Turbulent waters may have contributed to Mexican tall ship's crash into Brooklyn Bridge

When a Mexican navy tall ship crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge, it was maneuvering in turbulent waters. The tide had just turned, and a fast current was heading up the East River as a 10 mph wind set in.

While such hazards are easily handled by an experienced captain, mistakes can be costly in the heavily transited New York harbor, where narrow, curvy channels, winds howling off the jagged Manhattan skyline and whirlpool-like eddies can combine to make for difficult passage.

In the case of the 300-foot (90-meter) Cuauhtemoc, two sailors were killed and 19 were injured Saturday evening when the training ship struck the iconic bridge, toppling the vessel's three masts like dominoes as it drifted toward a crowded pier. It’s unknown what caused the collision, and an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board is likely to take months.

But footage of the collision shot by horrified onlookers show the ship hurtling into the bridge in reverse at full speed, suggesting the captain lost control of the engine. There are also questions about whether a tugboat escort peeled away too soon and should have been rigged to the ship or stayed with it until it headed out to sea. Similar tugboat concerns emerged when a large cargo vessel crashed into a bridge in Baltimore last year.

Sal Mercogliano, a former merchant mariner who has powered multiple ships through the New York harbor, said all those “worst-case scenarios” — the ship’s height, a strong current, heavy wind and the absence of a more controlled tugboat escort — all contributed to the tragedy.

“The prudent thing would’ve been to leave two hours earlier, when the tide was going out. That would’ve been the ideal time," said Mercogliano, who writes a widely followed shipping blog. “But I don’t think they ever envisioned that their engine would’ve propelled them into the bridge.”

Still, he said an even deadlier catastrophe was avoided by the ship’s steel rigging, which prevented the masts from falling into the water, as well as the fact that the crew stayed harnessed in position rather than taking the risk that some members could tumble from a 12-story height as they scrambled down the rat lines.

“You could have had guys strapped in drowning in the river," he said. “This could have been a lot worse.”

Mexican authorities told the family of América Yamilet Sánchez that the 20-year-old sailor died after falling from one of the Cuauhtemoc’s masts, her aunt María del Rosario Hernández Jacome said Sunday at the family’s home in Xalapa in the Mexican state of Veracruz.

Earlier in the day Saturday, Sánchez, who was studying engineering at the Mexican naval academy, had spoken with her mother and excitedly told her that the ship’s next stop would be Iceland. Her parents traveled to Mexico City on Sunday to arrange for the return of their daughter’s body, Hernández said.

Relatives and friends arrived at the family’s home carrying flowers. A small altar was set up on the patio with a photograph of Sánchez and candles.

The Cuauhtemoc visited New York as part of a 15-nation global goodwill tour and was departing when it struck the bridge at around 8:20 p.m., briefly halting traffic atop the span.

Mayor Eric Adams said the 142-year-old bridge escaped major damage, but at least 19 of the 277 sailors aboard the ship needed medical treatment. Two of the four people who suffered serious injuries later died.

The Cuauhtemoc sailed for the first time in 1982. It is almost 300 feet long and its main mast has a height of 160 feet (50 meters), about 30 feet (9 meters) higher than the span of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The vessel, which arrived in New York on May 13, backed out from the tourist-heavy South Street Seaport, where it had been docked for several days welcoming visitors. It's unknown if the Mexican captain requested a dock pilot to assist with the unmooring, but a harbor pilot was on board to sail it through the harbor, as required.

Tracking data from Marine Traffic and eyewitness videos show that an 1,800-horsepower tugboat, the Charles D. McAllister, gently nudged the vessel as it backed astern into the channel but dropped off before the vessel turned. Seconds later, as the ship continued drifting in the wrong direction, the tugboat tried to overtake the vessel but arrived too late to wedge itself between the fast-moving ship and the Brooklyn riverbank.

McAllister Towing, the company that would have operated the tug and been responsible for any docking pilot aboard, declined to comment.

