Industrial robot incidents
The Machine Record lists 42 verified incidents involving industrial robots, robot arms and cobots since 1979: 41 where a person was hurt, 27 of them fatal, 5 that reached a regulator, recall, fine, lawsuit or settlement. Counted on 2026-10-03; every case links to its sources.
- Cases
- 42
- Someone hurt
- 41
- Fatal
- 27
- Escalated
- 5
- Period
- 1979-01 to 2026-05
By year
- 1979██ 1
- 1980 0
- 1981 0
- 1982 0
- 1983 0
- 1984 0
- 1985 0
- 1986 0
- 1987 0
- 1988 0
- 1989 0
- 1990 0
- 1991 0
- 1992 0
- 1993 0
- 1994 0
- 1995 0
- 1996 0
- 1997 0
- 1998 0
- 1999 0
- 2000 0
- 2001 0
- 2002 0
- 2003 0
- 2004 0
- 2005 0
- 2006 0
- 2007 0
- 2008 0
- 2009 0
- 2010 0
- 2011 0
- 2012 0
- 2013██ 1
- 2014 0
- 2015████████ 4
- 2016██████ 3
- 2017██████ 3
- 2018██ 1
- 2019████████ 4
- 2020████████ 4
- 2021████████ 4
- 2022██████████ 5
- 2023██████ 3
- 2024████████████ 6
- 2025██ 1
- 2026████ 2
By outcome
- fatality27
- serious injury12
- minor injury2
- property damage1
By type of event
- fatality22
- investigation12
- injury5
- malfunction2
- lawsuit1
By company
Counts measure what was reported in English and cleared verification, not how many events took place. Fleet sizes are not public, so none of this is a rate. Rules are on the methodology page; the numbers are CC BY 4.0, cite this page. CSV, JSON and an API are on the data page.
Cases
The 42 cases behind the number
Newest first. Each one links to its timeline and to the sources it rests on.
- 2026-05-08A 22-year-old trainee engineer, Ramanjaneyulu, was fatally injured after being caught in a robotic arm at NPH Industries, a Kia ancillary unit in Penukonda, Andhra Pradesh.Report
- 2026-02-05Robot glitch at Honda factory caused vehicles to be assembled with loose driver's seats, leading to a recallReport
- 2025-05-26An employee of N&C Enterprises Ltd. in Kilmeague was struck and killed by a rotating robotic arm after entering a restricted area through a retrofitted gate that bypassed the plant's safety protections.Report
- 2024-12-02Employee Is Struck By Robotic Arm While Cleaning SensorInvestigation
- 2024-03-29A robot arm crushed a factory worker to death in Chon Buri, Thailand.Report
- 2024-03-28A robot arm slammed down onto a worker, pinning him to a bench and killing him while he was laying out sheets of metal at the Vandapac factory in Chonburi province, Thailand.Report
- 2024-03-28A robot arm crushed a worker to death at a factory in Thailand, according to the article headline and brief text available.Report
- 2024-03-27A factory worker was pinned to a bench and crushed to death by a robot at the Vandapac factory in Chonburi, Thailand.Report
- 2024-02-22Employee Dies From Chest Injuries When Crushed By Robot ArmInvestigation
- 2023-11-08A robotics company employee in his 40s was crushed to death by a robotic arm at a pepper sorting plant in South Gyeongsang province, South Korea, after the arm confused him for a box of vegetables and pushed him against a conveyor belt.Follow-up
- 2023-11-07A man in his 40s employed by an industrial robot installation company was crushed to death by a pick-and-place robotic arm at a vegetable-packaging plant in South Gyeongsang province, South Korea, after the robot apparently mistook him for a box of vegetables.Follow-up
- 2023-03-09Robot crushes 20-year-old worker to death at Hyundai/Kia supplier facilityFollow-up
- 2022-09-01Employee Is Killed When Crushed By Spot Welding RobotInvestigation
- 2022-09-01J.T. Beckham, a man in his 20s, was killed when he was pinned by a welding robot at the Unipres USA manufacturing plant in Forest, Mississippi.Report
- 2022-07-26A chess robot broke a seven-year-old boy's finger during a match in Russia, prompting a roundup of worst robotic accidents in history.Report
- 2022-07-21Chess robot grabbed and broke the finger of a seven-year-old child during a matchReport
- 2022-05-16A man was crushed to death by the compactor mechanism of an automated dumpster in Alexandroupolis, Greece, after reaching inside the bin.Report
- 2021-12-31A Tesla software engineer was attacked by a robot at Tesla's Giga Texas factory in Austin when a third robot that had not been disabled pinned him and sank its metal claws into his back and arm, causing lacerations.Lawsuit
- 2021-04-08Employee Incurs Concussion When Struck By Robotic ArmInvestigation
