A shipper has a better chance of catching a home run ball at a major league baseball game than losing a container to the open ocean, a new study finds.
An estimated 1,478 containers were lost at sea in 2025 out of approximately 280 million transported globally, the World Shipping Council said in an annual report.
The number was up by 576 containers lost in 2024 and above the recent three-year average, the Washington-based trade group said. It noted that the May 2025 sinking of the MSC Elsa off the coast of India accounted for 640 containers, or 43% percent of all containers lost during the year.
The global supply chain moved a total of 280 million containers in 2025, so losses amounted to 0.0005% of all transported boxes. By comparison, an internet search revealed the chances of catching a home run at a major league baseball game at approximately 0.05%. (The odds of winning the Powerball lottery jackpot, for comparison, is even more vanishingly slim at 0.000000342% – or 1 in 292,201,338.)
The Containers Lost at Sea report cited challenging weather and ocean conditions, particularly in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, as well as fire-related incidents, as key contributors to container losses.
More optimistically, the WSC said that 128 containers were recovered in 2025 – the highest recovery figure since it began gathering that data in 2023.
New mandatory international reporting requirements require all containers lost or observed drifting at sea to be reported. Flag states must also report the number of containers lost at sea to the United Nation’s International Maritime Organization.
Read more articles by Stuart Chirls here.
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