Deaths involving commercial robots
The Machine Record lists 37 verified fatal incidents involving commercial robots since 1979: 5 that reached a regulator, recall, fine, lawsuit or settlement. Counted on 2026-10-03; every case links to its sources.
- Cases
- 37
- Someone hurt
- 37
- Fatal
- 37
- Escalated
- 5
- Period
- 1979-01 to 2026-08
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████████ 4
- 2017██ 1
- 2018 0
- 2019██ 1
- 2020██ 1
- 2021████ 2
- 2022████████ 4
- 2023████████ 4
- 2024████████████ 6
- 2025██████████ 5
- 2026██████ 3
By outcome
- fatality37
By type of event
- fatality25
- investigation4
- collision3
- injury3
- other1
- 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 37 cases behind the number
Newest first. Each one links to its timeline and to the sources it rests on.
- 2026-08-01A Waymo autonomous vehicle (Jaguar I-Pace) was involved in a crash with non-motorist: pedestrian in Dallas, TX, reported to NHTSA as a fatalityReport
- 2026-05-15Dunedin robotics company charged following a worker's death involving a robotCriminal charge
- 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
- 2025-09-14A Waymo robotaxi slowing to turn into a parking lot on Rural Road near Arizona State University was rear-ended by a motorcyclist, who was then struck by a hit-and-run human driver and later died at the hospital.Report
- 2025-09-01A Waymo autonomous vehicle (Jaguar I-Pace) was involved in a crash with motorcycle in Tempe, AZ, reported to NHTSA as a fatalityReport
- 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
- 2025-01-27A cat named Sarabi was fatally crushed by an Autoscooper 11 self-cleaning litter box in a Bronx apartment on January 27, 2025, when the device's safety mechanism failed to stop when the animal was inside.Report
- 2025-01-19An unoccupied Waymo robotaxi stopped at a traffic light was rear-ended in a multi-vehicle collision at Sixth and Harrison Streets in San Francisco, killing one person and injuring seven others.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
- 2023-08-14Two Cruise autonomous vehicles stopped in traffic lanes on August 14, 2023 in San Francisco, allegedly delaying an ambulance transporting a pedestrian with life-threatening injuries who later died at the hospital, though Cruise disputes that its vehicles impeded the ambulance.Report
- 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
- 2022-06-03A 71-year-old man died on June 26, 2022, after undergoing robotic surgery to remove prostate cancer at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London on June 3, 2022, with a lawsuit alleging the hospital lacked the resources to safely perform the procedure and failed to transfer him sooner to a major medical center.Report
- 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
- 2021-09-01A da Vinci surgical robot allegedly burned and tore a patient's small intestine during colon cancer surgery in Florida in September 2021, leading to additional procedures and her death in February 2022, prompting a wrongful death lawsuit against Intuitive Surgical.Lawsuit
- 2021-01-14Employee Is Killed When Caught In Between Okura Robotic PallInvestigation
- 2020-11-09Auto-parts company fined $1.5 million after worker was killed by a robotic armFine
- 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
- 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
- 2016-07-07Dallas PD used a robot to kill a suspect after negotiations failed during a standoff.Report
- 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
- 2013-12-04A worker was crushed to death under a robotic arm.Report
- 1979-01-25A 25-year-old Ford assembly line worker was killed instantly when a robot arm struck him in the head while he was gathering parts in a storage facility at a Ford casting plant in Flat Rock, Michigan.Report
Questions
What people ask about these numbers
- How many incidents involving fatal incidents involving commercial robots are on record?
- The Machine Record lists 37 verified fatal incidents involving commercial robots since 1979: 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.
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