May 18, 2025 - Mexican Navy training ship hits Brooklyn Bridge

Our live coverage of the collision has ended. Get the latest here.

Relatives of America Yamileth Sanchez pray in Xalapa, Veracruz state, Mexico on May 18.

In Xalapa, Veracruz, the home of América Yamilet Sánchez has become a place of mourning, with flowers and the soft glow of candles surrounding her portrait.

Family and friends gathered on Sunday to honor the 21-year-old naval cadet, one of two people killed when the Mexican Navy training ship Cuauhtémoc struck the Brooklyn Bridge. The incident has left her loved ones demanding answers.

Sánchez’s mother, Rocio Hernandez, told Reuters that she is in communication with US authorities regarding the repatriation of her daughter’s body.

The local city council of San Mateo del Mar, in Oaxaca, Mexico, has identified the second victim of Saturday’s training ship crash at the Brooklyn Bridge as Adal Jair Maldonado Marcos.

In a Facebook post, the city council said they lamented the passing of the sailor and expressed their “heartfelt condolences to his family and other loved ones.”

Maldonado Marcos is the second victim identified by Mexican Authorities from Saturday’s crash. Earlier, the governor of the Mexican State of Veracruz identified the first of the victims as cadet América Yamilet Sánchez.

“All my love, support and solidarity to her family,” she said in the post while wishing the injured a “speedy recovery.”

The team of investigators on the ground in New York City with the National Transportation Safety Board, “is comprised of experts in nautical operations, marine and bridge engineering and survival factors,” the agency said in post on X Sunday evening.

“The NTSB team is assembling in New York City to conduct a safety investigation into the Mexican Navy training ship, Cuauhtémoc,” the post said.

The agency is expected to hold a news conference Monday at 3 p.m. ET, the post added.

Relatives of América Yamilet Sánchez hold a portrait of her in Xalapa, Veracruz state, Mexico, on Sunday.

The governor of Veracruz Mexico has identified one of the victims of Saturday’s training ship crash as cadet América Yamilet Sánchez.

In a social media post, Gov. Rocío Nahle said she “deeply” laments the passing of Sánchez, of Veracruz.

“All my love, support and solidarity to her family,” she said in the post.

She also wished the injured a “speedy recovery.”

Family members have built an altar for Sánchez with flowers and photos in her hometown of Xalapa, Veracruz.

A senior city official familiar with the investigation tells CNN most crew members of the Mexican sailing ship will depart tonight for a flight back to Mexico.

The Cuauhtémoc’s sailors are expected to be bussed from the site around 6 p.m. for a flight at 11 p.m., the official told CNN.

The city will provide a convoy of public buses to escort the crew to John F. Kennedy International Airport, the official said.

A handful of crew members will remain aboard the ship, the official said.

Officials are also waiting for Mexican Navy authorities to arrive at the site so they can join the investigation.

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board arrived at the scene Sunday an agency spokesperson said. The investigators are on the scene as of 4:56 p.m. ET.

A police officer stands watch where the Cuauhtémoc sits docked on Sunday.

A cadet and a sailor died after a Mexican Navy training ship hit the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday night, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters on Sunday.

Sheinbaum said the injured cadets are “getting better,” and that Mexico’s Naval Secretariat would issue a statement on the matter later on, according to a video of her comments published by El Universal newspaper.

The president referred to the collision as “an accident,” and said Mexican and American authorities are still investigating.

A 50-yard “safety zone” has been established around the area where the damaged Mexican Navy training ship is docked after it crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge, the US Coast Guard said in a news release Sunday.

Other ships sailing around Pier 36 on the East River have been asked to “proceed at slow speed” as the NYPD provides 24/7 patrols in the safety zone, the news release detailed.

A safety zone was also established from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Manhattan Bridge after the crash Saturday night, and commercial traffic in the area was suspended, Coast Guard officials said.

The Cuauhtémoc experienced damage to all three of its masts in the caught-on-video crash, the Coast Guard confirmed.

