Posted on May 19, 2025
By Daniel Katzive (gCaptain) – The Mexican Navy sail training ship Cuautemoc collided with the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday evening, resulting in damage to the ship’s masts and multiple injuries.
The New York Post is reporting that 200 people were aboard the ship at the time of the accident. Injured people are being brought to Brooklyn Navy Yard for evaluation, according to the Post.
Video posted on social media shows the masts making contact with the bridge and falling.
The tall ship, launched in 1982, arrived in New York Harbor on Tuesday of this week for a visit and has been docked at South Street Seaport’s Pier 17.
The vessel had just departed the South Street Seaport with a pilot aboard and the tug Charles D McAllister escorting when the accident occurred.
Upon leaving the pier, which sits on the Manhattan side of the East River just to the south of the Brooklyn Bridge, the ship was intending to travel south out of the harbor and on to its next destination of Iceland, but instead continued moving astern until it’s masts made contact with the bridge near the Brooklyn shoreline.
The ship then passed under the bridge and came to rest between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges near the Brooklyn shoreline.
The Cuautemoc is now up river from the Brooklyn Bridge with is AIS status as “stopped.”
The FDNY released the following details: At approximately 8:20 Saturday night, the FDNY received a call that a boat struck the Brooklyn Bridge. There were 277 people on the boat. 27 people were removed for treatment.
You can see sailors “manning the yards” for the departure:
In a social media post just after midnight, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said 2 of the 19 injured crew members had died, with two patients still in critical condition.
An NYPD chief told reporters at a press conference earlier that the vessel appeared to lose power after backing away from Pier 17, but the NYPD Commissioner emphasized that that information was preliminary and that the NTSB would conduct a full investigation.
The NTSB said Sunday it was launching a “go-team” to investigate the incident.
