Federal investigators on Monday said the Brooklyn Bridge passed a vulnerability test conducted after a Mexican Navy ship crashed into the span on Saturday. The bridge suffered “no significant structural damage,” National Transportation Safety Board member Michael Graham said. He said the strike wrecked a “traveler,” a platform used by crews to survey the structure, but the integrity of the landmark was as good as ever. Not really sure why this matters, but the NTSB has focused on the safety of the nation’s bridges after a container ship crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge last year, causing it to collapse. The agency published a report in March identifying 68 bridges that were vulnerable to collapse if they were to be struck by ships, which included the Brooklyn Bridge as well as the Verrazzano-Narrows, Williamsburg, and Manhattan bridges.
The report gave guidelines to determine the risk to a bridge’s structure after it is hit by a marine vessel, and takes into account the size and speed of a ship that strikes a crossing. The damage to the Brooklyn bridge was “below the threshold,” Graham said. Maybe it’s just me, but had the Maryland Transportation Authority conducted a vulnerability assessment of the Francis Scott Key Bridge based on recent vessel traffic … the [authority] would have been aware that this critical/essential bridge was above the … threshold of risk for catastrophic collapse from a vessel collision,” the report said. NTSB investigators said Monday that the preliminary findings found the Cuauhtémoc Mexican Navy tall ship was traveling at 6 knots — or about 7 mph — when it hit the bridge.
The crash killed two sailors and injured at least 22 others, according to the Mexican Navy. Investigators on Monday said they have not yet interviewed the captain of the ship or other crew members still aboard the vessel, which is now docked downtown beside Pier 36. The incident came a week before the Brooklyn Bridge’s birthday. The crossing turns 142 years old on May 24.
