A Navy engineering team has developed a camera system designed to detect when a sailor or Marine falls or jumps from a ship while it is underway. The effort followed several man overboard incidents in recent years that exposed a dangerous gap in shipboard safety.

Eric King, a former petty officer first class who served 13 years, said the possibility of falling overboard was always in the back of his mind. He now leads the team behind the Man Overboard Detection System at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division in southern California.

“Being a former sailor myself, that was always something that was in the back of my mind: ‘Wow, if I fall overboard in the middle of night, hopefully someone sees me,’” King said. “There’s nothing that will instantly detect if someone falls from the ship.”

The system uses thermal cameras to provide complete coverage around the edges of a ship. Those cameras are connected to software that activates when “anything breaks that barrier,” King said, capturing a video lasting 10 seconds for the crew to review.

That footage allows sailors to determine whether a person actually went overboard or whether the alert involved something else. King said the first few minutes following a fall can prove crucial, especially when a ship is moving through darkness or rough conditions.

Earlier this year, a lance corporal, age 21, fell from the USS Iwo Jima while the ship was in the Caribbean Sea participating in United States military operations against alleged drug boats. The Navy conducted a search lasting 72 hours with five Navy ships, an inflatable boat and 10 aircraft.

Three days after the search began, the Marines declared the lance corporal dead. “That’s countless time lost at sea,” King said, adding that three incidents occurred within the past two years in which sailors went overboard and were not recovered.

In 2025, a Navy airman, age 19, disappeared from the USS George Washington during a training exercise in the Indian Ocean. The sailor was declared lost at sea after a search lasting 45 hours and covering 22,000 square miles.

Another sailor, an aviation machinist’s mate assigned to the USS Mason, went overboard in 2024 while the ship operated in the Red Sea during Houthi attacks on commercial ships. The Navy declared that sailor lost several days later.

The Navy currently depends on other sailors to notice an overboard incident and alert the crew, according to Hendrick Simoes, a retired senior chief petty officer who served from 1999 to 2024. That process can consume precious time before the ship begins its response.

Simoes said a witness or lookout must contact the bridge, which then announces the emergency and sends a flare into the water. He estimated that sequence alone could take 30 or 40 seconds, stressing that “minutes matter” once somebody enters the water.

The crew must first decide whether a person fell or whether the object was trash or equipment. If a sailor is in the water, the captain determines whether to deploy resources such as a rescue boat or helicopter while the crew calculates survival time.

A sailor who falls at night without being seen might not be reported missing until quarters the following morning. On an aircraft carrier, flight deck activity and aircraft maintenance can also create enough noise to mask the sound of someone entering the water.

“Even if you’re not doing flight ops or doing jet tests at night, and if you’re a watchstander, you might not hear that splash in the water,” Simoes said. “In the darkness of night, you might not see somebody fall in the water because it’s such a big ship.”

The detection system is intended to activate whether someone trips over equipment, is thrown from the ship’s edge by a wave or intentionally enters the water. Simoes said automatic detection could also help when someone tries to avoid being seen by shipboard lookouts.

The team developed the system with funding from the Naval Innovative Science and Engineering program. Engineers recently tested it aboard the decommissioned USS Paul F. Foster by throwing a dummy measuring 6 feet and weighing 35 pounds over the side, a test King called successful.

Future testing goals include placing cameras around an entire ship and conducting simulations aboard an underway guided missile destroyer. The team also wants to integrate drones that could mark the location, deliver a life ring and potentially assist with retrieval later.

Civilian cruise ships already use the software behind the detection tool. A federal law passed by Congress in 2010 requires cruise ships to install technology that captures images or detects someone falling overboard, but King confirmed that requirement does not cover military ships.

Some Navy ships already carry cameras, though King said they are limited to particular areas and generally support flight deck safety, situational awareness and operational security. His team’s system would instead cover the entire perimeter, closing a gap that can cost sailors their only chance at rescue.