A masted Mexican Navy coaching ship, the Cuauhtémoc, sits stranded after colliding with the Brooklyn Bridge in New York on Saturday, Could 17, 2025. Related Press
NEW YORK — A Mexican navy crusing ship hit the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday throughout a promotional tour in New York Metropolis, the highest of its three masts slamming into the enduring span and partially collapsing because the boat floated within the East River.
The New York Hearth Division press desk confirmed that authorities responded to accidents however had no particulars about how many individuals might need been damage or whether or not they had been on the vessel or on the bridge.
In a scene captured in a number of eyewitness movies, the masts might be seen snapping and partially collapsing as they crashed into the deck of the bridge. Movies confirmed heavy visitors on the span on the time of the collision.
The vessel, which was flying an enormous inexperienced, white and crimson Mexican flag, then drifted towards the sting of the river as onlookers scrambled away from shore.
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Sydney Neidell and Lily Katz advised The Related Press they had been sitting exterior to observe the sundown after they noticed the vessel strike the bridge and one in every of its masts snap. Trying nearer, they noticed somebody dangling from excessive on the ship.
“We noticed somebody dangling, and I couldn’t inform if it was simply blurry or my eyes, and we had been in a position to zoom in on our cellphone and there was somebody dangling from the harness from the highest for like at the least like quarter-hour earlier than they had been in a position to rescue them,” Katz stated.
They stated they noticed two folks faraway from the ship on stretchers onto smaller boats.
The Mexican navy stated in a submit on the social platform X that the Cuauhtemoc, an academy coaching vessel, was broken in an accident with the Brooklyn Bridge that prevented it from persevering with its voyage.
It added that the standing of personnel and materials was beneath evaluate by naval and native authorities, which had been offering help.
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“The Secretary of the Navy renews its dedication to the protection of personnel, transparency in its operations and glorious coaching for future officers of the Mexican Armada,” it stated in Spanish.
The Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883, has a virtually 1,600-foot (490-meter) foremost span that’s supported by two masonry towers. Greater than 100,000 automobiles and an estimated 32,000 pedestrians cross day-after-day, in line with the town’s transportation division, and its walkway is a significant vacationer attraction.
The Cuauhtemoc — about 297 ft lengthy and 40 ft large (90.5 meters lengthy and 12 meters large), in line with the Mexican Navy — sailed for the primary time in 1982.
Every year it units out on the finish of courses on the naval army college to complete cadets’ coaching. This yr it left the Mexican port of Acapulco, on the Pacific coast, on April 6 with 277 folks onboard, the Navy stated then.
The ship was scheduled to go to 22 ports in 15 nations, together with Kingston, Jamaica; Havana, Cuba; Cozumel, Mexico; and New York.
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It had additionally deliberate to go to Reykjavik, Iceland; Bordeaux, Saint Malo and Dunkirk, France; and Aberdeen, Scotland, amongst others, for a complete of 254 days, 170 of them at sea.
