Two people have died and dozens more have been injured after a Mexican navy training ship collided with New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, according to officials.
Eyewitness video posted online shows the ship's mast — flying a large Mexican flag — scraping the underside of the bridge before the vessel drifted toward the riverbank, prompting onlookers to scatter from the shoreline.
Naval cadets, dressed in white uniforms, were seen clinging to the ship’s crossbeams in the aftermath of the collision.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the 142-year-old bridge was spared major damage but at least 19 people aboard the ship needed medical treatment.
Two of the four people who suffered serious injuries later died, Adams announced on social media early on Sunday. The cause of the collision was under investigation.
The vessel involved, the Cuauhtémoc, is an academy training ship operated by the Mexican navy. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the navy confirmed that the ship sustained damage in the crash.
Earlier, the Mexican navy announced that 22 people on board had been injured. Of those, 19 were receiving treatment in local hospitals and three were reported to be seriously hurt. Eyewitnesses told the Associated Press they saw two people being taken off the ship on stretchers.
No one is believed to have fallen into the water.
Mayor Adams said a “unified effort” was underway to “make sure that we look after all of those who were on the ship.”
The New York Police Department said the ship lost power before crashing into the bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge has since reopened, with no major structural damage reported.
In a scene captured in multiple eyewitness videos, the Cuauhtemoc, could be seen travelling swiftly in reverse toward the bridge near the Brooklyn side of the East River.
Then, its three masts struck the bridge's span and snapped, one by one, as the ship kept moving.
Videos showed heavy traffic on the span at the time of the 8.20pm collision. No one on the bridge was reported injured.
The vessel, which was flying a giant Mexican flag and had 277 people aboard, then drifted into a pier on the riverbank as onlookers scrambled away.
Sailors could be seen aloft in the rigging on the damaged masts but, remarkably, no one fell into the water, officials 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.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed that the National Transportation Safety Board would now lead the investigation.
The Cuauhtémoc is approximately 297 feet long and 40 feet wide. According to the Mexican navy, it was first launched in 1982 and sets sail each year at the end of the academic term to complete naval cadet training.
The vessel departed from the Mexican port of Acapulco on April 6. It arrived in New York on May 13 and was scheduled to visit 22 ports across 15 countries during a 254-day voyage, 170 of which would be spent at sea.
Stops included Kingston in Jamaica, Havana in Cuba, Cozumel in Mexico, Reykjavik in Iceland, and several French ports including Bordeaux, Saint-Malo, and Dunkirk. The itinerary also included Aberdeen in Scotland and other locations across Europe.
The Mexican consulate described the Cuauhtémoc on social media last week as the “Ambassador and Knight of the Seas.”
The Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883, has a nearly 1,600-foot (490-meter) 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.
Traffic was halted after the collision but was allowed to resume after an inspection, city 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.
