The University of Miami’s marine research ship struck and stuck fast on a shallow reef in Biscayne National Park, then cruised on without reporting the incident.

The university and the ship’s captain both could face potentially heavy penalties for the grounding, which left the 96-foot F.G. Walton Smith wedged on a patch of coral for about an hour just southeast of Elliott Key last month.

The U.S. Coast Guard is investigating the crew for possible negligence and for failing to immediately notify marine safety officers. Park managers, who reported the incident 10 days later after hearing from UM, are investigating why the ship went off course. They’re also assessing damage, which could cost the school hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.

”They should have known better,” said Biscayne Superintendent Mark Lewis.

Otis Brown, dean of UM’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, agreed the incident last month wasn’t properly reported but said neither the captain nor university administrators intended to cover it up. It’s still unclear why the ship went aground as it was making a predawn passage down Hawk Channel.

”On a personal level, I’m just mortified it happened, but it was an accident,” said Brown, who is leading an internal investigation. “We’re all in agreement the information flow did not get to the right people in a timely manner.”

The Oct. 13 grounding is the first reported in more than 13 years for a renowned marine school that was embarrassed by maritime mishaps involving its previous vessel in the early 1990s.

In the worst of three groundings, the 170-foot Columbus Iselin smashed across a reef off Looe Key so hard in 1994 it punctured fuel and sewage tanks and took two days to free. Within six months, the school’s former dean, marine operations manager and ship’s captain all retired. UM eventually paid nearly $4 million to repair extensive destruction in an area with some of the lushest corals in the Florida Keys.

Though it could take the park up to eight months to fully assess damage, the latest grounding does not seem likely to approach that scale. But the reporting delay — Brown said he first tried to contact the park five days after the incident — likely worsened losses of sensitive corals, said Biscayne’s Lewis.