Following last year's crash in Baltimore, Mercogliano said, port authorities there tightened rules to require a tug escort and slower speeds for vessels sailing through the harbor entrance past the partially collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge. The ship in that crash, the MV Dali, was a 95,000-ton container ship about 50 times heavier than the Cuauhtemoc.

Accidents in New York harbor are rare because large cargo ships and modern warships generally avoid the area due to the low height of the bridges. But in July 2026, the harbor is expected to play host to the largest-ever flotilla of tall ships from around the world to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.

Mercogliano said investigators will evaluate whether the Mexican crew performed the recommended safety checks prior to their departure. Typically that involves testing the engine's propellers, rudder and propulsion six to 12 hours in advance to make sure everything is working properly and nothing is left to chance.

“It’s not like your car where you’re just throwing your shifter,” he said.

On Sunday, the damaged ship was moored at Pier 35 in lower Manhattan. A stream of people, including those who appeared to be investigators and crew, could be seeing getting on and off the vessel.

The Coast Guard said damage to the Cuauhtémoc was being assessed. The Coast Guard established a 50-yard (46-meter) safety zone around the ship as the investigation by both the U.S. and Mexican governments got underway.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat and the Senate minority leader, said any investigation should look into whether the Trump administration’s federal hiring freeze affected the U.S. Coast Guard’s staffing levels, safety procedures and accident-response readiness.

“After being fully briefed on last night’s Brooklyn Bridge accident, one thing is predominantly clear: There are more questions than answers as it relates to exactly how this accident occurred,” Schumer said.

Associated Press Writer Alba Alemán in Xalapa, Mexico, contributed to this report.

A sailor arrives back at the Cuauhtémoc, Sunday, May 18, 2025 in New York, a masted Mexican Navy training ship that collided with the Brooklyn Bridge the night before. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

United States Coast Guardsmen arrive at Pier 35, Sunday, May 18, 2025 in New York, where the Cuauhtémoc, a masted Mexican Navy training ship that collided with the Brooklyn Bridge the night before, sits docked. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

New York Police officers stands watch on Pier 35 where the Cuauhtémoc, a masted Mexican Navy training ship that collided with the Brooklyn Bridge the night before, sits docked. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

After colliding with the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday evening, the Cuauhtémoc, a masted Mexican Navy training ship, sits docked at Pier 35 Sunday, May 18, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

While docked at Pier 35, Sunday, May 18, 2025 in New York, a sailor climbs the mast rigging on the Cuauhtémoc, a masted Mexican Navy training ship that collided with the Brooklyn Bridge the night before. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Sailors work on the yard arms of the Cuauhtémoc, Sunday, May 18, 2025 in New York. The masted Mexican Navy training ship collided with the Brooklyn Bridge the night before. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has arrived at a delicate moment as he weighs whether to order a U.S. military response against the Iranian government as it continues a violent crackdown on protests that have left more than 600 dead and led to the arrests of thousands across the country.

The U.S. president has repeatedly threatened Tehran with military action if his administration found the Islamic Republic was using deadly force against antigovernment protesters. It's a red line that Trump has said he believes Iran is “starting to cross” and has left him and his national security team weighing “very strong options.”

But the U.S. military — which Trump has warned Tehran is “locked and loaded” — appears, at least for the moment, to have been placed on standby mode as Trump ponders next steps, saying that Iranian officials want to have talks with the White House.

“What you’re hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite different from the messages the administration is receiving privately, and I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday. “However, with that said, the president has shown he’s unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran.”

Hours later, Trump announced on social media that he would slap 25% tariffs on countries doing business with Tehran “effective immediately” — his first action aimed at penalizing Iran for the protest crackdown, and his latest example of using tariffs as a tool to force friends and foes on the global stage to bend to his will.

China, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Brazil and Russia are among economies that do business with Tehran. The White House declined to offer further comment or details about the president’s tariff announcement.

