EU member states’ territorial sea or internal waters as defined in UNCLOS, or which involved substantial interests of EU member states.

The statistics are drawn from reports by member states to the EU database for maritime incidents, the European Marine Casualty Information Platform.

The EU is using remotely piloted aircraft to monitor sulphur emissions released by ships transiting one of the world's busiest shipping lanes through the Straits of Gibraltar.

Some 27 ships of a total of 294 inspected since July 12th were found to be in "possible breach" of sulphur content limits in their fuel, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) says.

The agency, based in Lisbon, Portugal, is working with the Spanish general directorate of merchant marine on the monitoring project, which is designed to test the effectiveness of drones in measuring pollutant emissions from shipping.

Two flights have been conducted daily from a base in Tarifa since July 12th, and will continued until the end of October.

The current sulphur oxide limit in ship fuels is 0.50 per cent by mass under the International Convention on Maritime Pollution (MARPOL – Annex VI).

The aircraft used is a CAMCOPTER® S100 and is under contract to the European Maritime Safety Agency from the Nordic Unmanned, Norce and UMS Skeldar consortium.

The aircraft can take off and land vertically from an area less than 25 square metres and has a flight endurance of over six hours and a range of more than 100 km.

It is equipped with gas sensors and cameras to help detect the gases generated by fuel combustion and expelled through ship funnels.

EMSA says that remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS) services are offered free to all EU member states.

It says they have been developed to assist in maritime surveillance operations and ship emission monitoring throughout the EU, and can "provide support to traditional coast guard functions, including search and rescue and pollution prevention and response".

"The services are offered to member states individually and as part of EMSA’s regional RPAS strategy, which allows multiple coast guard functions in several EU member states to be supported by one or more RPAS services,"it says.

It says further regional expansion of RPAS is planned this year and in 2022.