Two dead as Mexican Navy ship crashes into Brooklyn Bridge

[Eugene]

Earlier DU thread: Mexican Navy ship crashes into New York City's Brooklyn Bridge

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Source: BBC

Two dead as Mexican Navy ship crashes into Brooklyn Bridge

18 May 2025

Pratiksha Ghildial
BBC News
Reporting from Brooklyn, New York
Jaroslav Lukiv & Ruth Comerford
BBC News
Reporting from London

Two people have been killed and at least 19 others injured after a tall Mexican Navy training sailing ship crashed into New York City's Brooklyn Bridge.

Police said the Cuauhtémoc, with 277 people on board, lost power on Saturday as the captain was manoeuvring the vessel, forcing it to head for the bridge abutment on the Brooklyn side.

Footage shows the ship's towering masts clip the bridge as it passed under the structure. Crew members were standing on the masts as they snapped and fell to the deck, authorities said.

Brooklyn resident Nick Corso, who witnessed the accident, said the area erupted in panic. There was "lots of screaming, some sailors hanging from the masts," he told AFP.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c991n8p4pdyo

[niyad]

1. Requiescat in pace.

The ship's masts were 158 ft, and the bridge center is 135??? Why was it even that close?

[underpants]

2. Why were people on the masts?

Each year it sets sail at the end of classes at the naval military school to finish cadets' training.
This year it left the Mexican port of Acapulco on 6 April, the navy said. Its final destination was intended to be Iceland. Among its scheduled stops along the way was Aberdeen, Scotland, for the city's Tall Ships race in July.

[niyad]

3. I hope there are some answers soon.

[Eugene]

9. tradition

lining the sailors aloft is part of putting a tall ship on full display

[underpants]

17. I should've known that

I was thinking it was a boat parade but that makes more sense.

As I told my wife, these are seniors at their naval academy. They are very well trained so they do the last thing they were told and nothing else until they are told to. Follow your last order/command.

[Hope22]

4. Engine failure of some sort....

Doesn’t sound like they intended to go under it.

[MacDo]

6. I agree.

It appeared to be moving backwards instead of forward.

[underpants]

15. Every air pilot I've ever talked to says, don't plan for IF

the engine cuts off plan for WHEN it cuts off.

[Hope22]

21. Yes. It's a sad story.

They probably had wind and current working against them as well.

[k_buddy762]

5. Mexico has a navy?

I legitimately did not know this.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. You did not know the Gulf is Mexican? You have not seen a map showing Mexico's two ocean shorelines?

It would be a mistake to think that the nation which makes such a large number of engines for US assembled cars is so impoverished that it could not afford a navy.

I'm sorry you did not know these things, and I don't mean to be harsh, but I am astonished. Sometimes we can figure things out without directly knowing them. The take-away here is to always check your assumptions, especially the stuff that "everybody knows" or that seems "obvious".

[k_buddy762]

12. Well

they have a tiny air force, and a semi-cartel-controlled army, and as the US is the main defender of North America, I was not aware that Mexico had stood up a modern navy. Now I know.

[obamanut2012]

13. Why would a costal nation not have a navy?

[k_buddy762]

14. Great question

and is seems an absurd notion now. But my brain can't remember ever hearing about a Mexican navy in the modern sense. I just never thought of it as a thing.

[underpants]

16. I'll admit that popped in my head but then I realized it's basically a peninsula

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. I'm thinking it's an "isthmus", but "peninsula" is easier to say; plus ...

... it has a few peninsulas, like baja and yucatan, probably more.

[underpants]

20. Yes it is an isthmus 👍

[EndlessWire]

7. Here's a link

to a video report. It lost power, drifted backwards under the bridge, and lost the top half of all 3 masts. Sailors were left hanging in the rigging. It may have been under power but stuck in reverse. The giant Mexican flag is actually on the back of the ship.

[Demovictory9]

10. Video of crash

https://youtube.com/shorts/7zMrWOCezsQ

[debsy]

11. They weren't supposed to head toward the Brooklyn bridge

Somebody dropped the ball on considering the tides for their departure. NY rivers have very strong currents.

See my other post:

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1321&pid=48603]

My question is why did they leave at peak flood tide when they should have left when the tide was ebbing so that it would have carried them away from the bridge (in the correct direction)

[tman]

19. I don't get why the sailors were not ordered down from the masts as the ship approached the bridge.