Port of Los Angeles Cargo Operations Disrupted After Containers Go Overboard

Three shipping containers fell from a vessel into the water at the Port of Los Angeles on Tuesday, forcing authorities to establish a safety zone while crews worked to secure the area and track two containers that remain submerged.

The incident happened near Berth 302 during container cargo operations, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Sector Los Angeles-Long Beach watchstanders were alerted at about 11:20 a.m. and dispatched a Coast Guard boat crew to the scene. Los Angeles City Fire and Los Angeles Port Police are also involved in the response.

The Coast Guard established a 400-yard safety zone around the incident area.

Of the three 40-foot containers that went overboard, one has already been recovered. The other two remain submerged, although their locations have been identified and marked.

The ship’s manifest lists the cargo inside the containers as non-hazardous, the Coast Guard said.

The vessel involved appears to be the containership APL Dublin, based on imagery from the scene. The Coast Guard has not yet formally identified the ship or said what caused the containers to fall during cargo operations.

The incident comes almost exactly a year after a much larger container loss at the neighboring Port of Long Beach, where 95 containers fell from the containership Mississippi at Pier G in September 2025.

That accident triggered an extensive salvage operation involving divers, side-scan sonar and remotely operated vehicles to find containers that were submerged, crushed or trapped beneath the vessel. The final container was recovered more than two weeks later.

Tuesday’s incident is far smaller in scale, but submerged containers can pose a hazard to navigation until they are located and recovered.

The Coast Guard said it will release additional information as the response continues.

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