Mexican naval sailboat hits Brooklyn Bridge, killing two crew members

A Mexican naval vessel carrying 277 people scraped the bottom of the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday evening, leaving two crew members dead and several others injured.

Nineteen people are in serious or critical condition after the tall ship Cuauhtémoc “lost power and crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in a post on X early Sunday. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed the deaths, and expressed condolences in another post on X.

The 270-foot Cuauhtémoc — an academy training vessel — was in New York as part of a global annual tour, Hector Vasconcelos, Mexico’s representative to the United Nations, said before the incident. The ship was scheduled to visit 22 ports in 15 countries including Jamaica, Cuba, Iceland and France, the Associated Press said.

Videos posted on X showed three lit masts of the ship carrying a giant Mexican flag crashing into the base of the bridge as vehicles moved above. It continued to sail on with all three wrecked masts before coming to a stop.

“The status of personnel and equipment is being reviewed by naval and local authorities, who are providing support,” the Mexican navy said in a post on X. “The Navy reaffirms its commitment to personnel safety, transparency in its operations, and excellent training for future officers of the Mexican Navy.”

Traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge in both directions was temporarily halted before it was reopened.

The Department of Transportation did not find major damage to the bridge, Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said at a briefing earlier.

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By Myles Miller and Brandon Sapienza, Bloomberg News

(Eric Martin and Yi Wei Wong contributed.)