Fire Breaks Out Aboard Seismic Ship off U.S. Gulf Coast

[Breaking] A fire has been reported aboard the seismic survey ship Rem Andes off the coast of Grande Isle, Louisiana, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

42 people were on board at the time of the incident, and abandon-ship operations were initiated, the Coast Guard said in a statement. An unspecified number of those on board disembarked into life rafts and transferred to nearby Good Samaritan vessels. The agency's SAR aircrews were dispatched to the scene to ensure that all of the survivors who departed the vessel were properly accounted for.

AIS data provided by Pole Star Global suggests that the ship slowed and began to drift to the north of its normal racetrack survey route at about 0955 hours on Monday morning. According to local media, the fire was out by about 1445 hours. The effort to retrieve crewmembers from lifeboats that had already cast off from the stricken ship was still underway as of mid-afternoon.

The ship continued to broadcast AIS through the day, drifting slowly northeast at a position some 90 nautical miles south of Whiskey Island, Louisiana.

Rem Andes is a Norwegian-operated ship that entered service in 2012. The vessel is classed and equipped as a seismic ship, and AIS records show that it has been engaged in running survey tracklines on the deepwater U.S. continental shelf for at least the past year, operating out of Gulfport and Port Fourchon. It passed its last U.S. Coast Guard port state control inspection in late 2025 with no issues recorded.

Rem Andes' trackline, Oct. 2025 - Oct. 2026 (Pole Star Global)