AIS navigational status
AIS navigational status 14: AIS-SART, MOB-AIS or EPIRB-AIS active
An emergency locating device is transmitting. What status 14 means, what speed and track should go with it, and how often it is simply wrong.
What status 14 means
Used by AIS search-and-rescue transmitters (AIS-SART), man-overboard devices and EPIRBs with AIS: a survival device is active. Those devices also use their own MMSI formats (970, 972 and 974), so the identity confirms what the status claims.
What should go with it
A drifting survival craft or person moves with wind and current, usually at low speed.
Navigational status is entered by hand on the bridge; speed, course and position come from a satellite receiver. Read the status as testimony and the rest as measurement. Where they agree you have learned something. Where they disagree, the measurement is usually right.
How it goes wrong
Devices are sometimes triggered in testing or by accident, and test transmissions are meant to use a different status. Real distress is handled by rescue coordination centres on official channels — this site is not one, and must never be used to respond to an emergency.
All sixteen codes
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 | Under way using engine |
| 1 | At anchor |
| 2 | Not under command |
| 3 | Restricted manoeuvrability |
| 4 | Constrained by her draught |
| 5 | Moored |
| 6 | Aground |
| 7 | Engaged in fishing |
| 8 | Under way sailing |
| 9 | Reserved for future amendment (HSC) |
| 10 | Reserved for future amendment (WIG) |
| 11 | Power-driven vessel towing astern |
| 12 | Power-driven vessel pushing ahead or towing alongside |
| 13 | Reserved for future use |
| 14 | AIS-SART, MOB-AIS or EPIRB-AIS active |
| 15 | Undefined (default) |
For the field as a whole — and how this site handles it — read AIS navigational status codes, all sixteen.