(CNN) — A Mexican Navy training ship on a goodwill tour struck the bottom of the Brooklyn Bridge, leaving two crew members dead and over a dozen injured.
The image of the tall ship, outfitted with long horizontal poles and billowing white sails, colliding Saturday night with the iconic bridge against a shimmering Manhattan skyline left onlookers stunned.
Now, investigators are looking into exactly how the Cuauhtémoc, which was supposed to fuel up at a Bay Ridge dock in Brooklyn before heading to Iceland, lost power and moved in the wrong direction before hitting the Brooklyn Bridge.
Those who died fell from a mast, a law enforcement official told CNN. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum offered her condolences again Monday to the families of the two victims and expressed solidarity with the Mexican Navy.
A cadet and a sailor died, she has said. Twenty-two people were hurt, the Mexican Navy initially said. Two cadets were still getting medical care Monday in New York while the rest of the ship’s crew of nearly 200 has returned to Mexico, it said.
The ship will likely be repaired at a New York shipyard and return to service with the Mexican Navy, Sheinbaum said at Monday’s news conference.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators are now on site in New York, where the ship’s voyage data recorder is expected to reveal crucial information about how the incident occurred.
There was no visible damage to the bridge, which only temporarily closed. “While inspections will continue, there are no signs of structural damage to the Brooklyn Bridge,” the New York City Department of Transportation, which manages the crossing, said Monday. “(B)ridge inspectors have been on site since Saturday’s boat crash.”
Here’s what we know:
How the incident unfolded
The Cuauhtémoc had been docked at the South Street Seaport Museum for five days of public viewing as part of its global goodwill tour. It left Manhattan’s Pier 17 on Saturday around 8:20 p.m.
Soon, 911 calls about the crash started coming in, and authorities began responding around 8:26 p.m., a New York City Police Department spokesperson said.
“We could see some people being kind of dragged,” Flavio Moreira told CNN after seeing Saturday’s crash. “I believe it was some of the staff, they were on the top of the boat. And they were swinging around, back and forth as soon as the ship hit the bridge.”
The ship “experienced a mechanical malfunction,” the NYPD said, citing a preliminary investigation by several agencies.
The boat was also moving in the “wrong direction,” a senior city official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN. “It was the current that took it under the bridge. It wasn’t supposed to be headed in that direction.”
The Cuauhtémoc’s captain told investigators he lost steering of the vessel after the rudder stopped working, the senior official said.
“They had some sort of mechanical issue, they lost power. So, without being able to use the rudder, they could not steer,” the official said, cautioning all information is preliminary and subject to change.
The ship’s height, a strong current, heavy wind and the absence of a more controlled tugboat escort all contributed to the crash, said Sal Mercogliano, a former merchant mariner experienced with the New York harbor, the Associated Press reported.
At the time of the crash, a westerly wind of 10 mph – gusting up to 16 mph – was reported at the Robbins Reef Lighthouse on the Upper Bay, south of the Brooklyn Bridge, in New Jersey.
A tugboat pictured near the ship arrived after the crash to help, Sen. Chuck Schumer said Sunday.
More than 100 fire and emergency medical service personnel responded to the scene, the New York City Fire Department said. The bridge closed in both directions for about 40 minutes after the incident.
What investigators are looking for
An NTSB “go-team” has been sent to New York to investigate, the agency said Sunday. The team includes “experts in nautical operations, marine and bridge engineering and survival factors.”
The voyage data recorder likely will provide crucial information about what went wrong, including about the ship’s mechanics, any “control input” and when power may have been lost, said Mary Schiavo, CNN transportation analyst and former US Department of Transportation inspector general. It may also offer information about the river, such as the water’s depth and its currents.
The Cuauhtémoc crash happened just 16 months after a massive cargo ship plowed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. That Singaporean-flagged container vessel, the Dali, lost power, veered off course and smashed into the bridge, killing six construction workers.
After the Baltimore crash, the NTSB included the Brooklyn Bridge on a list of bridges whose owners “are likely unaware of their bridges’ risk of catastrophic collapse from a vessel collision and the potential need to implement countermeasures to reduce the bridges’ vulnerability.”
After that, the city Transportation Department “completed the evaluation requested by the NTSB” and calculated the probability the Brooklyn Bridge would collapse in a given year at “0.000000,” the agency told CNN on Monday.
The victims of the tall ship crash
Mexico’s president sent her condolences to families of the two crew members killed, saying she was deeply saddened. “Our sympathy and support go out to their families,” Sheinbaum said early Sunday on X.
Adal Jair Maldonado Marcos was killed, said the city council of San Mateo del Mar in neighboring Oaxaca state in southern Mexico. The council lamented the death of the sailor and expressed its “heartfelt condolences to his family and other loved ones,” it said on Facebook.
A cadet, América Yamilet Sánchez, also was killed, the governor of Veracruz announced, adding she “deeply” laments the death of Sánchez, a native of Xalapa, the capital city of Veracruz.
As family and friends gathered Sunday at Sánchez’s home in Xalapa to honor the 21-year-old, her loved ones demanded answers.
“It’s impossible for something so serious to not be thoroughly investigated,” Gael de la Cruz, a relative of Sánchez, told Reuters. “What happened there is illogical. There must be someone responsible.”
Sánchez’s mother, Rocio Hernandez, is in communication with US authorities over the repatriation of her daughter’s body, she told Reuters. “The US coroner already told me that yes, everything is ready … and I’m waiting for that,” she said.
Meanwhile, Mexican naval and diplomatic officials are supporting the injured and the military branch, Sheinbaum said, adding, “We are monitoring the situation, and the Secretary of the Navy will continue to provide updates.”
The Cuauhtémoc and its history
The Cuauhtémoc, known as the “Ambassador and Knight of the Seas,” is a training sailing ship of the Mexican Navy and a diplomatic symbol of Mexico abroad.
Named after the last Aztec emperor, who was executed by the Spanish conquerors in 1525, it was built in Spain in 1981 and acquired by the Mexican Navy to train cadets and officers.
It regularly takes part in major regattas around the world. The sailing ship was used for training by the Heroic Naval Military School, an elite military academy in Mexico, according to a news release.
The ship, as of last year, had visited 212 ports in 64 countries with 756,085 nautical miles sailed, the latter equivalent to making 35 trips around the world, the release said. It was now on its yearly training tour for the graduating class of 2025.