NTSB Issues Preliminary Report on Mexican Navy Tall Ship Collision with Brooklyn Bridge

Link to NTBS Preliminary report:
Contact of Mexican Navy ARM Cuauhtémoc BE 01 with the Brooklyn Bridge

1.2 Accident Events

​On the planned departure day, May 17, a sea pilot boarded the vessel about 1902, and a local docking (harbor) pilot arrived about 1945. Both pilots conducted a master/pilot exchange with the ship’s captain. The pilots stated that the ship’s captain reported the propulsion and steering systems were in good order, and there were no deficiencies. The docking pilot stated that the time of the vessel’s departure was scheduled to coincide with slack tide (the time between ebb and flood currents at which the current was the weakest), which was to occur about 2011 that evening. Weather conditions were reported as westerly winds 10-15 knots, water temperature about 60°F, and air temperature about 77°F. Visibility was clear.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Brooklyn Bridge (site NYH1920) station predicted slack water, with a depth of 8 feet, at 2012, and 0.13 knots of flood current at 2018.

At departure, the ship’s captain and both pilots were on the open conning deck directly above the vessel’s enclosed navigation bridge. The docking pilot used the sea pilot’s portable pilot unit (a portable navigation support system containing real-time navigation data and other features for guiding vessels) throughout the transit. For the East River transit, several Cuauhtémoc personnel were positioned in formation on each of the horizontal yards (spars crossing the masts from which the sails are set) on the foremast and main mast, as well as the horizontal boom below the mizzen (aft) mast, and the bowsprit. All the sails were furled in their stowed position.

The vessel’s six mooring lines were let go about 2016. About 2019, the 2,800-hp twin screw tugboat Charles D. McAllister assisted the Cuauhtémoc off the pier. The docking pilot gave astern commands to the captain on the conning deck, which were acknowledged by the captain, translated to Spanish, and relayed to another crewmember on the deck below, outside of the navigation bridge. This crewmember then relayed the orders to crewmembers within the navigation bridge, where commands were inputted.

Between 2020 and 2022, the Cuauhtémoc moved astern and away from Pier 17 at 2.5 knots. Once clear of the slip, the docking pilot gave a stop command, gave a dead-slow-ahead order, and directed the Charles D. McAllister tug to reposition on the starboard bow of the Cuauhtémoc.[1] As the crew of the tug took their line in, the docking pilot ordered additional commands in the ahead direction.

The Charles D. McAllister began pushing on the starboard bow of the Cuauhtémoc. The stern of the Cuauhtémoc began to swing toward the Brooklyn Bridge. At the order of the docking pilot, the Charles D. McAllister stopped pushing against the ship, backed away, and maneuvered toward the stern of the Cuauhtémoc along its starboard side. Between 2023 and 2024, the vessel’s astern speed increased from 3.3 knots to 5.1 knots, and the harbor pilot called for nearby tugboat assistance.

Starting at 2024:42, the upper sections of all three masts of the Cuauhtémoc contacted the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge, one by one. The mizzen mast contacted the bridge first, followed by the main mast, and then the foremast. The mizzen mast and main mast also struck the bridge’s no. 3 traveler (a moveable maintenance platform hung from traveler rails beneath the bridge deck that was used for workers to access areas of the bridge), which was positioned at its docking location near the Brooklyn Tower. The vessel was traveling about 5.9 knots astern when it contacted the bridge.

The Cuauhtémoc continued in the astern direction under the Brooklyn Bridge, and its stern contacted a seawall on the Brooklyn side of the East River. The Cuauhtémoc continued along, with its port side against the sea wall, and the vessel’s speed decreased. About 2027, the Cuauhtémoc came to rest against the seawall on the east side of the Brooklyn Bridge.

​Automatic identification system data shows that, about 2028, the vessel moved away from the seawall into the river between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge. The crew then deployed both anchors.

The Charles D. McAllister remained on scene. About 2030, New York City Police Department and New York City Fire Department boats arrived and transported injured crewmembers to local hospitals. Later that evening, the vessel was towed across the East River to Pier 36 in Manhattan.

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So, Monday morning quarterbacking here:

At 2023 the captain could have given an order to the chief engineer to takeover command of the CPP via the remote control station in engine room and engage ahead pitch.

At about the same time, the captain could have ordered the anchor dropped.

If the chief had found he could not change pitch of the CPP via the ER remote control station he could have tried to manually actuate the directional valve to change pitch to neutral or ahead. Provided he had trained to do that.

If this did nothing, the chief’s last resort would have been to advise the captain to shut down the main engine.

