A river cruise ship lying on its side in the Mississippi River sounds like a disaster movie scene, but that was the real aftermath in New Orleans on November 13. Around 12:30 p.m., a tanker called the Atlantic Asphalt struck the American Heritage, a 300-foot paddle-wheeler that had just wrapped up an eight-day Mississippi River cruise. Roughly 129 passengers were aboard, along with crew. Miraculously, nobody died — about 32 people were treated for injuries, enough for officials to dub it the "Miracle on the Mississippi." Whether any cargo spilled remains unclear, and the cause is still under investigation.

It might feel like a freak event, but dockside collisions — technically called "allisions," since a moving vessel hits something stationary — happen more often than you'd think.

Venice, 2019: the MSC Opera, carrying up to 2,658 passengers plus 728 crew, suffered a mechanical failure while docking and ploughed into the much smaller river ship River Countess, hurting four people and damaging the dock. The crash helped push through a 2021 ban on cruise ships over 25,000 gross tons in the Giudecca Canal.

Sitka, Alaska, 2022: Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas hit a mooring structure at the Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal, causing $2.1 million in damage and disrupting the rest of that cruise season. The NTSB blamed miscommunication, overreliance on electronic charts, and a port that had extended its pier by 395 feet without telling NOAA — so the charts were wrong. No one was hurt.

San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2019: Norwegian Epic struck two mooring dolphins while docking at Pier 3 after poor communication between the dockmaster and the pilot. Damage reached roughly $3.5 million to the pier and $200,000 to the ship, again with no injuries.

Cozumel, Mexico, also 2019: days before Christmas, Carnival Glory hit sister ship Carnival Legend while docking. The captain blamed wind gusts and strong currents; damage was mostly cosmetic, and both ships carried on. Today the Glory sails to the Bahamas while the Legend still calls at Mexico.

Should any of this put you off cruising? Probably not. Serious accidents remain rare against the millions of voyages taken each year, and most of these dockside incidents caused few or no injuries. But a few takeaways are worth keeping in mind. Docking is statistically one of the trickier moments of any voyage, and communication failures, mechanical glitches and unexpected wind or currents are the recurring themes. Pay attention during safety drills, note where crew stations are even when you're moored, and don't assume danger only exists at sea — standing near the rail during a docking manoeuvre is exactly when situational awareness helps. If anything, the Venice case shows how passenger pressure can actually change port policy for the better.

For river cruisers eyeing the Mississippi, the New Orleans incident is a reminder that paddle-wheelers share a working commercial river with tankers and freight — a different kind of traffic than ocean liners face.