The White House has offered scant details on Iran's outreach for talks, but Leavitt confirmed that the president's special envoy Steve Witkoff will be a key player engaging Tehran.

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and key White House National Security Council officials began meeting Friday to develop a “suite of options,” from a diplomatic approach to military strikes, to present to Trump in the coming days, according to a U.S. official familiar with the internal administration deliberations. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Trump told reporters Sunday evening that a “meeting is being set up” with Iranian officials but cautioned that “we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting.”

“We’re watching the situation very carefully,” Trump said.

Demonstrations in Iran continue, but analysts say it remains unclear just how long protesters will remain on the street.

An internet blackout imposed by Tehran makes it hard for protesters to understand just how widespread the demonstrations have become, said Vali Nasr, a State Department adviser during the early part of the Obama administration, and now professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University.

“It makes it very difficult for news from one city or pictures from one city to incense or motivate action in another city,” Nasr said. “The protests are leaderless, they're organization-less. They are actually genuine eruptions of popular anger. And without leadership and direction and organization, such protests, not just in Iran, everywhere in the world — it’s very difficult for them to sustain themselves.”

Meanwhile, Trump is dealing with a series of other foreign policy emergencies around the globe.

It's been just over a week since the U.S. military launched a successful raid to arrest Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro and remove him from power. The U.S. continues to mass an unusually large number of troops in the Caribbean Sea.

Trump is also focused on trying to get Israel and Hamas onto the second phase of a peace deal in Gaza and broker an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end the nearly four-year war in Eastern Europe.

But advocates urging Trump to take strong action against Iran say this moment offers an opportunity to further diminish the theocratic government that's ruled the country since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

The demonstrations are the biggest Iran has seen in years — protests spurred by the collapse of Iranian currency that have morphed into a larger test of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's repressive rule.

Iran, through the country’s parliamentary speaker, has warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if Washington uses force to protect demonstrators.

Some of Trump's hawkish allies in Washington are calling on the president not to miss the opportunity to act decisively against a vulnerable Iranian government that they argue is reeling after last summer's 12-day war with Israel and battered by U.S. strikes in June on key Iranian nuclear sites.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on social media Monday that the moment offers Trump the chance to show that he's serious about enforcing red lines. Graham alluded to former Democratic President Barack Obama in 2012 setting a red line on the use of chemical weapons by Syria's Bashar Assad against his own people — only not to follow through with U.S. military action after the then-Syrian leader crossed that line the following year.

“It is not enough to say we stand with the people of Iran,” Graham said. “The only right answer here is that we act decisively to protect protesters in the street — and that we’re not Obama — proving to them we will not tolerate their slaughter without action.”

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, another close Trump ally, said the “goal of every Western leader should be to destroy the Iranian dictatorship at this moment of its vulnerability.”

“In a few weeks either the dictatorship will be gone or the Iranian people will have been defeated and suppressed and a campaign to find the ringleaders and kill them will have begun,” Gingrich said in an X post. “There is no middle ground.”

Indeed, Iranian authorities have managed to snuff out rounds of mass protests before, including the “Green Movement” following the disputed election in 2009 and the “woman, life, freedom” protests that broke out after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in custody of the state’s morality police in 2022.

Trump and his national security team have already begun reviewing options for potential military action and he is expected to continue talks with his team this week.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank, said “there is a fast-diminishing value to official statements by the president promising to hold the regime accountable, but then staying on the sidelines.”

Trump, Taleblu noted, has shown a desire to maintain “maximum flexibility rooted in unpredictability” as he deals with adversaries.

“But flexibility should not bleed into a policy of locking in or bailing out an anti-American regime which is on the ropes at home and has a bounty on the president’s head abroad,” he added.

Activists take part in a rally supporting protesters in Iran at Lafayette Park, across from the White House, in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters at the White House, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)