— 35 CBS. “Worst U.S. Bridge Disasters.” Aug 2, 2007.

— 35 NTSB. Ramming of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge by the Liberian Bulk Carrier…, 1981.

— 35 NTSB. Select NTSB Investigations into Bridge Collapses/ Collisions (NTSB-MAR-81-3)

— 35 USCG Marine Board…Investigation. Summit Venture…Sunshine Skyway Bridge. 1981.

Narrative Information

NTSB Safety Recommendation Letter: “About 0734 e.d.t. on May 9, 1980, the Liberian bulk carrier M/V SUMMIT VENTURE rammed a support pier of the western span of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa Bay, Florida. As a result of the ramming, anchor pier 25 was destroyed and about 1,297 feet of bridge deck and superstructure fell about 150 feet into the bay. A Greyhound bus, a small pickup truck, and six automobiles fell into the bay and 35 persons died. Repair costs were estimated at about $30 million for the bridge and about $1 million for the SUMMIT VENTURE….

“The mass and design of bridge piers and pier protection systems and the configuration, weight, and speed of vessels has a direct effect on the damage which may result from a collision. The bulwark and the forecastle of the SUMMIT VENTURE struck the pier column before the lower bow struck the pier crashwall. If the pier crashwall had been larger, or if a pier protection system had been installed at that location, the initial impact would have occurred near the waterline. Because the pier crashwall is anchored through the pier footer directly into the bay bottom and is larger and stronger than the columns, it is possible that sufficient energy might have been absorbed to reduce the vessel’s forward motion and perhaps to redirect the vessel before the bulwark and forecastle struck the column. While the pier still could have been damaged, only the vessel’s mast would have struck the bridge span if the vessel had been redirected to starboard. The vessel could have passed under the bridge span if it had been redirected to port, and the damage to the bridge span might have been minimized.

“Because the U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) have no requirements or standards for structural pier protection, the bridge owner must determine what, if any, protection will be provided. However, the Government of France requires that all bridges over navigable waterways be protected against vessel impact. For small vessels, this is done by reinforcing the piers, while in the case of large vessels steps are taken to ensure that vessels go aground on artificial islands and do not strike the piers. The official French view is that vessel collision is so frequent an occurrence that it is absolutely essential to safeguard against it. Bridge owners should consider protecting existing vulnerable bridges and take particular care in pier placement in future bridge construction. The FHWA should examine this issue carefully in its review process for bridges built with Federal-aid funds.

“Final resting positions, vehicle damage patterns, and witnesses’ statements indicated that the Courier pickup truck was the southernmost involved highway vehicle, and all traffic ahead of that vehicle crossed the bridge safely. The Courier pickup truck, the El Camino, and the Scirocco were definitely on the collapsed section of the bridge. The remaining five vehicles were driven off the downward-sloped bridge section and fell into the water after the bridge section had collapsed. Those five vehicles carried 32 persons. The sequence in which the vehicles were driven off the bridge could not be determined. Since the bus was resting over the Fairmont and the Nova, it must have followed them off the bridge. However, the Citation and the LTD could have preceded or followed the bus; a speed of 25 to 30 mph when running off the bridge would have been sufficient to carry them over the bus to their final resting positions.

“The bus and four sedans ran off the bridge substantially after the collapse. The time available was more than sufficient to allow the drivers to stop safely, but they were not aware of the bridge condition ahead. If a bridge span failure detection and warning system had been installed and activated, it might have alerted the drivers of those vehicles of the danger ahead and many lives might have been saved.

“Therefore, the National Transportation Safety Board recommends that the Federal Highway Administration:

Develop standards for the design, performance, and installation of bridge span failure detection and warning systems. (Class II, Priority Action) (M-81-18)

Establish criteria to evaluate the need for installing bridge span failure detection and warning systems on existing and proposed bridges. (Class 11, Priority Action) (M–81-19)

In cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard, develop standards for the design, performance, and location of structural bridge pier protection systems which consider that the impact from an off-course vessel can occur significantly above as well as below the water surface. (Class II, Priority Action) (M-81-20)

In cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard, conduct a study to determine which existing bridges over the navigable waterways of United States ports and harbors are not equipped with adequate structural pier protection. (Class E, Priority Action) (M-81-21)

Use the results of the study conducted under recommendation M-81-21 to advise appropriate bridge authorities of the benefits of installing additional pier protection systems. (Class U, Priority Action) (M-81-22)….

(NTSB. “Safety Recommendation(s) M-81-18 through -22.” 4-22-1981 letter for Honorable Ray A. Barnhart, Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation (3 pages).)

[Blanchard note: The NTSB website location of these safety recommendations contains a “Safety Recommendations History with two entries: [original is in all caps, we type as sentences.]

“From: FHWA

To: NTSB

Date: 2/25/1983

Response: FHWA Letter: In addition to the memorandum supplied to our field offices on December 8, 1980, the Federal Highway Administration has developed a Technical Advisory (TA) providing more detailed information. This TA (T 5240.19 dated February 11, 1983, Pier Protection and Warning Systems for Bridges Subject to Ship Collisions) provides information on the advantages and disadvantages of alternative types of warning systems, the design of bridge span detection warning systems, and the warrants for the need for such systems on Federal-aid Highway projects. Presentation of this information in a TZ provides additional emphasis for the need to consider the potential for shipbridge collision.”

From: FHWA

To: NTSB

Date 8/14/1981

Response: FHWA Ltr: a December 8, 1980, Memorandum to Regional Administrators from the Headquarters Bridge Design and Inspection Branch of the Office of Engineering stated that, at present, the most practical span failure warning system is an electrical conductor system attached to the bridge which will activate warning systems when its continuity is disrupted by span failure or collapse.”]

