The National Transportation Safety Board held a press briefing about the investigation into the Mexican Navy vessel, the Cuauhtémoc, striking the Brooklyn Bridge.
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00:00Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Michael Graham. I'm a board member
00:11with the National Transportation Safety Board. Joining me today is our investigator in charge,
00:28Brian Young. At approximately 8.25 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday, May 17th,
00:39the Mexican Navy tall ship Cuauhtemoc struck the Brooklyn Bridge on the East River,
00:47damaging the ship's three masts. Local authorities have reported that there were 277 personnel on
00:57board. Unfortunately, we lost, we had two fatalities during the bridge strike. And before I go any
01:06further, on behalf of the NTSB, I wish to express my most sincere condolences to the families and
01:15loved ones of those who lost their lives in this terrible tragedy.
01:20The NTSB arrived on scene late yesterday afternoon and throughout the evening.
01:31And our first day on scene was this morning, starting today. We are here to gather perishable evidence. And
01:42that's what we will be doing the whole time we will be on scene. And that'll take as many days as it needs to be.
01:51This is the start of a long process. We will not be drawing any conclusions. We will not speculate.
02:01We will also not be determining the probable cause while we're on scene.
02:05The information that I provide today, that we provide today, is preliminary and is subject to change throughout the
02:15investigation.
02:16What you can expect from us is within 30 days, we will have a preliminary report.
02:24Investigations take normally between 12 months to 24 months with one stipulation.
02:31If we see some significant safety issue during the investigative process, we could
02:37put out an urgent safety recommendation for that issue.
03:00This morning we had an organizational meeting and we set up various teams, split up into different teams.
03:14And they are currently nautical operations, marine engineering, bridge engineering, survival factors, and recorders.
03:27We are currently working with our counterparts with the Mexican government to gain access to the ship.
03:38We are optimistic that we will have that access very soon.
03:43In the meantime, we are working to set up parties to the investigation.
03:48The U.S. Coast Guard is always a party to a marine investigation.
03:54They're automatically a party.
03:57And we thank them for getting on scene very quickly.
04:01And we do appreciate all their support so far in supporting our lead in this investigation.
04:06The bridge team from our Office of Highway Safety has been working today with the New York City Department of Transportation.
04:18And they were doing a survey with the department there.
04:21And they have affirmed at this point that there is no significant structural damage to the load-bearing elements of the bridge.
04:31There is some damage on one of the travelers, which they used to access and survey the bridge at this point.
04:38But nothing structural from the bridge is an issue at this point.
04:44I will point out that the NTSB has long had an interest in bridge safety, including bridge strikes.
04:53Just two months ago, we released an interim investigative report about the collapse of the key bridge in Baltimore
04:59after it was struck by the dolly, in which we made urgent safety recommendations to numerous bridge owners.
05:08These included recommendations to calculate the risk of bridge collapse after being struck by a ship,
05:15and if that risk is over an industry threshold, to take steps to mitigate the risk.
05:21We have received comments back from the New York City Department of Transportation.
05:32We just received it.
05:34We're in the process of evaluating it.
05:36But accordingly, they have reported that they have run the assessment,
05:40and their calculations are below the threshold.
05:46Can you speak up, please?
05:48Sure, you bet.
05:49Our recorders group today, they have been canvassing the shoreline along the area where the accident is,
05:58trying to assess any closed-circuit TV and security cameras, and they have had some success today.
06:07We are very well aware that there's a lot of video out there in social media, people from cell phones and the such,
06:14and we would ask if you have video to first email us at witness at ntsb.gov.
06:26Again, that's witness at ntsb.gov, and we ask that you email us not the video but that you have some.
06:35We will then send you a link to upload that video.
06:44We also have two personnel with us from our Office of Transportation Disaster Assistance,
06:51and they have been coordinating outreach with the Office of the Mayor of New York City,
06:56and we appreciate having them on scene.
06:58I will now turn it over to our investigator in charge, Brian Young, to give us some preliminary factual information.
07:10Brian?
07:15Based on preliminary navigational data, I can provide the following timeline for the vessel's movements in New York.
07:22The vessel arrived on May 13th, around noon, and docked port side two at Pier 17.
07:31The vessel remained there for about three days, and at 8.20 p.m. on May 17th,
07:38with the assistance of a tugboat, began backing away from Pier 17.
07:44The intent was to sail south down the East River and head for sea.
07:50Preliminary weather report at this time was dusk conditions,
07:58westerly winds about 10 knots,
08:00and the current was about 0.3 knots towards the bridge.
08:06Upon departing the pier, the vessel's astern motion and speed increased up to six knots,
08:15and at 20.24, at 8.24 p.m., a VHF radio broadcast was sounded requesting assistance from other tugboats
08:27in the area of the Brooklyn Bridge.
