Mexican navy ship hits Brooklyn Bridge, 2 people dead

New York City's famous Brooklyn Bridge was closed for about 40 minutes after a Mexican navy training ship struck the underside of the bridge.

Twenty-two people have been injured, including three seriously, after a ship from the Mexican Navy collided with the Brooklyn Bridge. As New York Mayor Adams stated, two members of the crew have been found dead. According to media reports, 277 crew members were on the ship when the incident occurred. Multiple videos circulating on social media show the 147-foot tall mast of the "Cuauhtémoc" hitting the underside of the bridge and then snapping apart and falling onto the deck below. There appears to be no damage to the bridge.

"The captain that was maneuvering the ship lost, I guess, power of the ship," Chief Wilson Aramboles of the NYPD Special Operations Bureau told reporters Saturday evening

Aramboles added that there were "some mechanical issues" that "probably caused the ship, Cuauhtemoc, to strike the bridge." The navy ship was leaving New York and heading out to sea en route to Iceland. An investigation into the accident is being conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board.

---

The Cuauhtémoc is utilized for training seamen, captains, and officers at Mexico’s Heroic Naval Military School, as stated in a news release from one of its voyages. Launched in 1982, it is a steel-hulled three-masted barque, about 300 feet long.

The Mexican Navy said in a statement that the Cuauhtémoc had set sail on April 6 from Acapulco on a mission with the goal of “exalting the seafaring spirit, strengthening naval education, and carrying the Mexican people’s message of peace and good will to the seas and ports of the world.”