Star Trek: 10 Starships That Went Missing

To date, the USS Enterprise-B has only appeared in Star Trek: Generations, not including those models on the D and the E. However, to say that its maiden voyage was its only voyage would be to do it a disservice. Most Trek fans will know the name of Captain John Harriman, but how many know of Captains William George and Demora Sulu?

For the Enterprise-B's fate, one must turn to Beta Canon. TrekCulture has already explored the ramifications of the Tomed Incident in detail, depicted in the novel Serpent Among The Ruins by David R. George III. This event took place in 2311, leading to Harriman's departure from the ship. He had stepped aside after the maiden voyage and was replaced by Captain William George, named in honour of the author. Though Harriman returned, by 2315, Sulu had become captain.

The ship continued to serve as part of Starfleet for another fourteen years, aiding fleeing Bajorans after their world's annexation by the Cardassians. According to Iron And Sacrifice from the Tales From The Captain's Table anthology (also by George), in 2329, the ship became infected with an 'unknown infection.' The ship was then reported as lost, presumed destroyed. 

This is but one sad fate for the famous ship and, as it has never been shown on screen, may be taken with a pinch of salt. The fate of the Enterprise-B remains a mystery.

The USS Pegasus was seemingly lost with almost all hands in 2358 after most of the crew mutinied against then-Captain Erik Pressman. What was traumatic for Ensign Riker was a career boost for Pressman, who would meet him once again, now firmly entrenched in the worst admiral camp.

The sad fate of the USS Pegasus wasn't discovered for another twelve years, though the ship was assumed destroyed. Pressman and the escaping crew reported seeing a massive explosion in space - yet the Judge Advocate General found during the court martial that they couldn't believe those officers' testimonies. 

Did Starfleet ever give up on the search for the Pegasus? The events of the episode of the same name suggested that no, they never truly did. Was the ship only officially labelled as destroyed? The discovery of wreckage in the Devolin system was enough to get Pressman to the Enterprise-D. One assumes that doesn't happen for a mere hopeful discovery of a ship thought destroyed. 

If the ship was unofficially labelled as missing, the sudden interest in 2370 makes far more sense. The fear of its survival seems to outweigh the hope for its crew. The experiments in breach of the Treaty of Algeron could not fall into Romulan hands, at least in the opinion of Pressman and his friends. 

Everything about the Pegasus is shady, from the actions on board to the loss of its crew to its official status in Starfleet's eyes.

From Starfleet's point of view, the USS Equinox was lost in the Badlands with all hands - just like the USS Voyager. However, there was a large difference between the two vessels, besides the obvious configurations. By Message In A Bottle, Starfleet was aware of Voyager's survival and the circumstances by which it arrived in the Delta Quadrant. 

To date, there has never been a single mention of an Equinox-specific Project Pathfinder.

The USS Equinox, commanded by Captain Rudy Ransom, was a planetary research vessel, Nova-class. It was never designed for deep space exploration, as the events of Equinox parts 1 and 2 show. As such, it appears Starfleet never had any hope for the ship. From their point of view, it was just another vessel that vanished with all hands. 

Was there ever a search for the ship? It was transported to the Delta Quadrant before Voyager arrived, so why wasn't Janeway briefed on the ship's disappearance? Does Starfleet even have a search and rescue division? If so, they may want to take the L on this one. 

The USS Cairo was an Excelsior-class ship that made its debut in Chain Of Command. Captain Jellico transferred from the Cairo to the Enterprise-D, bringing his signature four-shift rotation with him. It is unclear if Jellico returned to commanding the Cairo once his assignment to the Enterprise ended, as it was under Captain Leslie Wong that the ship was lost with all hands.

In The Pale Moonlight's lists of the dead, wounded, and missing are the final catalysts for Sisko's plans regarding the Romulans. Through Jadzia Dax, the audience was given an emotional connection to this ship as, for Jellico, positive sentiments towards him were thin on the ground at that stage.

The ship was officially declared missing during the Dominion War and was assumed destroyed by the Jem'hadar. That may be partially true, though its remains travelled across the galaxy, coming to a stop in the Delta Quadrant. It was discovered by Zero. An AI program may have been responsible for the ship's destruction, and it was definitely responsible for its location. This AI had used a nearby Borg transwarp conduit to pull ships, Caretaker-style, closer to its planet.

Though a sad ending for the ship, it would finally give closure on its story, helping to solve another mystery of the Dominion War.

Though it wasn't the first sister-ship of the USS Defiant, the USS Valiant was unique among its class. As a Starfleet Academy training vessel, it was several steps up from the old Constitution-II class USS Republic. Crewed by Red Squad, the elite group of cadets, and a handful of commissioned officers, it took off out into the galaxy - just as the Dominion War broke out.

In the first week, the ship found itself caught behind enemy lines. As with so many other ships in the fleet, it was classed as missing. Starfleet simply didn't have the resources to commit to a rescue mission. 

