HISPI Project Cerebellum HISPI PROJECT CEREBELLUM

U.S. Navy Unmanned Vessel Reportedly Capsized Support Boat After Receiving Inadvertent Command

June 23, 2025

During U.S. Navy testing at Channel Islands Harbor Marina on June 23, 2025, an unmanned vessel under tow reportedly received an inadvertent command and accelerated, capsizing the support boat and throwing its captain into the water. Emergency responders reportedly recovered the captain, who declined medical attention. The incident was reportedly attributed to software failures and human error, including communication breakdowns between onboard systems and external autonomy software. This raises concerns about the governance of AI systems in naval applications, highlighting the need for robust guardrails and safeguards to prevent similar incidents from occurring. Through contributors—JOIN US—to learn more about responsible AI development and its implications for maritime safety.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

Alleged deployer
united-states-navy, united-states-armed-forces, naval-forces, military-organizations, military-autonomous-systems-operators
Alleged developer
unmanned-surface-vessel-manufacturers, defense-technology-companies, blacksea-technologies, autonomous-maritime-systems-developers
Alleged harmed parties
watercraft, vessel-operators, support-boats, maritime-workers

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Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1561

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.