Incorrect Cargo Weights Cause Containers to Fall from Ship, Report

The National Transportation Safety Board discovered that incorrect container cargo weight data led to 23 shipping containers falling off the President Eisenhower container ship and 10 others becoming damaged. This incident occurred on Feb. 6, 2024, when the U.S.-flagged vessel was drifting south of Oakland, California. The containers did not contain hazardous materials, but the total value of the lost cargo and damage to the ship was estimated at over $735,000.

The cargo loading plan for the President Eisenhower was developed by ship planners using the verified gross mass (VGM) of each container provided by the booking agent. However, due to an error in the booking system, the cargo weight of 40 containers had to be manually entered by the booking agent. Unfortunately, 39 of these container weights were entered incorrectly, resulting in significantly underreported VGMs.

As a result of the inaccurate VGMs used in the cargo loading plan, the container stack weights exceeded the maximum limit, leading to the containers being loaded in reverse-stratified stacks. This caused the cargo-securing equipment to fail, resulting in the containers falling off the ship. The booking agent has since made modifications to their procedures and booking system to prevent similar input errors from occurring in the future.

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