Terrible accident and the video from the Brooklyn side is insane, they seemed to drift quite close to shore .. could have been an even bigger disaster.

Note that the tall ship had been visiting South Street Seaport from which it departed. This is extremely close to the Brooklyn Bridge, roughly 1/8th of a mile. The East River has some strong currents, even at 5 knots that's something like only 2.5 minutes to drift into the bridge if they lost power when they left port.

This was part of a preparation for a big US 250th anniversary tall ship event next year in NYC, in which there will be far more ships next summer. Hopefully they re-evaluate port operations in time for that. From the video it looks like a tug ship was close enough to try and help, but not close enough to be of any use. Given the above math, it seems like a more proactive escort for tall ships may be in order..

edit: TikTok of the Brooklyn side showing how close it came to running aground https://www.tiktok.com/@vladmad9/video/7505576469876296991

You can see on the video that all masts were fully manned. RIP

https://reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1kp9sxn/ship...

I've only ever heard of two ships hitting bridges; both recently, both in the US, both lost power and drifted into the bridge.

At least this bridge fall like a house of cards, I guess because the masts broke first.

RIP to everyone who died. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but when you're standing on the mast, how can you not tell that you're about to collide with the bridge?

They said the ship lost power, but we can see the light chain were all lit up. Were they just for decoration, or where did they draw the power from?