The ship may have been lost, but it was far from lost in space. The newly-minted field officers, led by Captain Tim Waters, conducted deep space reconnaissance, eventually discovering the dreaded Jem'hadar Battleship. Twice the size of a Galaxy-class ship and three times as powerful, this new warship would prove deadly to Federation forces.

The Valiant undertook an ill-advised mission to attack this ship. It was a death sentence for all but one of the two and its two guests. The Valiant and most of her escape pods were destroyed by the Dominion ship, bringing her tale to a tragic yet avoidable end. 

At the time it was reported missing, the USS Hera was commanded by Captain Siliva La Forge. Its disappearance became connected with the loss of a second starship, the USS Raman. While engaged in a rescue mission for the latter in the atmosphere of Marijne VII, Geordi La Forge believed he had discovered his mother - 300 light years from her last known location.

Though his hopes of finding his mother were soon dashed, one of La Forge's theories was, in essence, correct. The Hera's chief engineer experimented with the warp coils on this Nebula-class ship. La Forge believed that the trionic initiators in those coils created a subspace funnel, displacing the ship. According to David A. McIntee's novel Indistinguisable From Magic, the Hera fell into a natural quantum slipstream, emerging in deep space. 

In 2383. the Challenger, under the command of then-Captain Geordi La Forge, discovered the ship with survivors. According to Star Trek Online, it was finally destroyed in 2409 by Orion Pirates. 

The USS Bozeman had a longer life than most ships in Starfleet, though it took the shortest possible route to its destination. In 2278, just three weeks after departing Spacedock, this Souyz-class vessel vanished, becoming a mystery that would puzzle the Starfleet Corps of Engineers for almost a century to follow. 

The truth of what happened to the vessel is stranger than fiction. In the Typhon Expanse, it encountered a rift that flung it forward in time by 90 years. It also flung it directly into the starboard nacelle of the Enterprise-D (with a little help from the latter's transporter beam - thanks a lot, Data).

The resulting explosion destroyed the Galaxy-class ship but then locked both vessels into a temporal loop. For the Enterprise, this lasted days. For the Bozeman, it was decades. 

The Bozeman finally returned home, ship and crew intact, in 2368, where it re-entered service in Starfleet. It was still in active service by at least 2371, while a ship named Bozeman took part in the Battle of Sector 001 in 2373.

The USS Enterprise-E is an enigma. Just what exactly happened to this ship? In The Last Generation, the crew of the Enterprise-D share a knowing glance at Worf, who gruffly asserts, 'That was not my fault.'

Just what wasn't his fault? There are several theories, thanks to Alpha and Beta Canon. Star Trek: Nemesis ends with the Enterprise-E under refit but still intact. Lower Decks' final episode, The New Next Generation, features an appearance by the ship parked outside Starbase 80. Then comes the battle with the Living Construct in Prodigy's Supernova.

While the Enterprise-E receives critical damage in this battle, it is also shown intact by the episode's end. This is chronologically its last on-screen appearance. Did it remain in service, as Star Trek Online suggests, until 2408? Did Worf assume command, as The Last Best Hope by Dr Una MacCormack depicts? This theory is at least supported by his statement in Võx. 

Perhaps it's best to follow showrunner Terry Matalas's lead, leaving it an open mystery, allowing this particular edition of Schrodinger's Enterprise to both live and be destroyed at the same time. 

The Bonaventure disappeared 'sometime before the 2260s,' according to Spock in The Animated Series episode The Time Trap. Starfleet lost all record of the ship once it entered the Delta Triangle, a region of space in the Beta Quadrant where Kessik, Bellatrix, and FGC-82659 met. The Star Trek: Star Charts and Stellar Cartography: The Starfleet Reference Library both state that the ship was lost there in 2079.

When the Enterprise is forced into this region following an attack by Kor, Scotty marvels at the Bonaventure's appearance. He claims that it was the first starship given a warp drive, though, of course, it couldn't be the first ship with one. Zefram Cochrane's Phoenix took that honour, while the Bonaventure may have been one of the first.

Though the Enterprise escaped the Delta Triangle, the Bonaventure remained behind. There it would stay for at least another one hundred years until, according to IDW's Star Trek: Lower Decks debut comic book, it was re-discovered in normal space by the USS Cerritos.

Of all the ships on this list, the USS Defiant may have the most interesting story. First appearing in The Tholian Web as a sister-ship to the USS Enterprise, this Constitution-class vessel was trapped by the Tholians in their eponymous web. Rather than crushing the ship or destroying it, it was transported to another reality.

For years, the location of this reality remained a mystery, and the Defiant crew were listed as MIA. However, this ship underwent a little timey-wimey trajectory. It went backwards through time, across dimensions, coming to a rest in the Mirror Universe one hundred calendar years before it departed from our reality.

There, it was studied by the Tholians before its capture by Terran forces. As the new flagship, it became the tool of Empress Hoshi's ascension, surviving for almost a century before contemporary ships caught up with its technology. It may have undergone several refits along the way, but it was still recognisably a Starfleet vessel, even if that meant very little alongside other Terran counterparts.