Watch: Mexican Navy Tall Ship Dismasted After Striking Brooklyn Bridge

Update: Two killed, two in critical condition after Mexican Navy tall ship ARM Cuautemoc strikes Brooklyn Bridge. NTSB launching go-team.

By Daniel Katzive (gCaptain) –

The Mexican Navy sail training ship Cuautemoc collided with the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday evening, resulting in damage to the ship’s masts and multiple injuries.

The New York Post is reporting that 200 people were aboard the ship at the time of the accident. Injured people are being brought to Brooklyn Navy Yard for evaluation, according to the Post.

Video posted on social media shows the masts making contact with the bridge and falling. 

The tall ship, launched in 1982, arrived in New York Harbor on Tuesday of this week for a visit and has been docked at South Street Seaport’s Pier 17.

The vessel had just departed the South Street Seaport with a pilot aboard and the tug Charles D McAllister escorting when the accident occurred.

Upon leaving the pier, which sits on the Manhattan side of the East River just to the south of the Brooklyn Bridge, the ship was intending to travel south out of the harbor and on to its next destination of Iceland, but instead continued moving astern until it’s masts made contact with the bridge near the Brooklyn shoreline.

The ship then passed under the bridge and came to rest between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges near the Brooklyn shoreline.

The Cuautemoc is now up river from the Brooklyn Bridge with is AIS status as “stopped.”

The FDNY released the following details: At approximately 8:20 Saturday night, the FDNY received a call that a boat struck the Brooklyn Bridge. There were 277 people on the boat. 27 people were removed for treatment. 

You can see sailors “manning the yards” for the departure:

In a social media post just after midnight, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said 2 of the 19 injured crew members had died, with two patients still in critical condition.

An NYPD chief told reporters at a press conference earlier that the vessel appeared to lose power after backing away from Pier 17, but the NYPD Commissioner emphasized that that information was preliminary and that the NTSB would conduct a full investigation.

The NTSB said Sunday it was launching a “go-team” to investigate the incident.

Mexico’s Navy released the following statement:

Mexico City, May 17, 2025. – The Secretariat of the Navy through the Mexican Navy, reports that today, during the sailing maneuver of the Cuauhtémoc Sailboat in New York, United States, as part of the Instruction Cruise “Bicentennial of the Consolidation of Independence at Sea”, a mishap was recorded with the Brooklyn Bridge that caused damage to the Training Ship, which will prevent the continuation of the said instruction cruise.

Derived from the mishap, there is an updated official report of 22 injured crew members, of which 11 are diagnosed as delicate and nine stable. Unfortunately, two of the crew members who were in serious cases died because of the injuries.

The Ministry of the Navy is carrying out all the coordination in matters of social welfare to keep informed the families of the companions who unfortunately lost their lives, as well as the crew personnel and the rest of the cadets.

It should be noted that the institution is carrying out the necessary procedures to be able to reunite the cadets with their relatives as soon as possible and they can continue later with their academic semester.

Likewise, the director of the Naval School is in contact with the relatives of the Cadets who are on the ship, as well as the Commander of the Eighth Naval Region with the relatives of the crew of the sailboat Cuauhtémoc, to provide them with the necessary information.

The Ministry of the Navy, aware of the risks that naval personnel run in the operations it develops, deeply regrets what happened and reaffirms its commitment to the families of the crew to provide timely attention and follow-up to the investigations of the events that occurred to precisely determine the causes that generated this event.

– Towards the Bicentennial of the Consolidation of Independence at Sea –

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