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By Michelle Watson, Hanna Park, CNN
(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 before heading to Iceland, lost power and moved in the wrong direction before hitting the Brooklyn Bridge.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is expected to give an update Monday morning.
A cadet and a sailor died, she has said. Twenty-two people were hurt, the Mexican Navy initially said. Two cadets are 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.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators are now 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 appeared to be left structurally intact and was only temporarily closed.
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 New York’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.
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
A National Transportation Safety Board “go-team” 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.
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.
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CNN’s Nouran Salahieh, Mark Morales, Lauren Mascarenhas, Mauricio Torres, Chris Boyette, Gloria Pazmino, Diego Mendoza, Zenebou Sylla, and Helen Regan contributed to this report.