All of this in the 1 minute 42 seconds after the CPP was found to be not responsive.

As an investigator, critical questions would be:
a) Was the CPP actually tested ahead and astern before departure? and
b) Was the pitch cycled ahead and astern three times in the test?

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With their method of communication it could have taken 1 minute 42 seconds just to figure out it wasn’t responsive…

Pilot command to Captain, Captain acknowledges to Pilot, Captain translates commands to crewmember down a deck outside, outside guy commands to crewmembers inside, inside crewmember inputs command…then presumably sends acknowledgment back the same way? It has to be said eight times for the pilot to hear the command was carried out.

Maybe that’s normal, but it sounds like a game of telephone. (Or like the Navy).

But in reality, it probably took you nearly 1 minute to read what I just wrote, so now you have 42 seconds to stop the ship…I don’t think that’s enough time.

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Anyone else familiar with the story of “Send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance”?

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Then it seems he said nothing at all after that? Nor did the captain?

The most important bits are still missing.

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If Senior Admirante declared there was no problem with the ship then it seems to me He lied to the Pilots.

To convey Pilot commands from the open bridge to ECR he needed one cheap Motorolla and the other one in the hands of OOW /Chefe in the chartroom (closed bridge) as per video clip and pics below.

In case The Armada con Admirante no tiene dinero para pagar VHFe Motorolla , then He needed to use only one man as a relay stn positioned near the doors to enclosed bridge section/chart room where all the controls were located.

If Senior Admirante needed so many relay stns for communicating with ECR ( if any) then it means to me , that even his effing spick and span shining brass, old fashioned e/r telegraph was fucked dead!!! as per below pics and video clip.

Senior Admirante was then in command of a vsl wiich was obviously not seaworthy, lied to the pilots ( not sure but is it not a federal crime???) . His all CPP & M/E revs control system was …f up big time.

I am assuming of course ,the preliminary NTSB report is 100% true .

The pict with LOA and marked in red open bridge area can serve to figure the distances on the open bridge to the enclosed bridge /chart room area. Just use the simple ruler on your screens knowing LOA=90 mtrs.

Unless of course the musica latina was so loud during departure, that neither of the mentioned above ways of communications could work efficiently. This is unbelievable and shocking.

Now lets visit the PL based Warner Bros studios where I am editing , cutting , copying , pasting and what not listening to musica latina to be in a nice moood and finely tuned for this occasion.

Here are some pics.

And finally the video clip showing it all :

Sth had to be terribly wrong with Senior Admirante VHFs as far as range is concerned because I remember vividly having 40++ mtrs from my bridges and bridge wings to the ECRs and engine crew had no problem hearing and monitoring my sometimes angry shouting during screw ups through some layers of bulkheads and steel decks.

Beats me

The docking pilot gave astern commands to the captain on the conning deck, which were acknowledged by the captain, translated to Spanish, and relayed to another crewmember on the deck below, outside of the navigation bridge. This crewmember then relayed the orders to crewmembers within the navigation bridge, where commands were inputted.

That’s not too far from what I’ve seen when the pilot and captain are on the bridge wing in a high wind noise situation with a crew member at the wheelhouse door to relay.

Difference with the Spanish language and no direct line of sight into the wheelhouse of course but maybe more critical is who could see propeller rpm/direction and the difficulty in reporting that information back to the conning deck.

Or when the Captain uses a radio to call the commands into the bridge, even when there’s a perfectly good bridgewing console right in front of him.

Or the Captain has the bow thruster on the bridgewing and the engines inside.

Or the engines are outside but the bow thruster is inside.

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starting to believe just a really bad malfunction, at a really bad time explains 95% of this.

All that is really left IMO is was all done that should have been done to prevent the malfunction.

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Best part of this one is when they pressure you to be finished with the helmsman prematurely. “Sure Capt - just send the steering out here then”…

Also, anything that leaves the thruster inside is pretty much a no-go for me. The forward tug just got more work to do.

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Let me decipher your code here looking at the picture of this sailing vessel from her main deck :

So the docking pilot during undocking was somewhere on the right , presume the Admirante was close to him. In Spanish he was shouting to the fella ( officer presumably ) on the main deck below , who was shouting through the doors visible there to somebody inside , who cosequently was relying it to the place where commands were inputted.

Nice . I found it absolutely original , they embarked on such communication acrobatics. Thought the Admirante would shout back his Spanish orders to somebody behind him few meters away standing at the doors of what is described on the picture as “chart room” .Other pictures showed where the controls were. May be they have bypassed the chartroom because the controls there were inoperational??? Who knows?