- 2021-01-14Employee Is Killed When Caught In Between Okura Robotic PallInvestigation
- 2021-01-01A Tesla engineer at the Austin Gigafactory was clawed and pinned to a wall by a robot arm that had not fully shut down, suffering lacerations to his back and arms before falling into a chute.Report
- 2020-11-09Auto-parts company fined $1.5 million after worker was killed by a robotic armFine
- 2020-09-02Employee Incurs Multiple Injuries When Struck By RobotInvestigation
- 2020-02-20Employee Sustains Multiple Injuries When Struck By Robot ShuInvestigation
- 2020-01-09Employee Injures Feet When Repeatedly Struck By Robot PusherInvestigation
- 2019-11-01At Tesla's Fremont, California plant in November 2019, a stack of three steel skids on an automated conveyor system knocked a worker down and dragged him more than 15 feet, seriously injuring both his legs.Lawsuit
- 2019-10-22Employee Incurs Concussion When Struck In Head By RobotInvestigation
- 2019-03-22A newlywed employee at a Co Armagh firm was killed by a falling robot, resulting in the company being fined £50,000.Report
- 2019-02-11Employee Is Pinned Against Heated Mold By Robotic Arm And SuInvestigation
- 2018-12-13A 49-year-old factory worker in China was impaled by ten steel spikes when a robot malfunctioned and collapsed onto him, injuring his arm and chest; surgeons removed all spikes and he was left in stable condition.Report
- 2017-12-12Worker Sustains Fractured Hip When Struck By RobotInvestigation
- 2017-04-14A 48-year-old engineer at Deco-Pak in Hipperholme was fatally crushed by a robotic arm while cleaning a sensor inside the machine's cell, dying from crush injuries to his chest.Report
- 2017-01-17Employee Is Struck By Robot Arm And Sustains Fractured SternInvestigation
- 2016-06-18A twenty-year-old worker was crushed to death inside a robotic welding station at the Ajin USA facility in Cusseta, Alabama, when the robot abruptly restarted while she and co-workers were clearing a sensor fault.Lawsuit
- 2016-06-18A 20-year-old worker at Ajin USA metal stamping plant in Chambers County, Alabama, was crushed to death on June 18, 2016, when a robotic arm started up while she was inside a machinery enclosure troubleshooting a sensor fault without following required lockout/tagout procedures.Report
- 2016-06-18A 20-year-old worker was killed when a robot at the Ajin USA plant in Cusseta, Alabama restarted abruptly while she was inside a robotic station clearing a sensor fault on a stopped assembly line.Lawsuit
- 2015-08-14A robot arm killed a co-worker at a car factory in India.Follow-up
- 2015-07-07A worker at Ventra Ionia Main was trapped by robotic machinery and pronounced dead at the scene in Ionia, Michigan.Report
- 2015-07-01A technician was killed at a Volkswagen assembly plant in Germany after a robot he was assembling picked him up and pushed him into a metal plate.Follow-up
- 2015-06-29A 22-year-old contract worker installing a production line at a Volkswagen plant in Baunatal, Germany, was grabbed and crushed against a large metal plate by a robotic arm, dying from his injuries in hospital.Follow-up
Showing the latest 40 of 42. See all of them.
Questions
What people ask about these numbers
- How many incidents involving industrial robots, robot arms and cobots are on record?
- The Machine Record lists 42 verified incidents involving industrial robots, robot arms and cobots since 1979: 41 where a person was hurt, 27 of them fatal, 5 that reached a regulator, recall, fine, lawsuit or settlement. Counted on 2026-10-03; every case links to its sources.
- What counts as an incident here?
- A case enters the register only when two independent published sources or one regulator record (NHTSA, CPSC, OSHA, EU Safety Gate) describe the same event with a date and an outcome. Demonstrations that went wrong, recalls, investigations, injuries and deaths all count; marketing and speculation do not.
- Is this every incident that happened?
- No. It is every incident reported in English that cleared verification. Fleet sizes are not public, so none of these numbers is a rate, and a company with more cases is often a company with more vehicles on the road and more press coverage.
- Can I reuse these numbers?
- Yes. Case metadata is CC BY 4.0: cite The Machine Record with a link. CSV and JSON exports and an API are on the data page.
Related