Multiple videos have gone viral showing a Mexican navy sailing ship hitting the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, and injuring 22 people on Saturday.
The videos showed the top of the ship’s three masts slamming into the iconic bridge and partially collapsing as the boat floated in the East River.
In one of the videos, the masts could be seen snapping and partially collapsing as they crashed into the deck of the bridge.
Just watched the Brooklyn Bridge get smoked live by a boat with a massive Mexican flag pic.twitter.com/R8eJKwJaJ2
— Nelson Slinkard (@TheWillieNelson) May 18, 2025
In an absolutely stunning modern metaphor a ship blaring Mexican music and flying a massive Mexican flag just got destroyed by the Brooklyn bridge.
Can’t make it uppic.twitter.com/AUJy0q3oFB
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 18, 2025
Just watched the Brooklyn Bridge get smoked live by a boat with a massive Mexican flag pic.twitter.com/R8eJKwJaJ2
— Nelson Slinkard (@TheWillieNelson) May 18, 2025
Visuals on social media also showed people hanging on to the masts.
“We saw someone dangling, and I couldn’t tell if it was just blurry or my eyes, and we were able to zoom in on our phone and there was someone dangling from the harness from the top for like at least like 15 minutes before they were able to rescue them,” a witness told The Associated Press.
The Mexican navy said that the Cuauhtemoc, about 297 feet long and 40 feet wide academy training vessel, was damaged in an accident with the Brooklyn Bridge that prevented it from continuing its voyage.
In a post on X, it said 22 crew members were injured, of whom three have serious injuries.
“The Secretary of the Navy renews its commitment to the safety of personnel, transparency in its operations and excellent training for future officers of the Mexican Armada,” it wrote in Spanish.
The ship reportedly sets out every year at the end of classes at the naval military school to finish cadets’ training. This year, it left the Mexican port of Acapulco on April 6 with 277 people onboard, and was scheduled to visit 22 ports in 15 nations, including Kingston, Jamaica; Havana, Cuba; Cozumel, Mexico; and New York.
It had also planned to go to Reykjavik, Iceland; Bordeaux, Saint Malo and Dunkirk, France; and Aberdeen, Scotland, among others, for a total of 254 days, 170 of them at sea.
(With agency inputs)