08:30That was followed by two other requests for assistance,
08:33and at 8.24 and 45 seconds, the vessel's mast struck the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge.
08:41At 8.27, the vessel came to a stop,
08:46and at 8.30, both NYPD and FDNY assets were on scene.
08:51Please follow us on X at NTSB underscore newsroom.
09:07Again, that's at NTSB underscore newsroom for any additional updates or further briefings.
09:14And before we get to questions, I want to thank all the first responders who were on scene,
09:22and they were on scene very quickly within five minutes of the bridge strike.
09:26And I'd also like to thank the ongoing coordination by the New York City Emergency Management.
09:34We appreciate all the work that they do and all the first responders.
09:38I'm going to take some questions, and before I do, I would ask that you raise your hand.
09:46And when I call on you, please state your name and affiliation,
09:50and we will do our best to restate the question for everybody in the room.
09:56First hand right there.
09:57Hi, it's Lauren Love from Henry ABP TV.
10:00In some of the video, we see it covered.
10:03We don't see it covered, but this is at the Community Church Unite.
10:07Can you talk to the role of the tugboats, whether it was helpful or perhaps even harmful in the movement of the tall ship?
10:20The question regards the status of the tugboat alongside the vessel.
10:25As far as we know, at this time, the tugboat had assisted the vessel moving off the pier,
10:30and part of our investigation will be to look into the tugboat's policies and procedures for the operation,
10:37once helping the vessel get off the pier, what its guidance would be and what the job it would have to do.
10:47The first question was about any recording devices on board the vessel, such as a VDR, a voyage data recorder.
11:15Our recorders group, once getting aboard the vessel, will make a full assessment of any recording devices,
11:22and we will capture that information and retrieve it.
11:26And the other question was, it was approximately five minutes from the time the vessel started coming astern to the time they struck the bridge.
11:35Yes.
11:35So you don't know at this point if there's a report?
11:38We don't know at this time.
11:38Not yet.
11:41Right here.
11:41Julie, here at the beginning, we'll see God has two questions as well.
11:45Number one, why was it the ship turned out of a harbor towards Bay Bridge?
11:49Why did you decide to hop using a towboat?
11:52And then as far as what you're exploring is what might have caused the ship to hit the bridge?
11:57Has there been any discussion for whether it's a thing?
11:59The question pertains to the use of a tugboat departing the harbor.
12:24Again, we are going to be, that's part of our nautical operations investigation,
12:30where we look at the procedures on what is the normal operation for a tugboat assist.
12:38Departing a pier.
12:39Discussion over whether this was an engine failure or what might have led to this to happen?
12:44The question pertains to a possible cause of the bridge strike, possibly as an engine failure,
12:49and we have an engineering group led by myself, which I'm an engineer,
12:55and we will look at the status of the engine.
12:57We'll look for any failures.
12:59We'll look for engine inspections,
13:01and we'll talk to the crew on what may have possibly occurred with the engine.
13:06And additionally, if the engine has any sort of ECM or electronic control modules,
13:11we'll grab that electronic evidence as well.
13:15We need to go to somebody else.
13:17I will also state, too, we haven't had a chance to do any interviews at this point.
13:23We need to interview the tug pilot, the tugboat pilot, the harbor pilot.
13:29We'd like the captain of the ship, and there's a lot of other crew members we want to do.
13:34But we haven't had that chance.
13:36And again, we are not determining a probable cause,
13:39and we're not going to speculate about one because we haven't gathered enough information yet.
13:45We're just at the beginning of gathering the factual information.
13:49There's a question right here.
13:50Hi there.
13:50Mark Brown, I'm seeing you.
13:51Okay.
13:53Two questions.
13:54You mentioned for the six knots.
13:57Is that typical for the tugboat when it's leaving,
14:01or was there some sort of acceleration?
14:04The other question I had was when you talked about the timeline,
14:07you said there was a tugboat left at 820.
14:09At 824, the tugboat was called for help.
14:14When during that four-minute period was it determined that the boat was out of control?
14:21I guess you're asking when was the earliest,
14:24was that the earliest time that the tugboat could call for help?
14:27I think that was only seconds before it struck a verbal grip.
14:31Okay.
14:33Go ahead.
14:35State the first question.
14:36The question regards the speed of the vessel at the time it made contact with the bridge,
14:51and it was at six knots.
14:53We are going to be accessing all the different electronic data
14:56to determine at what point the vessel began accelerating.
15:01We do have a bit of time where it was maintaining a constant speed of about 2, 2.3 knots,
15:08and then the speed began to increase.
15:10And that's something we will be looking into as part of our engineering assessment
15:13of the operation of the engine.
15:16And what time is it?
15:18I'll have to check the data,
15:19but we have certain data points that we would be able to look at.
