Late in 2025, the Coast Guard closed its investigation into the loss of a Louisiana crabber. He had been working alone. His boat was found running and in gear, with no one aboard, hours after he was due back. The report identifies several contributing factors, but returns most often to one: the vessel was fitted with an engine cut-off switch that, by his family's account, he rarely used.
What happened
He left the dock on October 16, 2024, alone, in a 21-foot skiff, to run crab traps on Lake Chien. He was sixty-six years old, with more than two decades of experience fishing Louisiana's waters, and was expected back that evening. When he failed to return or answer his phone, his family contacted the Coast Guard, which opened a search that night.
A friend located the vessel a few hours later, adrift, engine still running and in gear, with no one aboard. Two life jackets remained on deck, neither worn. Over the following four days, Coast Guard air and surface crews, local sheriff's deputies, wildlife officers, and volunteer vessels searched more than 3,000 square nautical miles. Nothing was found, and the search was suspended on October 19.
The investigation cites several contributing factors: the absence of a personal flotation device, a VHF radio too weak to transmit at range, no requirement preventing solo operation, and no safety examination ever conducted on the vessel. It devotes the most attention, however, to the engine cut-off switch — a standard lanyard-type device, clipped to the operator and designed to stop the engine if he is pulled away from the helm. It was still attached to the helm when the vessel was recovered, and had never been engaged. Investigators were told he generally left it disconnected because the lanyard interfered with setting and hauling traps.
Had the switch engaged, the report notes, the vessel likely would have stopped at or near the point where he went overboard, giving him a chance to reach it again or, at minimum, giving searchers a fixed starting point. Instead it continued running under power, and the search began from wherever the vessel eventually drifted rather than from the point where he actually entered the water.
What the Coast Guard is recommending
Commercial fishing vessels are not currently required to carry or use an engine cut-off switch. Recreational vessels are: federal law has required cut-off switch use on covered vessels under 26 feet since April 2021. Fishing vessels of the same size, engaged in the same kind of solo operation, were never brought under that requirement.
The investigation recommended that the Commandant evaluate mandating engine cut-off switches for commercial fishing vessels, at minimum for single-operator vessels. The Coast Guard's response stopped short of a mandate, citing concerns that certain cut-off systems may not suit every type of commercial operation. It committed instead to two measures: promoting voluntary adoption at every dockside safety examination, and adding a specific recommendation for solo operators to the 2026 update of its national Best Safety Practices Guide, which currently makes little mention of cut-off switches.
The clearest statement of intent appears in the district-level endorsement from the Coast Guard's Eighth District, which covers the Gulf. Modern, untethered systems, it states, “offer freedom of movement while maintaining critical safety functions,” and are particularly well suited to nearshore and inshore fisheries. Marine Safety Unit Houma, which handled the case locally, made a related point: operators who forgo a lanyard are not rejecting the principle of a cut-off switch, but the mechanism itself. Wireless fobs and immersion-activated systems, the unit noted, “eliminate the longstanding issue of immobility or entanglement that a lanyard type system can pose.”
Not an isolated incident
This is not an isolated finding. The Coast Guard's own casualty data, cited in the same report, identifies two further single-operator fall-overboard fatalities on fishing vessels under 26 feet between 2015 and 2025; in neither case had a cut-off switch been used. Separate NIOSH data cited in the investigation lists falls overboard as the second-leading cause of death in the industry, with 266 recorded between 2000 and 2019, none of those fishermen wearing a personal flotation device.
Solo operation remains common in small-boat fisheries, largely because it is not economically viable to carry a second crew member for crabbing, potting, and much inshore work. The report's underlying point is that a safety device intended to compensate for the absence of a second crew member is only effective if it does not cost the operator the mobility the work requires. A tethered lanyard and an active working deck are, in practice, often in tension.
A note on who's writing this
We manufacture equipment in this category. OLAS Guardian is a wireless engine cut-off system, developed for circumstances similar to those described in this report. The Coast Guard's recommendation concerns the category as a whole rather than any specific product, and that distinction is worth stating plainly.
Our condolences to the fisherman's family.
Sources
U.S. Coast Guard, Report of Investigation: Loss of Life on Board the Commercial Fishing Vessel LA6893ER, Lake Chien, LA, October 16, 2024 (MISLE Activity #8027803, closed December 22, 2025). Read the full report (PDF)
U.S. Coast Guard, Commercial Fishing Industry Vessels Best Safety Practices Guide, Version 1.1 (December 2024). Read the guide (PDF)