Star Trek: 10 Secrets Of The Danube-class Runabout

Unlike Star Trek: Voyager's seemingly endless parade of crashed, exploded, and just generally destroyed shuttlecraft (which would probably make another great listicle itself), Deep Space Nine was relatively conservative with how it used and abused its runabouts. Still, Starfleet must've been rolling their eyes at having to resupply the station with new runabouts, as, of the ten runabouts assigned to Deep Space 9 over seven years, only three survived.

The list of (named) runabouts destroyed or abandoned over the course of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's run include the USS Gander, USS Ganges, USS Mekong, USS Orinoco, USS Shenandoah, USS Yangtzee Kiang, and the USS Yukon. For the record, the three surviving runabouts were the USS Rubicon, the USS Volga, and the USS Rio Grande – the only Danube-class runabout to remain in service from "Emissary" all the way up to "What You Leave Behind".

The frequent turnover of DS9's runabouts apparently caused the writers some difficulty behind the scenes as runabouts were occasionally, mistakenly written into episodes after they were destroyed. According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, writer René Echevarria even fought to include the USS Ganges in a season seven episode despite the ship having blown up five years earlier in "Armageddon Game":

...Some smartass said, "That one was destroyed." And I said, "Oh, yeah? Well, this is a new one." And the discussion got all the way up to Rick [Berman], who said, "It was destroyed. We need a new one."