15:23And the request for help, we had one bit of navigational data
15:30that we were looking into.
15:32It was the VHF radio.
15:34There may have been phone calls.
15:35There may have been a cell phone call that we haven't yet discovered.
15:39But the first bit of evidence that we have that any VHF conversation was had
15:44was at 8.45.
15:47I'm sorry, I said 20, 24, and 45 seconds.
15:54In the back.
15:55The question's about the NYPD basically putting out preliminary information
16:22about maybe a power outage to the engine or something like that.
16:27We don't know where they got that data from.
16:30We have, like Brian has told us already,
16:34we haven't even had a chance to access the engine.
16:38So we don't know that.
16:40We haven't had a chance to look to see if there's any recorded data or anything like that.
16:45So we're not sure where they got that from.
16:46But that will be part of the investigation, too.
16:49If somebody has information like that, where did they get it from?
16:53We don't know at this point.
16:56Okay, let me come back over.
16:57Back in the back.
16:57Do you have any information?
16:59A little louder, please.
17:00I know the air conditioning is really loud.
17:02Do you have any information about the ship departed early?
17:07I'm sorry, say it again.
17:08Do you have any information that the ship departed early because of the weather coming in?
17:30We have no information on that at all.
17:34We haven't had a chance to talk to any of the crew at this point.
17:37Okay.
17:39Why is that?
17:41We are waiting.
17:42The question is why haven't we had a chance to talk to the crew yet?
17:46We are working with our counterparts in the Mexican government to gain access to the ship
17:51and hopefully with some of the crew members to be able to interview them.
17:55Not unlike the harbor pilot, the docking pilot, we're going to interview them here in the near future.
18:03Question.
18:03The question is have we spoken with the Mexican government and all?
18:17We have our officials, our counterparts on the other side.
18:20Our general counsel is working with them at this time.
18:25We're also working with the vessel agent.
18:28And we are very well aware that there's also other crews that the city would like to move the ship to a salvage yard very soon.
18:40And there's going to access that needs to be done so that they can actually assess the hull integrity from inside the ship, hopefully, also.
18:51Another question right here.
18:53Sir, I have two questions for you.
18:54First, where exactly is the crew now and where is the ship now?
18:57And then, secondly, in previous ridge strikes, what have been the spectrum of causes?
19:02Would you stick this in there?
19:03Okay.
19:03You want to?
19:05The first question was where are the crew and the ship at this time?
19:09They are docked on the east side of Manhattan.
19:11And the intent is once it is deemed that the vessel is structurally sound, they will tow it to a repair facility.
19:18And they're living on the ship?
19:19Yes, the crew is living on the ship right now.
19:23And then the second question is about the spectrum of possible causes of the previous bridge strikes.
19:29Give me the whole question again.
19:31Can you just take us through the spectrum of the past bridge strike causes?
19:37Okay.
19:38He's asking the question about the whole spectrum of previous bridge strikes and causes.
19:46There are multiple bridge strikes out there.
19:50And it depends on the size of the ship.
19:52In many cases, the vast majority of them, looking at the statistics, have been barges.
20:00I think a lot of them are mainly on our inland rivers.
20:05We've had numerous recommendations out there over the years.
20:09The most current one we have was from the Dolly in Baltimore.
20:12And you saw the results of that bridge strike.
20:16It was catastrophic.
20:17So that's why we put out an urgent safety wreck just here recently for bridge owners to take a very close look at their risk assessment,
20:27their vulnerability of a bridge being brought down by a boat strike or a ship strike.
20:34One more question.
20:36Right here.
20:37So, I want to ask about a crew.
20:41We've seen that many of them went back to Mexico.
20:43So, the folks on the ship are those people the ones that you need to interview?
20:47And who would you just go ahead and just know about not being able to access the ship yet?
20:51Sorry, one more.
20:52I mentioned this morning, and I thought to post up on the net when you step around.
20:58Is that going back with your investigation?
21:00Okay.
21:01The question is about the number of a crew.
21:04Initially, the first question and how many of them left the ship.
21:08It has been reported that the city of New York helped approximately 179 cadets leave the country last night to go back to Mexico.
21:20And it has been reported also by the city that there are, I believe, 94 crew members on board working.
21:29The other part of the question was about people working up in the mast earlier today.
21:36Yes, I was on scene myself on the dock.
21:39We did see some crews up there.
21:42I don't want to speculate what they're doing, but I know there is concern by everybody,
21:48especially those that are going to help move the ship to a shipyard that we need the need to secure the mast up there
21:58since some of it is broken off and it's entangled in the lines.
22:03So those are obviously going to have to be secured before the ship is moved so that doesn't create another hazard.
22:11Okay?
22:12Thank you very much.