Maritime incidents produce a paper trail across multiple regulatory systems. A collision, grounding, fire, or structural failure triggers mandatory reporting to the flag state, port state control, and in many jurisdictions the maritime casualty investigation authority. That documentation, when recovered and cross-referenced, provides investigators with a contemporaneous record of the event: what the vessel was doing, who was responsible, what damage occurred, and whether the subsequent record matches the initial reports.
The challenge is access. Casualty investigation reports are public documents in some jurisdictions and withheld as sensitive in others. AIS data captures vessel behaviour immediately before and after an incident. VDR data, where recoverable, provides bridge audio and navigational records. Port state inspection reports, class survey records, and insurance notifications add further layers, each produced by a different institutional actor with different disclosure obligations.
MAR-006 sets out a systematic approach to recovering incident documentation from open sources. It covers the primary reporting databases, the regulatory frameworks that govern disclosure, the open-source data sources that provide independent corroboration, and the methodology for constructing a documented incident timeline that meets the evidentiary requirements of a published investigation.
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