2 crew members killed after Mexican Navy ship hits Brooklyn Bridge
Mayor Eric Adams announced the two deaths in a post to X late Saturday night. Some 22 people had been injured, 11 of whom were in serious condition and nine in stable condition, according to the Mexican Secretary of the Navy. Their conditions as of Sunday morning were not immediately available.
The crash happened around 8:20 p.m. Saturday, when the boat, carrying 277 people, struck the bridge, according to the FDNY.
Several videos posted to social media, including one seen at the top of this story, showed the boat gliding along the East River before its masts hit the Brooklyn Bridge, causing them to snap one by one as the ship continued moving.
There were sailors on top of the ship when the mast went 'right into' the bridge, NYPD officials said Saturday.
Sailors could be seen aloft in the rigging on the damaged masts but, remarkably, no one fell into the water, officials said.
The ship, called the Cuauhtemoc, had a mechanical issue after departing from Pier 17, officials said. It was unclear what caused the ship to veer off course. New York Police Department Special Operations Chief Wilson Aramboles said the ship had just left a Manhattan pier and was supposed to have been headed out to sea, not toward the bridge.
He said an initial report was that the pilot of the ship had lost power due to a mechanical problem, though officials cautioned that information was preliminary. Videos show a tugboat was close to the Cuauhtemoc at the time of the crash.
The Mexican Secretary of the Navy said the Cuauhtemoc was a training ship.
'We deeply regret the passing of two crew members of the Cuauhtémoc Training Ship, who lost their lives in the unfortunate accident at the port of New York. Our solidarity and support go out to their families,' said Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum in a statement.
The Cuauhtemoc — about 297 feet long and 40 feet wide, according to the Mexican navy — sailed for the first time in 1982. Its main mast has a height of 160 feet.
Each year, the Cuauhtemoc 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 the Pacific coast, on April 6, the navy 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.
'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 like at least like 15 minutes before they were able to rescue them,' Katz said.
Just before the collision, 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.' Several more snaps followed.
People in his vicinity began running and 'pandemonium' erupted aboard the ship, he said. He later saw a handful of people dangling from a mast.
'I didn't know what to think, I was like, is this a movie?' he said.
The 142-year-old Brooklyn Bridge was initially closed in both directions but did not have structural damage, officials said.
The Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883, has a nearly 1,600-foot main span 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. Its walkway is a major tourist attraction.
The Cuauhtemoc arrived in New York City on May 13, where visitors were welcome 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.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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is a writer and high school social worker living in the Hudson Valley with his wife and two sons, and has been an Eater contributor since 2021. About ten summers ago, there was a chef who operated a food truck on the main street of a Hudson River city. Boisterous crowds gathered in his gravel lot; many considered his food the best in town. Then, midway through his third summer, he shut the serving window and put caution tape around the lot. Each day, dressed like an oil prospector — no shirt, suspenders, bandana tied around his neck — the chef dug a pit with a shovel and pickax in the corner of the lot as passersby stopped and stared. About three months later, he, the truck, and the picnic tables disappeared, but the pit remained. It was rumored that the chef was in a hospital following an emotional breakdown; others said the city shut him down for code violations, but it's all hearsay. The true story might not be scandalous at all. The point is, when you dig a big hole alone without explaining yourself to your neighbors or city hall, there are questions. This past June, a new speculation occurred to me from chest-deep in a pit of my own digging. As I raised a weary wave to my next-door neighbor, I thought: maybe, like me, that chef was making a barbacoa pit, and maybe, like me, he was pushed to the brink. Pit cooking projects are usually managed by a group. If you go it alone, the exertion required to dig the hole and line it with stone can tax your body and then your mind, especially if you consider how unnecessary it is; you can make convincing barbacoa in the oven or an Instant Pot, for that matter, unless you need room for a whole goat (although stateside, you seldom do). 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I had no memory, actual or ancestral, to refer to since I'm not Mexican, and although I first heard of barbacoa while living in the barbacoa-heavy region of Nuevo León, Mexico, back when I was 15 and 16, I never actually went to a farm-style barbacoa. Instead, I consulted YouTube. From across Puebla, Hidalgo, Guanajuato, Nuevo León, Guerrero, Arizona, Texas, and California, people have uploaded videos of their barbacoa: kids leaping over the pit during construction, a man in a cowboy hat talking to the camera about refractory brick, and teams of four lowering an iron basket of meat into the inferno late at night. Videos from Hidalgo showed barbacoa de borrego (lamb) seasoned simply with salt, allowing the flavor of the enveloping pencas de maguey (agave leaves) to predominate. In videos from other regions like Oaxaca and Guerrero, people first marinated the meat in an adobo. 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Cover the pit with sheets of raw steel (never galvanized, since that can poison you), then a drop cloth, and shovel dirt over it until you can't see smoke rising. 