Accidents

The Baltic Sea region has witnessed a significant increase in maritime traffic over the past decade, reflecting intensified cooperation and economic prosperity. Unfortunately, this growth has also increased the likelihood of ship accidents and marine pollution. HELCOM collects data on such incidents annually to monitor and address these environmental challenges.

From 2021 onwards, the accident reports are published in a dashboard available on the HELCOM Shipping Data Platform. Older accident reports can be found in the Reports on Shipping Accidents section at the bottom of this page.

The HELCOM Shipping Data Platform and the HELCOM Map and Data Service provide more information on the accidents in the Baltic Sea and the preparedness of the Baltic Sea countries to respond to them.

Reporting shipping accidents since 1989

HELCOM has been collecting shipping accidents data in the Baltic Sea since 1989 to improve safety, support emergency response, and inform policy decisions. The first report was published in 2001.

According to an agreed procedure, all accidents in territorial seas or Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the HELCOM Contracting States are reported regardless of whether pollution occurred. This includes accidents involving tanker ships over 150 gross tonnage (GT) and/or other ships over 400 GT.

Accident types cover groundings, collisions (striking or being struck by another ship), contacts with fixed or floating objects, pollution accidents (for example, during fuel transfer) and other types of accidents like fires and explosions, machinery damage, and capsizing.

Towards more efficient reporting

Several changes have been made in the reporting formats over the years to enhance reporting efficiency:

• In 2000, new reporting formats were introduced to collect shipping accidents data more effectively from HELCOM Contracting parties.

• In 2004, a reporting adjustment was implemented to improve data comparability. Data collected before 2004 is not fully comparable to data collected from that year onward.

• In 2012, the HELCOM reporting format was again modified to align it with those for incidents of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA). A further fine-tuning was made to the reporting in 2013.

• In 2019, following the request from the Contracting Parties of the Helsinki Convention, the HELCOM Secretariat started to apply a method to integrate data collected by EMSA (European Maritime Safety Agency) and stored in the EMCIP database (European Marine Casualty Information Platform). The reports also include shipping accidents reported directly by Russia and are based on the Guideline for filling in the HELCOM Reporting Format on Shipping Accidents (see HELCOM data model for shipping accidents until 2019 below). It is important to note that, although the HELCOM Secretariat is still collecting data on accidents occurring in Russian waters, no such accidents were reported for 2021–2023.

A new method to integrate EMSA data

The methodology to integrate the EMSA data has been revised in 2024 and applied to the years 2019 to 2023.

The process includes remapping the attributes of the EMSA data to better align with the HELCOM data model for shipping accidents. This operation was done with automatic formulas after all attributes were checked. Many of the fields in the HELCOM data model lack directly corresponding attributes in the EMSA data, and this information is often scattered across several sheets and columns.

The use of automatic formulas decreases the time to integrate EMSA data, resulting in a more efficient process. It particularly improves the use of information where more than one vessel takes part in the accident. Some coordinate errors were found in the 2019 and 2020 data, and the error in importing coordinates has been corrected in the new methodology. All information available in the EMSA reports was not fully integrated into the HELCOM data model, and the new methodology includes more details about the accidents than previously.

Due to these findings, the new data set for 2019 and 2020 slightly differs from the data used in the previously published shipping accident reports. Therefore, a disclaimer is necessary for the dashboard, noting that the updated data for 2019-2020 does not perfectly align with the data in the Shipping accident reports for those years published on the HELCOM website in pdf format.

It is important to take note of these reporting adjustments in the data collection process to avoid misunderstanding when comparing the historical data. The data used for this report is made available on the HELCOM Map and Data Service, except the information about ship identification.

HELCOM data model for shipping accidents until 2019

This table includes the instructions for the reporting until 2019 when Contracting Parties reported directly to HELCOM. The information available in the EMSA data is integrated to fit this data model as well as possible. The description of the attributes in the current data set can be found in the HELCOM metadata catalogue.

Before 2019, all accidents had to be reported to the HELCOM Secretariat using the agreed reporting format, irrespectively if there was pollution or not. Accidents include grounding, collision with other vessel or contact with fixed structures (offshore installations, wrecks, etc.), disabled vessel (for example, machinery and/or structure failure), fire, explosions, etc. All accidents take place in territorial seas or EEZ of the Contracting Party and involve any ships which are required to carry AIS.

Statistics of shipping traffic in the Baltic Sea

Shipping intensity maps are important to get a complete understanding of shipping safety in the Baltic Sea. These maps are made thanks to Automatic Identification System (AIS) data which enables the identification of the name, position, course, speed, draught and ship types. IMO regulations (for example, SOLAS) require the use of AIS on board different ships:

• Ships of 300 GT and above engaged in international voyages
• Cargo ships of 500 GT and above not engaged in international voyages
• IMO registered passenger ships irrespective of size.

In the Baltic Sea, the movements of ships are gathered in the regional HELCOM AIS network and stored in a database since 2005. The intensity of traffic based on the HELCOM AIS data is illustrated with shipping density maps published in the HELCOM Map and Data Service.

The ship movements can also be illustrated by the number of ships crossing the pre-defined statistical lines published by the HELCOM Secretariat. More information about AIS and the scripts to produce the maps can be found on the HELCOM GitHub page.

The results of analysing the HELCOM AIS highlighted that in 2021–2023 the IMO-registered fleet was represented by:

• Cargo ships: 46,6% of the total fleet, meaning more than 3.900 ships.
• Tankers: 23% of the total fleet with almost 2000 vessels.
• Passenger ships: 4,4% of the fleet, or 371 vessels. They were involved in almost half of the port visits in the Baltic Sea Region (47,2% with 154.898 visits). This is mainly due to frequent connections between cities in the region (HELCOM, 2018).

Recent spills operations

Significant response operations in 2021–2023 at sea and on the shore have been reported by the Baltic Sea states following a request by the HELCOM Secretariat.

In 2021, Estonia, Latvia and Poland reported significant response operations. No significant response operations took place in Denmark, Finland, Germany and Russia. No information was received from Lithuania.

In 2022, Estonia, Finland and Poland reported significant response operations. No significant response operations took place in Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden. No information was received from Russia.

In 2023, Estonia, Finland and Sweden reported significant response operations. No significant response operations took place in Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. No information was received from Russia.

Read more information about the response operations from 2018 to 2023. The list of response equipment of the Contracting Parties can be found in this Excel table.

Timeline of accidental spills in the Baltic Sea

The largest spills recorded in the Baltic Sea took place during the late 1970s and early 1980s. This is not surprising as during that time oil shipments increased rapidly but current safety measures, technology and perhaps also awareness were not in place.

The Globe Asimi accident of 1981, with 16 730 tonnes of oil spilt into the Baltic Sea in the vicinity of Klaipeda (Lithuania), keeps the questionable record of the biggest spill in the history of the Baltic Sea. After several relatively quiet years during the 1980s and 1990s, the Baltic Carrier (2001, 2 700 t) and Fu Shan Hai (2003, 1 200 t) incidents awakened the region again to the threat of large spills.