NEW YORK — At least two people were killed and about 20 injured when a Mexican Navy training ship on a global goodwill tour struck the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York Saturday night, officials said. There were 277 people on the sailing ship, called the Cuauhtémoc, at the time of the incident and everyone is believed to be accounted for, officials said Saturday. Dramatic video shows the Cuauhtémoc’s masts hitting the underside of the bridge and breaking as the vessel passes underneath, with pieces falling down toward the deck.
The incident occurred around 8:20 p.m. local time as the ship was departing from New York’s Pier 17, where it had been docked at the South Street Seaport Museum for five days of public viewing. The ship’s masts – bedecked in lights – struck the bridge, breaking on impact and sending debris falling onto the vessel’s deck. New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the ship lost power. City officials earlier said “mechanical issues” may have caused the incident, but cautioned all information so far is preliminary. An investigation is ongoing.
Comment: Seems the ship lost power and drifted aft end first into the bridge. I assume the plan was to motor to the center of the river and pass under a taller section of the Brooklyn Bridge bow first. Between this and the ramming of the bridge in Baltimore, the lesson learned should be all ships entering or leaving a port should have a tug escort.
In other news, it was announced this afternoon that Biden has advanced prostate cancer and that it wasn’t discovered until last Friday. Why he didn’t have PSA tests as part of his annual physicals is beyond me. It should be a no brainer. I know what he’s in for. I wish him well.
TTG
Sal Mercogliano (YT “What’s Going on With Shipping”) has good analysis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIlRiauatEo
Ship was intending to back away from the dock, then power forwards and go South – away from the bridge. Doesn’t look like the ship lost power; looks more like it got stuck in reverse and steamed backwards (“aftwards”?) under the bridge.
Lotsa factors:
– they parked nose-in, because ships look better from the front (that forced them to back out)
– Tidal current at 8:00 PM was NorthEast, toward the bridge, and wind was pushing them the same direction. Prolly should have left dock with tide going out, not in.
– They had a ‘tug escort’, but it was pushing on the [starboard] side, not pulling (no ropes), and the ship got away from the tug.
– in some of the vid (including some from the NBC link in OP) you can see a ‘wake’ spreading out from the bow, and the ship is actually making a ‘stern wave’ – as if it was moving backwards under power. That’s why Sal thinks it got ‘stuck in reverse’.
(Note: Plz pardon my ignorance of Nautical lingo!)
elkern,
Thanks for the video link. I had a feeling Sal Mercogliano would have a good explanation. I saw a tweet last night in which he said the ship was under power in reverse rather than losing power as the Mayor of NYC said. Seems like going against the wind and tidal current was not a good idea, although I’ve usually seen ships like this coming into and out of Alexandria at night. I guess the schedule overruled the conditions.
Short Update from Sal on YT:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aPcDmdXqc2Q
“…at 8:22… Cuauhmetoc engaged its engines. Instead of going ahead, the engine went astern and drove the ship into the bridge.”
OTOH, it sounds like the tide conditions were less of a problem than Sal reported earlier.
One of the comments on his first YT post about this said “…Believe that ARM Cuauhtémoc has variable pitch propellor, so pitch change may have failed.”
Sounds to me like a good theory; I recall watching another of Sal’s videos, where a Kiwi ship was lost when it accelerated into shoals. Bridge crew neglected to turn off Autopilot course plot and believed they had reversed the engines. Autopilot let them crank the engines up to full speed, but didn’t accept the ‘course change’.
If this theory turns out to be true, it fits right in with a general problem I see in a lot of modern equipment: automation simplifies human control for most situations but actually complicates it in edge cases. Those Boeing 737Max crashes are prime examples, but the electronic controls in my washing machine have the same problem.
LOL. The shipwreck is an excellent metaphor for Mexico. A bunch of third world flunkies whooping it up on the deck, to obnoxious mariachi music, while their ship is adrift, backwards, and then ignominiously bashes into a bridge, snapping of the masts.
Biden – of course the prostate test was part of his physical. That is SOP for check-ups for anyone over 50 years of age +/-. Even leftist/woke news networks are openly talking about Biden’s significant senility. As the ship is a fitting metaphor for Mexico, Biden is a fitting metaphor for the democrat/deep state complex. Just so much more BS foisted on the American public as part of a giant gas lighting project. And they say Trump was elected again because of a cult and members. Just stop already, please, lefties, you’re embarrassing yourselves and making a mockery out of our institutions. No one other than kooks and government dole parasites are buying into what you’re peddling.
Actually, the covid article fits ties into this rot as well. More gaslighting that normal people* aren’t accepting. We have a lab that worked on that type of virus at ground zero. We don’t have a bat or pangolin infected with virus.
* normal people = work hard in the private sector, pay taxes, mind their own business, know the difference between a man and a woman, exercise common sense and decency as defined for centuries, patriotic, worship God.
Eric Newhill,
I thought a PSA test had to be part of an annual physical, but noted today that some major medical bodies recommend that test in unnecessary after age 70. My guess is that Biden got a finger wave in his physical and that’s how the nodes were discovered. That was probably followed by a biopsy to determine cancer and the level of cancer. I have no idea how it was determined that it metastasized to his bones. I thought that required a PSMA CAT scan. Maybe not.
“The shipwreck is an excellent metaphor for Mexico.”
Anglo navies have had their share of marine mishaps.
Some examples:
https://news.usni.org/2024/12/01/crew-failures-led-to-grounding-sinking-of-new-zealand-navy-ship-says-report
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2024/05/10/navy-ship-ran-aground-when-officer-went-to-dinner-investigation-finds/
https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2007/09/fundamentals-of-running-aground.html
https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/3065656/uss-fitzgerald-ddg-62-marks-solemn-remembrance-loss-of-sailors-following-2017-c/
“Here’s What’s In the Navy’s Damning New Reports on Its Destroyer Collisions
Reviews show major breakdowns in leadership, training, and basic protocols are indicative of serious systemic issues.”
https://www.twz.com/15654/heres-whats-in-the-navys-damning-new-reports-on-its-destroyer-collisions
Two fast attack subs that have run into seamounts, necessating quite expensive repairs – one was in part due to inadequate charts of the ocean floor.
https://warriormaven.com/sea/how-did-the-uss-san-francisco-smash-into-an-undersea-mountain
https://news.usni.org/2022/05/24/investigation-uss-connecticut-south-china-sea-grounding-result-of-lax-oversight-poor-planning
That’s mainly for the U.S.
But both the Royal Navy and Russian Navy have had their share of incidents, due either to human or mechanical issues.
The old saying “The pot calling the kettle black” is a good guard against hubris.
BTW, the Navy has a word:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seamanship
A lot of skills there.
This landlubber is impressed.
I’m guessing they thought they had plenty of maneuver room after backing out of the slip, otherwise I think they would have taken a head line from the tug to some bits up forward to help pull the bow around. Ships backing down don’t maneuver all that great and the rudder isn’t as effective. You also have on single screw ships the stern “walking” due to the prop rotation. It looks like the wind would be generally pushing towards the Manhattan shoreline; that may be why they were moving towards the Brooklyn side of the channel.
Being a sailing vessel I don’t know if the rudder design is different from what you see with powered vessels.