A Mexican Navy training sailboat with nearly 300 people on board struck the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday night, the New York Police Department said.
There were 277 people on board, a Fire Department official said. Among those injured, three were deemed to be in critical condition and another 17 were serious. Everyone on board the ship is believed to be accounted for, the official said.
The tall masts of the ship, the Cuauhtémoc, snapped when they hit the underside of the bridge, according to video posted on social media. The ship was flying a giant Mexican flag.
The vessel lurched, but stayed upright as it came to a stop at the Brooklyn Promenade around 8:30 p.m., according to video and images from the scene. Its masts appeared to be badly damaged.
“The status of personnel and equipment is being reviewed by naval and local authorities, who are providing support,” according to a social media post written in Spanish from the Mexican secretariat of the navy.
Nick Corso, 23, was finishing dinner with friends at a restaurant by the Promenade when they saw the ship heading toward them.
He thought at first that the vessel would clear the bridge, he said, but then “the top lights on the mast disappeared behind the bridge and I was like, oh, it’s not going to make it.”
When the top of the mast hit the underside of the bridge, he said, “you could hear it snap.”
All lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge were briefly closed in both directions, the city’s emergency management notification system reported. The Department of Transportation is assessing the bridge for any structural damage, according to a social media post from Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president.
The Cuauhtémoc is used to train seamen, captains and officers at Mexico’s Heroic Naval Military School, according to a news release from one of its cruises. It is a steel-hulled three-masted barque launched in 1982, about 300 feet long with a mast height of 160 feet.
The navigational clearance under the Brooklyn Bridge is 127 feet at high tide.
The crash happened days before the beginning of Fleet Week in New York on May 21. The event, in which sailors from the United States and other navies around the world converge on the city, features a parade of ships around Manhattan.
Adeel Hassan and Yan Zhuang contributed reporting.
Joseph Goldstein covers health care in New York for The Times, following years of criminal justice and police reporting.
Shayla Colon is a reporter covering New York City and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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