Mexican tall ship strikes Brooklyn Bridge, snapping masts and killing 2 crew members

NEW YORK — A Mexican navy sailing ship on a global goodwill tour struck the Brooklyn Bridge in New York on Saturday night, snapping its three masts, killing two crew members and leaving some sailors dangling from harnesses high in the air awaiting help.

New York Mayor Eric Adams said the 142-year-old bridge was spared major damage, but at least 19 people needed medical treatment.

Two of the four people who suffered more serious injuries later died, Adams announced on social media early Sunday.

It’s unknown what caused the crash, which is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. But preliminary findings suggest turbulent waters and a tugboat escort’s maneuvers may have contributed.

In a scene captured in eyewitness videos, the ship, called the Cuauhtémoc, could be seen traveling swiftly toward the bridge near the Brooklyn side of the East River. Its three masts struck the bridge’s main span and snapped, one by one, as the ship kept moving.

Videos showed heavy traffic on the span at the time of the 8:20 p.m. crash. No one on the bridge was reported injured.

The vessel, which was flying a giant Mexican flag and had 277 people aboard, then drifted toward the piers lining the riverbank as onlookers scrambled away.

Sailors could be seen aloft in the rigging on the damaged masts. Remarkably, none fell into the water, officials said.

Sydney Neidell and Lily Katz told the Associated Press they were sitting outside to watch the sunset when they saw the vessel strike the bridge and one of its masts snap. Looking closer, they saw someone stranded high on the ship.

“We saw someone dangling, and I couldn’t tell if it was just blurry or my eyes, and we were able to zoom in on our phone, and there was someone dangling from the harness from the top for ... at least, like, 15 minutes before they were able to rescue them,” Katz said.

Just before the crash, Nick Corso, 23, took his phone out to capture the backdrop of the ship and the bridge against a sunset. Instead, he heard what sounded like the loud snapping of a “big twig,” he said. More snaps followed.

People in his vicinity began running back, and “pandemonium” erupted aboard the ship, he said. He later saw several people dangling from the mast.

“I didn’t know what to think. I was like, is this a movie?” he said.

The Cuauhtémoc — about 297 feet long and 40 feet wide, according to the Mexican navy — first sailed in 1982. The vessel’s main mast has a height of 160 feet, according to the Mexican government. The Brooklyn Bridge has a center clearance of 135 feet, according to New York City’s Department of Transportation website.

The Mexican navy said in a post on the social platform X that the Cuauhtémoc was an academy training vessel. It said 22 people were injured in the crash, 19 of whom needed medical treatment.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum regretted the loss of the two crew members. “Our solidarity and support go out to their families,” she said on X.

The governor of the Mexican state of Veracruz confirmed Sunday on X that one of the dead sailors was from her state, cadet América Yamilet Sánchez.

The Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883, has a nearly 1,600-foot main span that is supported by two masonry towers. More than 100,000 vehicles and an estimated 32,000 pedestrians cross every day, according to the city’s transportation department, and its walkway is a major tourist attraction.

Traffic was halted after the crash but was allowed to resume after an inspection, city officials said.

It was unclear what caused the ship to veer off course. But it was maneuvering in turbulent waters. The tide had just turned, and a fast current was heading up the East River as a 10-mph wind set in.

Though such hazards are easily handled by an experienced captain, mistakes can be costly in heavily transited New York Harbor, where narrow, curvy channels, winds howling off the jagged Manhattan skyline and whirlpool-like eddies can combine to make for difficult passage.

Video of the crash shot by onlookers shows the ship hurtling into the bridge in reverse at full speed, suggesting the captain lost control of the engine. There are also questions about whether a tugboat escort peeled away too soon and should have been rigged to the ship or stayed with it until it headed out to sea. Similar tugboat concerns emerged when a large cargo vessel crashed into a bridge in Baltimore last year.

Sal Mercogliano, a former merchant mariner who has powered ships through New York Harbor, said that a series of “worst-case scenarios” — the ship’s height, a strong current, heavy wind and the absence of a more controlled tugboat escort — all probably contributed to the tragedy.

“The prudent thing would’ve been to leave two hours earlier, when the tide was going out. That would’ve been the ideal time,” said Mercogliano, who writes a widely followed shipping blog. “But I don’t think they ever envisioned that their engine would’ve propelled them into the bridge.”

Still, he said an even deadlier catastrophe was avoided by the ship’s steel rigging, which prevented the masts from falling into the water, as well as the fact that the crew stayed harnessed in position rather than taking the risk that some members could tumble from a 12-story height as they scrambled down the rat lines.

“You could have had guys strapped in, drowning in the river,” he said. “This could have been a lot worse.”

The damaged ship was moored Sunday at Pier 35 in Lower Manhattan. A stream of people, including those who appeared to be investigators and crew members, could be seeing getting on and off the vessel.

The U.S. Coast Guard said it had established a 50-yard safety zone around the Cuauhtémoc as an investigation by the U.S. and Mexican governments got underway.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat and the Senate minority leader, said any investigation should look into whether the Trump administration’s federal hiring freeze affected the Coast Guard’s staffing levels, safety procedures and accident response readiness.

“After being fully briefed on last night’s Brooklyn Bridge accident, one thing is predominantly clear: There are more questions than answers as it relates to exactly how this accident occurred,” Schumer said.

Goodman, Haigh, Brown and Viterbo write for the Associated Press.