5 fateful minutes led to the deadly Brooklyn Bridge ship collision

The accident Saturday night raised a slew of questions about how the tall ship was able to sail in the wrong direction up the East River, instead of out to sea, and the safety of US bridges and the risks they face.

(CNN) — After several days in New York, it took less than five minutes for a Mexican Navy ship to hit the city’s iconic Brooklyn Bridge, snapping the masts like matchsticks and leaving two crew members dead and over a dozen injured as crowds watched in fear from the shore.

The accident Saturday night raised a slew of questions about how the tall ship – a training vessel – was able to sail in the wrong direction up the East River, instead of out to sea, and the safety of US bridges and the risks they face.

Authorities on Monday gave a preliminary timeline leading up to the fatal crash but stressed it’s too early to speculate on a cause.

“This is the start of a long process. We will not be drawing any conclusions. We will not speculate. We will also not be determining the probable cause while we’re on scene,” National Transportation Safety Board member Michael Graham said at a news conference Monday.

The image of the tall ship, outfitted with long horizontal yards attached to billowing white sails, colliding Saturday night with the bridge against a shimmering Manhattan skyline left onlookers stunned.

Those who died fell from a mast, a law enforcement official told CNN. They were a cadet and sailor, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said as she offered her condolences to their families and expressed solidarity with the Mexican Navy.

Twenty-two people were hurt, the Mexican Navy initially said. Nearly 200 cadets have returned to Mexico but 94 crew members remain aboard the vessel, New York City Emergency Management said Monday afternoon.

Two crew members are still hospitalized, Aries Dela Cruz, a spokesperson for the agency, said in a social media post.

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.

There was no visible damage to the bridge, which only temporarily closed. The crash caused no structural damage to the span, the NTSB and the New York City Department of Transportation, which manages the crossing, said Monday.

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 a global goodwill tour. It arrived around noon on May 13 and left Manhattan’s Pier 17 on Saturday around 8:20 p.m., the NTSB said.

The ship began backing away from the pier with the help of a tugboat. As it pulled away from the pier, winds were at 10 knots – around 11-12 mph – and the current was 0.3 knots toward the bridge, Brian Young, the NTSB investigator in charge, said Monday.

A westerly wind of 10 mph – gusting up to 16 mph – was reported at the same time at the Robbins Reef Lighthouse on the Upper Bay, south of the Brooklyn Bridge, in New Jersey.

The ship maintained a speed of about 2 knots for “a bit of time” before it increased to 6 knots, he said.

But it started moving in the “wrong direction,” a senior city official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.

At 8:24 p.m., someone made a VHF radio broadcast requesting assistance from other tugboats in the area of the bridge, Young said. It was followed by two other requests for assistance.

At 8:24 and 45 seconds, the vessel’s mast struck the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge, Young said.

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.

A crowd of people who had gathered on the Brooklyn side of the bridge to watch the ship screamed and ran for safety.

“At 8:27, the vessel came to a stop and at 8:30, both NYPD and FDNY assests were on scene,” Young said. More than 100 fire and emergency medical service personnel responded, the New York City Fire Department said.

In audio from VHF radio traffic, provided by Broadcastify, someone says mariners “are advised that there are persons in the water in the vicinity of the Brooklyn Bridge.” Another person says minutes later there are “injured on board.”

“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.”

What investigators are looking for

The NTSB team in New York includes experts in nautical operations, marine and bridge engineering and survival factors, Graham said earlier Monday. They’ll be looking into three main areas: the crew, the condition of the ship and the environment, including the weather, wind and tide.

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.

Graham noted, however, that because investigators have not boarded the ship, it is unknown whether there were any data recorders aboard.

The ship’s propeller was going in reverse at the time of the crash, an official with knowledge of the investigation said Monday. The ship also had electricity, as is clear from the lit string lights that were lining the masts. But neither propulsion nor electricity indicate the vessel could actually steer at the time, and that’s something investigators are currently looking at.

The NTSB is working with its Mexican counterparts to gain access to the ship and eventually interview the captain and crew. They’d been hoping to get on the ship to start the investigation Monday and weren’t expecting a delay, an official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.

While they wait for the Mexican government to sign off, NTSB investigators want to speak with the docking pilot, who is American, the source said, and the tugboat captain.

The docking pilot, also known as the harbor pilot, was at the helm of the ship when it crashed, Adm. Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles, the Mexican Navy secretary, said Tuesday.

”(The ship’s) voyages are conducted according to international standards, particularly in New York, where the ship must be controlled by a specialized harbor pilot from the New York government,” Morales said. “The entire maneuver the ship performed from the time it left the dock until the collision was under the pilot’s control.”

They’re also looking for the person who made the VHF call for help, an official with knowledge of the investigation said Monday.

The NTSB will also look at any possible problems with the ship’s engine, Young said. The ship “experienced a mechanical malfunction,” the NYPD said, citing a preliminary investigation by several agencies, though the NTSB said Monday it had not yet examined the engine and couldn’t confirm whether a malfunction occurred.

The Cuauhtémoc’s captain told investigators he lost steering of the vessel after the rudder stopped working, the senior official with knowledge of the investigation 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 NTSB will also be looking into the “policies and procedures” of the tugboat that helped the ship get off the pier and sailed alongside it leading up to the crash, Young said Monday.

Investigators are working to access CCTV footage and security video from the time of the crash, and are asking anyone who has video of the incident to email witness@ntsb.gov.

The NTSB has 30 days to issue a preliminary report, and a full investigation takes 12 to 24 months to complete, Graham said.

The victims of the crash

The bodies of the two people who died in the crash have been returned to their families in Mexico, Morales said Tuesday. They were given a posthumous tribute at the Naval Military School before their funerals, he said.

Their deaths have been ruled accidental, a spokesperson at the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner said Monday.

The sailor who was killed was identified as Adal Jair Maldonado Marcos, according to the city council of San Mateo del Mar in neighboring Oaxaca state in southern Mexico. The council expressed its “heartfelt condolences to his family and other loved ones,” it said on Facebook.

América Yamilet Sánchez was the cadet who died, 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.

Meanwhile, Mexican naval and diplomatic officials are supporting the injured and the military branch, Sheinbaum said.

Of the 22 crew members who were injured, 18 have recovered enough to return to the port of Veracruz, while two remain in New York, where they are receiving specialized medical care, the Mexican Navy said Monday.

Risks to bridges

The Cuauhtémoc crash happened 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 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 on its yearly training tour for the graduating class of 2025 and was due to head to Iceland next.

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