10 hours later, shovel away the dirt, remove the steel sheets, and pull everything out carefully. I expected to finish preparations quickly. The first step was simple: dig. But after digging the first foot, I was already overwhelmed by the mound of dirt. I built two large, raised garden boxes next to the hole to avoid an eyesore. Those filled quickly, and then I had two new garden boxes, a big hole, and a giant mound of dirt. I embraced the eyesore. After digging two feet, my nine-year-old son declared he was ready to help — though he mostly dug for treasure with a kid's garden shovel. To his credit, he found pieces of a Victorian-era plate (according to a neighbor with unverified expertise) and about two dozen big intact shells from a geological age when the mountain we live on was underwater (according to that same neighbor). He also helped spray paint a sheet of plywood with a skull and crossbones and the classic message, 'Danger, Keep Out,' to place over the hole when we weren't working. We finished half the digging on the first day and the rest over a week. Mike Diago The next step was to line the pit with stone. The materials required for my initial plan — stacking and mortaring cinder block lined with refractory brick — rang up around $8,000 in the Home Depot virtual shopping cart. Since my wife already thought this project was dumb, I had to maintain that it would cost nothing — the premise of my initial appeal — so I closed the Home Depot tab and ventured to Facebook Marketplace. A woman needed her ancient fieldstone wall removed and was willing to give the stone away for free, with the caveat that all the stones be removed at once. There was no way I'd be able to take it all, but over the phone I was able to negotiate some of the free stones in exchange for carrying a couple large ones to the top of the hill of her property to be used as a headstone for her deceased cat. When my son and I arrived at the top of the hill carrying the largest stones we could handle, we dropped them with a thud, panting, and then saw the wooden box containing the dead cat lying against the tree. There was also a shovel there. I wasn't sure if it was a gentle suggestion, but looking at my son's anguished face, I knew I wasn't about to dig this lady's cat grave. I appreciated the stone, but I had my own problems. My son and I stared quietly at the wooden box for a beat and then returned to the car. 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I had all the sad and desperate thoughts that accompany premature deterioration. Finally, I thought, 'Why do I keep doing this? No one asked for barbacoa in a pit.' I never came up with an answer, and while I'm sure there is one, I wasn't sure it mattered. For better or worse, I thought, if I don't do the things that excite me, I might, in a way, cease to exist. Still, it was hard to escape the meaninglessness of these pursuits. Then I remembered a quote I read from Kenny Shopsin, the late NYC diner owner. He said, 'The only way to not be crushed by the stupidity of life is to pursue something energetically and gain as much satisfaction as you can before it gets stupid — and just ignore the fact that it's stupid. The whole thing is shitty. You're gonna fucking die.' It's not a cheerful proverb, and I don't take anyone's quotes as gospel, but it sounded like something that could have come from my own brain. Mike Diago About a week before my cookout, I gingerly climbed back into the hole. My son stood at the edge, passing stones and looking down at me as I fitted them in a staggered pattern. There was a new pain in my hip shooting down my leg and another in my elbow, but I stopped feeling morbid about it, accepted it as part of my fabric, and did my best to engage my core. Within three days, I dry-laid all the field stones in a circle. At the last minute, I realized the corrugated steel sheets I'd found to cover the pit, also free on Facebook Marketplace, were galvanized and thus poisonous, so, without time left to track down free raw steel, I had to run to Home Depot and spend money despite my earlier herculean efforts to avoid doing so. Also, the Latin grocer that typically has pencas de maguey was all out, so instead, I decided to wrap the meat in aluminum foil, with dried avocado leaves scattered within the package. The night before the cookout, I made an adobo by seeding, stemming, toasting, soaking, and grinding a handful of dried guajillo, ancho, and morita chiles in the mortar along with garlic cloves, oregano, cumin, bay, salt, apple cider vinegar, and a couple of canned chipotles en adobo. I placed mutton ribs and lamb shanks into the sauce and let them marinate overnight. At 4 a.m. on the morning of the cookout, I made a cup of coffee and started the fire. Sitting there in the dark, watching the fire, and holding my coffee was serene. Through the firelight, I saw the full rustic outdoor kitchen I'd envisioned in my family home years before. As the first birds chirped and the sun rose, a friend arrived to sit with me and stare into the fire. Then my eldest son came down, followed by my wife and toddler son. She stood next to me, and he sat on my lap. After a while, I got up, lowered the consomé and the meat into the pit, covered it, and went inside for a nap. Guests arrived at 5 p.m. Two friends brought handmade tortillas and salsas, another who owns a fancy liquor store brought good tequila, a few helped me unearth the lamb, and we all composed tacos that were perhaps the best I've made. (I vowed to use more avocado leaves in my cooking; the grassy and anisette notes it lent to the smoky adobo were tasty and surprising). All the guests loved the food and told me so. The back pats and fist bumps brought some satisfaction — I might have felt bad otherwise — but I'd already got what I needed early in the morning. Mike Diago It's now a year later, we're beginning another cookout season, and I have more plans for the pit. Over the last month, I've been building a stone frame around it, which I will finish with stucco and a custom lid, to match the stone grill beside it. Nothing energizes me more than this project. On weekend mornings, my wife and kids wake up, call my name, and then look out the back-facing bedroom window to find me leveling bricks and spreading refractory cement after a 7 a.m. trip to the hardware store. I'm so singularly focused that it's hard to pry myself away and go to my real job on weekday mornings. Tomorrow, I'm going to pick up some free white tiles from Facebook Marketplace. The plan is to have guests paint the common birds of New York State on them and then fasten them to the frame's exterior — a bonding experience with an enduring stamp. My back hurts, but I'm glad I built the pit. Going forward, I will do other similar projects. Better to lose feeling in an arm or leg than to lose feeling altogether.