Two crewmembers died in the incident, and the Coast Guard extended its condolences to their loved ones.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer speaks at a news conference on April 2, in Washington, DC.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday that investigators must determine if budget cuts and program cancellations by the Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency contributed in any way to the Mexican Navy training ship crashing into the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday night.

“I have the general sense of a DOGE dysfunction in parts of the Coast Guard,” Schumer said at a news conference on the federal budget. “We know that there has been meddling by the Trump administration into the Coast Guard staffing, and now we need to know how this meddling might have impacted the events of last night, from a command, communication and local coordination level.”

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

Schumer suggested that if understaffing was an issue at the Coast Guard’s Vessel Traffic Services, which monitors vessel movements on water similar to the FAA’s control towers for aircraft, it might have contributed to the failure to prevent the accident.

“After being fully briefed on last night’s Brooklyn Bridge accident, one thing is very clear,” Schumer said. “There are many more questions than answers as to how the accident occurred and whether it could have been prevented.”

The damaged masts of The Cuauhtémoc are seen as it sits docked at Pier 36 in New York on Sunday.

While investigators look into the crash of a Mexican Navy training ship into the Brooklyn Bridge, local authorities are focused on moving the ship so it can be repaired.

“The (National Transportation Safety Board), the Coast Guard, the government of Mexico are now working on finding a way forward with the investigation, but that’s still in the early stages of that,” Zach Iscol, the New York City Emergency Management commissioner, told CNN.

The ship is currently docked at Pier 36, where it was towed overnight after striking the bridge. Many members of the crew spent Saturday night on the ship, while the injured were cared for at hospitals.

While there is some damage to the underside of the bridge, it is not structural and transportation inspectors have determined the bridge is safe, Iscol said.

The Mexican Navy secretary pledged his support to the families of those killed and injured when one of its training ships crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge.

Two crew members died after falling from the ship’s masts, authorities said.

“From the first moment, the protocols for medical care, institutional support, and direct support for the wounded and their loved ones were activated,” he said, adding the naval command is in contact with each affected family.

Morales Ángeles also ensured that investigations into the incident will be “promptly followed up with total transparency and responsibility.”

He thanked Mexican and US authorities for their support.

Crew members were seen leaving the Cuauhtémoc on Sunday morning after staying onboard overnight.

The ship was docked at Pier 36 after it hit the Brooklyn bridge on Saturday evening, leaving at least two people dead and injuring more than a dozen others.

Crewmembers leave Cuauhtémoc after staying onboard overnight

00:17 • Source: CNN

Crewmembers leave Cuauhtémoc after staying onboard overnight

00:17

After the Cuauhtémoc hit the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday evening, FDNY officials called for “all hands” to help with the incident.

Officials with the FDNY Brooklyn can be heard discussing the incident in dispatch audio from Broadcastify.

Units from FDNY Manhattan received an “all hands” call to assist with the injured.

Listen to a portion of the audio here:

New York Police officers stand watch on Pier 35 where The Cuauhtémoc sits docked on Sunday.

Authorities are looking into exactly how a Mexican Navy training ship on a goodwill tour struck the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday night, killing two crew members who fell from the ship’s masts and leaving about 20 others injured.

The National Transportation Safety Board is sending a go-team to the site of the crash to investigate, the agency said Sunday, with their arrival expected late afternoon. The ship’s voyage data recorder may reveal critical information about the crash.

The ship, the Cuauhtémoc, was carrying 277 people en route to Iceland when it lost power and struck the bridge, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said.

The ship was moving in the wrong direction when it hit the bridge, a senior city official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN. Cuauhtémoc’s captain said he lost steering of the vessel after the rudder stopped working, according to the senior official.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexican authorities are supporting the injured and monitoring the situation.

The Mexican Navy training ship that struck the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday was moving in the “wrong direction,” a senior city official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.

The Cuauhtémoc had been docked at Pier 17 in Manhattan, just down the river below the Brooklyn Bridge. As it made its way out of the harbor, it was supposed to make a stop at a Bay Ridge fueling dock before heading out to sea on its way to Iceland, the official said.

“It was the current that took it under the bridge,” the person said. “It wasn’t supposed to be headed in that direction.”

