US wreck law: military craft, abandoned shipwrecks and sanctuaries.

A note on sources

The US Navy's Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) publishes the Navy's rule text and guidance on sunken military craft, but its website closed the connection on every attempt during our research in October 2026. Its statements below come from search summaries and are marked as unconfirmed. The statute summary from the National Park Service and the regulation text on Cornell's Legal Information Institute and the eCFR were read directly.

The Sunken Military Craft Act 2004

The Sunken Military Craft Act (SMCA) is Division A, Title XIV of the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005, signed on 28 October 2004. The National Park Service describes it as protecting US government sunken military craft wherever they lie, and foreign sunken military craft in US waters, from unauthorised disturbance. It does this through a permitting programme, civil penalties, provisions on continuing violations, and in rem liability. Penalties exist; amounts are not given here.

A law journal summary quotes the Act as defining a sunken military craft as any sunken warship, naval auxiliary or other vessel owned or operated by a government on military non-commercial service when it sank. A summary of the Navy's final rule describes US title to its sunken military craft as continuing regardless of location or the passage of time, in US, international or foreign waters, and covering contents in the debris field. We did not read the statute text itself, so treat both as unconfirmed wording.

The Navy's regulations: 32 CFR part 767

The SMCA is implemented by 32 CFR part 767. The Department of the Navy's stated policy is that its sunken and terrestrial military craft stay in place and undisturbed.

Under 32 CFR 767.12, anyone who would disturb, remove or injure a non-historic sunken military craft must apply for a special use permit. Minimally intrusive documentation or sampling that would disturb a site may be permitted, and recovering artefacts is prohibited unless the permit says otherwise.

What this means for recreational divers (unconfirmed)

The NHHC's own statements on recreational diving come only from search summaries, so we could not confirm their wording:

• The NHHC's SMCA page is summarised as saying the Act does not affect non-intrusive recreational diving, nor commercial fishing, cable laying or routine ship operations.
• The NHHC's 2015 notice on the revised permitting rule is summarised as saying divers may continue to dive over and around Navy sunken military craft without a permit, as long as they do not intentionally or negligently disturb, remove or injure the craft or their contents. The revised rule is reported to have taken effect on 1 March 2016.
• DEMA, the dive industry association, reported that the Navy told it only intentional or negligent disturbance would be treated as a violation, and that former Navy ships deliberately sunk as artificial reefs with their title expressly given up fall outside the rules. The Navy is reported to have named the Oriskany and the Spiegel Grove among them. DEMA's page returned an error, so this too is unconfirmed.

The Abandoned Shipwreck Act 1987

Abandoned wrecks in state waters can fall under the Abandoned Shipwreck Act. Under it, the United States asserts title to abandoned shipwrecks that are embedded in a state's submerged lands, embedded in coralline formations the state protects, or on state submerged lands and listed on or eligible for the National Register, and then transfers that title to the state. Wrecks on federal public lands stay federal, and those on Indian lands go to the tribe.

The Act directed the National Park Service to publish guidelines that, among other aims, make access easier for recreational interests and build partnerships with sport divers. It says states should guarantee recreational exploration of shipwreck sites, and it encourages them to create underwater parks. The rules for a given wreck therefore depend on the state where it lies.

Wrecks in national marine sanctuaries

The Monitor

The wreck of the USS Monitor lies off North Carolina in the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. NOAA's regulations prohibit the following without a permit: diving, whether by an individual or a submersible; anchoring or drifting without power; salvage; and lowering grapples or similar devices. Anyone may apply for a permit, and activities needed to protect life, property or the environment are exempt.

A search summary of NOAA's Monitor pages adds that diving permits are required for all divers in the sanctuary, that applications are reviewed case by case, and that the site's depth and strong currents limit it to advanced divers. We could confirm the permit rule from the regulations page, but not the rest of that wording.

The Florida Keys

In the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, 15 CFR 922.163(a)(9) prohibits moving, removing, injuring or possessing the sanctuary's historical resources, which covers shipwreck artefacts. The sanctuary's other rules are on the Florida Keys page.

The USS Arizona

Press reports in 2026 say the waters over the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor are tightly controlled by the Navy and the National Park Service and closed to public snorkelling and diving, with dives limited to Park Service archaeologists, interments of survivors' remains and a few authorised dignitaries. We found no regulation text giving the legal basis, so this rests on press reports.

Related reading

For the UNESCO 2001 Convention and wreck rules in other countries, see wreck diving and the law. The UK's regimes are on UK protected wrecks.