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, fatally injuring 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 after the crash.

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

The cause of the strike was under investigation.

In a scene captured in multiple 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.

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” on the boat erupted, he said.

Corso 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 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.

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.

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.

As midnight approached, the broken vessel was moved slowly up the East River, going under and past the Manhattan Bridge, aided by a series of tugboats, before docking at a pier. Onlookers continued to gather on the waterfront to watch the spectacle.

Each year the Cuauhtémoc sets out at the end of classes at the naval military school to finish cadets’ training. This year it left the Mexican port of Acapulco on April 6, the navy said then.

It arrived in New York City on Tuesday, and visitors were welcomed for several days, the Mexican Consulate said. The ship was scheduled to visit 22 ports in 15 nations over 254 days, 170 of them at sea.

Brown and Viterbo write for the Associated Press.