Officials from different city agencies are meeting Sunday morning to determine the next steps in the response and the investigation.

According to the senior official, Cuauhtémoc’s captain has told investigators he lost steering of the vessel after the rudder stooped working.

“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.

The city is also investigating the role of a tug boat that can be seen in video appearing to lead the Cuauhtémoc through the river.

The senior official said city divers are expected to go into the water today to inspect the Cuauhtémoc’s rudder to determine if the ship can be moved.

The Cuauhtémoc’s crew spent the night on the ship, the senior official said. Now, city officials are working to get them off the ship and home to Mexico, the person said.

The city’s Office of the Medical Examiner is also working to repatriate the bodies of the two victims, the senior official said.

The National Transportation Safety Board is sending a “go-team” team to New York, where a Mexican Navy training ship struck the Brooklyn Bridge, according to a post Sunday by the agency’s X account.

The team is expected to arrive late Sunday afternoon.

The damaged mast of the Mexican Navy ship Cuauhtémoc on Sunday morning, after it crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge the night before.

The Cuauhtémoc is docked now at Pier 36, where the Mexican Navy training ship was towed overnight after striking the Brooklyn Bridge.

The ship’s three masts are visibly damaged, with the splintered tip of one mast hanging at an angle, its sail twisted around it.

The Cuauhtémoc is docked at Seaport Museum in New York on Sunday.

Early Sunday morning, a group of seven crew members dressed in sailors’ uniforms boarded the ship. There has otherwise been minimal visible activity onboard so far.

Onlookers have been walking the pier throughout the morning, trying to get a glimpse of the damaged ship, but the area is blocked off to the public, and a police patrol boat has been watching over the ship.

The cargo ship Dali was trapped under the twisted remains of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which was destroyed when the ship collided with it earlier this week, on March 29, 2024, in Baltimore, Maryland.

Cuauhtémoc’s collision with the Brooklyn Bridge comes just 16 months after a massive cargo ship plowed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024.

The incident caused the 1.6-mile structure to crumble, plunging cars and people into the frigid water below. The Singaporean-flagged container vessel, named Dali, lost power, veered off course, and smashed into the bridge, killing six construction workers.

The Cuauhtémoc is not the first ship to hit the Brooklyn Bridge.

In 1921, the schooner Edward J. Lawrence hit the bridge while being towed beneath it. In 1935, a German freighter, Tirpitz, struck a steel girder on the bridge, bending three of the ship’s four masts. In 1986, a freighter from South Korea grazed the bottom of the bridge, The New York Times reported.

The voyage data recorder from the Mexican Navy training ship that crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday will provide crucial information about what went wrong, one transportation expert told CNN.

The data recorder will likely provide investigators with information about both the ship’s mechanics, including 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 provide information about the river itself, such as the water’s depth and its currents.

Investigators may already have that information and be in the process of reviewing it, Schiavo said. They will also need to examine whether communication was lost at any point, she added.

Mexico will be involved in the National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the incident, Schiavo said, noting the US agency is used to performing large-scale, international investigations.

The Cuauhtémoc departs from Acapulco, Mexico, in early April.

The Cuauhtémoc departed Acapulco on the Pacific coast of Mexico on the morning of April 4, according to a news release from the Mexican Secretariat of the Navy.

The mission was “exalting the seafaring spirit, strengthening naval education, and carrying the Mexican people’s message of peace and goodwill to the seas and ports of the world,” according to the release.

Plans for the voyage included calling on 22 ports in 15 countries in 254 days. The crew was scheduled to spend 170 days sailing and 84 days in port, according to the Mexican Navy.

Stops included various Caribbean destinations such as Kingston, Jamaica, and Havana, Cuba, as well as Mexican ports, New York, and cities in the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Iceland, the news release said.

The trip boasted the highest number of women in the crew, with 64 women and 213 men among the 277 members.

The navy said Cuauhtémoc has traveled the oceans and seas of the world for 42 years, with more than 43 generations of “Captains, Officers, Cadets, and Sailor personnel” on board.