A Mexican navy sailing ship on a global goodwill tour has struck the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, snapping its three masts, fatally injuring two crew members and leaving some sailors dangling from harnesses high in the air waiting for help.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the 142-year-old bridge was spared major damage but at least 19 people about the ship needed medical treatment after the crash, which he said occurred after the ship lost power.

Two of the four people who suffered more serious injuries later died, Adams later announced.

The cause of the collision was under investigation.

In a scene captured in multiple eyewitness videos, the ship, called the Cuauhtemoc, could be seen traveling swiftly toward the bridge near the Brooklyn side of the East River.

Then, its three masts struck the bridge's main span and snapped, one by one, as the ship kept moving.

Videos showed heavy traffic on the span at the time of the collision.

The vessel, which was flying a giant green, white and red Mexican flag and had 277 people aboard, then drifted toward the piers lining the riverbank as onlookers scrambled away.

Sailors could be seen aloft in the rigging on the damaged masts but, remarkably, no one fell into the water, officials said.

Many cadets were standing on the ship's masts at the time of the collision. – X

Sydney Neidell and Lily Katz said they were sitting outside to watch the sunset when they saw the vessel strike the bridge and one of its masts snap.

Looking closer, they saw someone dangling from high on the ship.

“We saw someone dangling, and I couldn’t tell if it was just blurry or my eyes, and we were able to zoom in on our phone and there was someone dangling from the harness from the top for like at least like 15 minutes before they were able to rescue them,” Katz said.

They said they saw two people removed from the ship on stretchers onto smaller boats.

Just before the collision, Nick Corso, 23, took his phone out to capture the backdrop of the ship and the bridge against a sunset, Instead, he heard what sounded like the loud snapping of a “big twig". Several more snaps followed.

People in his vicinity began running back and “pandemonium” on the boat erupted, he said. He later saw a handful of people dangling from the mast.

“I didn’t know what to think, I was like, is this a movie?” he said.

The Mexican navy said in a post on X that the Cuauhtemoc was an academy training vessel. It said a total of 22 people were injured, 19 of whom needed medical treatment.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry said on X that its ambassador to the US and officials from the Mexican consulate in New York were in contact with local authorities to provide assistance.

The Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883, has a nearly 1600-foot (490-meter) main span that is supported by two masonry towers. More than 100,000 vehicles and an estimated 32,000 pedestrians cross every day, according to the city’s transportation department, and its walkway is a major tourist attraction.

The Cuauhtemoc – about 297 feet long and 40 feet wide (90.5 meters long and 12 meters wide), according to the Mexican Navy – sailed for the first time in 1982.

The vessel’s main mast has a height of 160 feet (48.9 meters), according to the Mexican government.

After the collision, a tugboat held it in place in the East River between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

Each year tthe ship sets out at the end of classes at the naval military school to finish cadets' training. This year it left the Mexican port of Acapulco, on the Pacific coast, on April 6 with 277 people onboard, the Navy said then.

The Mexican consulate said May 13 on X that the Cuauhtemoc, also called the “Ambassador and Knight of the Seas,” arrived that day and docked at pier 17. It invited people to visit it through May 17.

The ship was scheduled to visit 22 ports in 15 nations, including Kingston, Jamaica; Havana, Cuba; Cozumel, Mexico; and New York.

It had also planned to go to Reykjavik, Iceland; Bordeaux, Saint Malo and Dunkirk, France; and Aberdeen, Scotland, among others, for a total of 254 days, 170 of them at sea.