The NTSB wants stronger rules for the robot boats now working US waters

The National Transportation Safety Board issued six safety recommendations on October 27, 2026, directed at the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a vessel builder, after a NOAA-operated uncrewed surface vessel collided with a recreational boat on Lake Erie. The board’s central request is for the Coast Guard to develop a national framework of perceptibility, collision-avoidance and navigational safety standards for uncrewed surface vessels, and then to write those standards into regulations.

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The collision itself happened on August 10, 2024, near Monroe, Michigan, and left one person with a minor injury. The board’s probable-cause finding is plain about the reason: the drone vessel was too hard for other mariners to see, and nobody was watching it closely enough.

The Lake Erie collision and the vessel nobody saw

According to the NTSB’s October 27 press release, a NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory SeaTrac SP-48 uncrewed surface vessel and a privately owned Prestige 450 Flybridge collided on Lake Erie. The drone boat became entangled in the powerboat’s starboard propeller pod, and both vessels were towed to a nearby marina, where they were later separated. The SP-48 was a total constructive loss, estimated at $186,000, and damage to the recreational vessel was put at $100,000.

The SP-48 is 15.7 feet long, and only about a foot of its hull showed above the water. The board found it difficult for other mariners to see and unlikely to be picked up by radar or AIS on the kinds of vessels typically operating in that area. A Monroe County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant, Doug Bender, offered a partial counterpoint to a trade publication soon after the crash: the SeaTrac was broadcasting its position by AIS, he said, but the powerboat operator was not monitoring it and had not seen the drone vessel in two-foot waves.

NOAA was running the vessel in what the NTSB calls “adapted hold” mode, with a remote pilot monitoring from shore. NOAA told Marine Industry News in August 2024 that the vessel was “sitting in place as planned” and was checked remotely every 20 minutes. The NTSB concluded that this level of monitoring was insufficient for the area, and its investigation page for DCA24PM057 gives the probable cause as “the inadequate perceptibility of the USV to nearby vessels, given the operating area and conditions,” with the lack of active monitoring leaving the vessel without a proper lookout.

Six recommendations, three recipients

The Coast Guard receives two. Recommendation M-26-03 asks it to develop and promulgate a national framework of perceptibility, collision-avoidance capability and navigational safety standards for uncrewed surface vessels, and M-26-04 asks it to incorporate those standards into regulations. The NTSB wrote in its report: “As USVs become more commonplace in U.S. waterways, it is critical for the Coast Guard to begin to set standards.”

NOAA receives three. M-26-05 asks it to revise its Uncrewed Marine Systems Manual so every uncrewed surface vessel is perceptible to vessel traffic given its area of operation. M-26-06 adds a requirement to test whether operators of other vessels typically in that area can actually detect NOAA’s drones. M-26-07 asks NOAA to monitor each vessel at a level that matches its real autonomy, considering where it works and how it is being operated.

The sixth, M-26-08, goes to SeaTrac Systems, Inc.: modify the SP-48 design to enhance its perceptibility as far as practicable, given the work it does and where it does it. The full text, with the analysis behind each item, is in Marine Investigation Report MIR-26-32. The NTSB press release names no individual board member or investigator, and the quoted language is attributed to the report itself.

The gap the Coast Guard had already described

The Coast Guard’s own people had flagged the problem before the collision. Lt. Brennan Suffern, a Coast Guard officer, said in February, according to the Marine Industry News report, that existing collision rules for uncrewed vessels need updating: remote piloting setups do not conform to the 1972 collision regulations, he said, and a remote lookout does not meet the rule’s requirement for a physical lookout.

That is the regulatory hole the first two recommendations aim at. A framework of standards would give builders and operators a test to meet, and incorporating it in regulations would give inspectors and investigators something to enforce.

Uncrewed boats already at work on the Great Lakes

The vessels are doing real survey work. A 2026 paper in Fisheries Research from U.S. Geological Survey scientists, including Mark Richard DuFour and Thomas M. Evans of the Great Lakes Science Center, tested a Saildrone Explorer uncrewed surface vessel alongside the motorized research vessels used for Lake Erie prey-fish surveys. Fish-density estimates were comparable, with the research vessels about 6 percent lower than the drone’s, and the authors concluded that adding an uncrewed vessel could improve annual estimates through more survey effort, wider coverage and more flexibility.

The same paper reports that the two vessel types responded differently to wind and waves, which affected data quality. The numbers on the table are modest: six recommendations, three recipients, one 15.7-foot vessel with a foot of freeboard, and a Coast Guard that now has an NTSB request on file to set national standards.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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