Mexican Navy ship crashes into Brooklyn Bridge leaving two people dead
33 comments
·May 18, 2025codr7
user32489318
Not sure about the US, but in Europe it happens fairly regularly with inland freight ships and private yachts. There are wooden guardrails near the bridge pylons to limit the damage (to the bridge) specially for this reason. Statics is also quite interesting, you’d expect the heavy traffic - most accidents correlation but it seems fairly randomly distributed. “Alphen aan de Rijn” in the Netherlands is quite famous for boats hitting/removing the bridge, getting stuck, yachts taller than local houses breaking down in tight spots…
userbinator
I think you're missing a didn't before "fall".
aragonite
The repair traveler [1] underneath the bridge also was struck twice and can be seen swinging pretty violently. I wonder if there was a real chance it could have broken free (& crashed onto the ship below)...
[1] https://gccom.us/project/brooklyn-bridge-traveler-replacemen...
hiddencost
There's a category error in the comparison.
The boat in Baltimore weighed at least two orders of magnitude more, and directly struck a column.
This boat hit a span with a basically negligible piece of wood. I'd be shocked if that shut the bridge for more than an hour.
verisimi
> both lost power and drifted into the bridge
"Restart your computer to finish installing important updates".
haunter
You can see on the video that all masts were fully manned. RIP
https://reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1kp9sxn/ship...
55555
RIP to everyone who died. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but when you're standing on the mast, how can you not tell that you're about to collide with the bridge?
ceejayoz
You can. You just can’t get down in time.
ars
The article says it lost power, but the photo shows a wind powered vessel with sails.
Some kind of hybrid ship?
jabl
Practically all sailing vessels in use (some racing sailboats etc excepted) have auxiliary engines for moving in constricted areas like ports. Considering this accident happened with people up in the rigging, they were presumably hoisting or lowering the sails when the engine lost power and they drifted into the bridge.
SllX
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cuauht%C3%A9moc_(BE01)
Looks like it. It’s a sail training ship, but it has an engine looking at the infobox, presumably so it’s not relying on the sails for tours such as this, and maybe because the ship itself is for training and they need a failsafe? To be honest, I’m not gathering what the purpose of such a ship is to a modern Navy other than maintaining cultural continuity and a tradition in wind sailing.
EDIT: I'm still inside the edit window but there have been several good answers below. Rather than responding to each one individually let me just say y'all have provided some great answers. Thanks!
Tomte
Learning the fundamentals.
Germany puts all aspiring naval officers through a tour on the Gorch Fock.
It‘s kot just culture, although those ships also serve as excellent ambassadors to far-flung countries.
murderfs
Yeah, well, if you've invested 135 million euros into repairing a sailboat, you might as well put it to use...
raverbashing
I suppose "not hitting bridges" is part of the fundamentals
But it's really curious how it seems those collisions have been becoming more frequent (or only our awareness of it?)
Another alternative is "the sort" working better than ever which means that maritime employment in some places does not attract the best professionals
nickysielicki
The fundamentals have obviously changed. At no point in any serious engagement will it ever be important to have experience with sailing. This ship should have been dry docked and turned into a museum years ago. Two people are dead.
frumplestlatz
Sailing ships generally have auxiliary engines.
melevittfl
Sailboats, except for the smallest ones, usually have a motor and propeller to move without relying on wind.
null
suraci
a real national security threat
I've only ever heard of two ships hitting bridges; both recently, both in the US, both lost power and drifted into the bridge.
At least this bridge fall like a house of cards, I guess because the masts broke first.