The beam of the ship is 12 mtrs and the tiny distances there can be figured from my first picture. It is much less then the distance from the bridge wing of a small container vessel (say 2500 teu)

Well, I do not know Your ships but all mine had control box with all controls so I did not have to do much shouting . But still kept my VHF in hand.

When the box was not operational ( very rare instances) then the opened control box cover offered good wind protection. In very extreme case what may be happened once I had to do some shouting to only one relay.

The last picture shows one may run out of crew to convey/rely commands to where they can be executed according to NTSB description.

Local Warner Bros studio again:
Action:




I think in the last case Captain cancelled departure waiting for less wind.

Under all departure or arrival conditions as chief on a CPP my place is at the manual pitch indicator. Failures are usually pretty easy to determine there.

Attempting to manually actuate the directional valve in crowded conditions is not really a good plan. We didn’t hit the thing in front of us but hit the thing behind us is not usually preferable, or vice versa.

Every ER on a CPP equipped vessel needs a wired headset with a long enough cord to reach the manual pitch indicator, the directional valve, and the er controls. Attempting to yell commands across a loud engine room while troubleshooting and dealing with panicked WH personnel is a recipe for disaster.

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This is my main point:

maybe more critical is who could see propeller rpm/direction and the difficulty in reporting that information back to the conning deck.

I’m not making the claim that having two crewmembers relaying between the pilot and the person at the EOT is an ideal situation. It’s my experience that in many situations the two-person relay is considered to be acceptable, whether by voice or UHF.

True.

This is why finding out if the captain cycled the propulsion from forward to astern before departure is key to the investigation as far as culpability, IMO. Preferably he would have cycled it three times as part of the test.

If he did then he only needs to answer to why he didn’t (or couldn’t) drop the anchor.

If he didn’t do the propulsion test then his culpability is far worse, IMO.

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Where do you get the 3 times thing from? I worked on a CPP tanker and we never cycled it 3 times from the wheelhouse.

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We have a CPP vessel. We cycle the propulsion three times. We do that also with our reduction gear vessels.

The difference between your operations and ours can stem from a few of things:

  1. Our vessel are 260’ long/2000 tons apx. Your vessel is orders of magnitude larger. The stresses/power involved in testing are of a different order. But the Mexican vessel is closer in size to our vessels, so cycling propulsion three times would have been appropriate, IMO.

  2. Our vessels operate in areas of high winds (Aleutian Islands) without tugs. The captain needs to be more sure of his propulsion/steering than a vessel that operates with tugs, because there is no fall back in case of failure.

Back in the 1990s I investigated an allision in many ways like this disaster. A 200’ foot vessel backing down on a dock/yachts after clearing a berth. Reduction gear vessel. Propulsion stuck in astern. The captain had completed his pre-departure propulsion test—one cycle

The trouble was the throttle control system used compressed air, and a feed valve had been closed in the system during lay-up. The system gauge showed full pressure, but in reality only indicated the stored pressure in the system. Enough to actuate the throttle for the test, and then the maneuver to back away from the dock—but then there was no more pressure. Neither captain or chief noticed the pressure drop in the system with each shift.

Once the captain noticed that he no longer had shift control he idled the engine and tried to get the anchor down. But just as in this case, he had only a minute or two to correct things, and that wasn’t enough.

In hindsight if he had cycled the propulsion three times he or the chief would have noticed the valve had been closed.

A test of three cycles is a good way to go if you are maneuvering in a tight location, or with high winds, if there is no reason not to.

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Your reasoning for completing the test 3 times is completely understandable but there is a limit to scaling it up with low speed diesels. In an allision in Swanson Dock, Melbourne the manoeuvring of the main engine had satisfactorily been manoeuvred 5 times before it failed. Sometimes the gods are not smiling.

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What procedure was used for the pre-departure gear test is going to be compared to the standard being used aboard that particular ship, assuming there was a written procedure.

KC,

My observation is that this an appalling interim report. As a minimum, they should be identifying basic root causes.

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In my experience this is pretty normal for a preliminary report.
Compare the Preliminary Contact of Containership Dali with the Francis Scott Key Bridge and Subsequent Bridge Collapse for the Key Scott Bridge Incident with the report outlining recommendations released by the NTSB Safeguarding Bridges from Vessel Strikes: Need for Vulnerability Assessment and Risk Reduction Strategies

The preliminary report just outlines some of the basic facts that they’ve gathered so far. It’s still far too early for more than that.

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