Newspaper / Website

May 8, 1980: “St. Petersburg, Fla. (UPI) — A 608-foot phosphate freighter fighting a hurricane-force thunder squall today rammed the Sunshine Skyway bridge, ripping down a section of the span and knocking a Greyhound bus and several cars into Tampa Bay. At least 31 people died.

“One survivor was plucked from the 44-foot deep ship channel beneath the high-rise bridge after his pickup truck plunged off the span into the swirling waters below.

“The 21 bus passengers and their driver and the occupants of at least two other cars were trapped inside their submerged vehicles and drowned before rescuers could reach them.

“Greyhound officials at the company’s headquarters in Phoenix, Ariz., identified the driver of the bus as Michael J. Curtin, 43, of Apollo Beach, Fla., who had been with the firm since 1968. The bus left Chicago at 11:30 p.m. CDT Wednesday and was to arrive in Miami at 3:30 p.m. today. The bus had intermediate stops in Indianapolis, Ind., Louisville, Ky., Birmingham and Montgomery, Ala., and Tallahassee, Fla. before going on to Tampa and St. Petersburg.

“”We believe we have 31 dead,” said Coast Guard Lt. Phil Biedenbender. “I doubt there are any more survivors. With the impact and the tides, if anyone was going to survive, they would have to get out quickly.”

“A spokesman for the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department said none of the victims were immediately identified, but the dead included men, women and children. “We have a mixture of male and female and at least one small child,” he said.

“The freighter Summit Venture was heading into Tampa Bay at 7:38 a.m. EDT to pick up a load of phosphate when it crashed into the southbound span of the two-span bridge while battling 80-knot winds and a driving rain. “Winds were as high as 80 knots as a fast-moving squall moved through,” said Capt. Marshall Silbert, a group commander for the Coast Guard in St. Petersburg.

“A 600-foot section of the concrete roadway on the interstate bridge tumbled into the water as well as a 400-foot metal gird over the ship channel. Another 40-feet of the span dangled over the water. Part of the center span of the bridge hit the freighter’s forecastle, but the vessel remained afloat and was anchored about 500 yards west of the bridge. Authorities said the freighter could not lift its anchor because of damage.

“There was an air bubble inside the bus, divers reported, but none of the passengers apparently was able to make it to the safe portion of the submerged vehicle. The bus, which had left the St. Petersburg terminal less than half an hour before the accident, did not overturn but was sticking nose down into the mud at the bottom of the bay.

“”It was an unbelievable scene,” said Pete Corsa, a motorist, who was driving north on the Skyway as the accident occurred. “There was a car dangling off the southbound lane.” By late morning, 17 bodies had been recovered as divers frantically searched for other survivors.

“The inbound Summit Venture, of Liberian registry, struck the Manatee side of the bridge at 7:38 a.m. EDT. A 1,000-foot section of the west span of the 150-high-foot bridge crumbled into the bay.

“Last January, the Coast Guard buoy tender Blackthorn collided with an oil tanker a half mile from the bridge, claiming 23 lives.

“The Skyway is a four-lane, divided interstate highway at the entrance to Tampa Bay. The roadway is the main route from Tampa and Clearwater to Bradenton and points to the south.

“Another 40-foot section of the bridge was severely damaged and appeared ready to plunge into the water below.

“Passengers of the car dangling off the bridge were rescued, but the automobile was hampering rescue operations. Divers were not allowed into the water near the bus because the car was dangling overhead.

“Biendenbender said a heavy squall was dumping rain over the Tampa area at the time of the collision. “The weather at the time was extremely severe, with winds up to 80 knots and heavy rains,” he said. “That may have been a factor.”

“The Summit Venture, which was headed into the harbor to pick up a cargo of phosphate, remained afloat.

“Concrete pillars and the massive steel grid way of the main span lay twisted in the channel, blocking traffic in and out of the nation’s seventh busiest seaport.

“A spokesman for the National Transportation Board said a five-person investigating team will be dispatched to Tampa.” (Hutchinson News, KS. “Freighter rams bridge killing at least 31.” 5-8-1980, 1.)

May 5, AP: “Tampa, Fla., May 5 — The sole survivor among 36 people who plunged 150 feet into Tampa Bay when part of the Sunshine Skyway collapsed four years ago has settled a lawsuit against owners of the ship that struck the bridge. The survivor, Wesley C. MacIntire, 58 years old, a Gulfport truck driver, is to receive $175,000 from the owners of the ship, the Summit Venture.” (Associated Press. “Suit in Bridge Fall Settlement.” New York Times, 5-6-1984.)

DeYoung, 2010: “St. Petersburg — As he stood, mouth agape, behind the wheelhouse glass, Bruce Atkins watched the center section of the Sunshine Skyway bridge buckle and collapse into the water in slow motion. One car after another dropped from the broken span, headlights illuminating the steady drizzle as the vehicles made eerily balletic spirals through the air and disappeared into Tampa Bay. It was 7:33 a.m., May 9, 1980, 30 years ago today.

“More than 85 feet above the waterline on the bridge of the freighter MV Summit Venture, Atkins — on the very last day of his 30-day training period to become a Tampa Bay harbor pilot — realized that his ship had struck the Skyway. “We hit it softly,” the 62-year-old says today, the memory all too vivid. “It felt like we hit a sock. I didn’t feel the vessel move. I didn’t feel it shudder.”….

“After a breathless moment, the 20,000-ton vessel groaned to a stop. “You look up, and here’s this cascading bridge coming down,” Atkins recalls….

“Thirty-five people died that morning; 26 of them were on a Greyhound bus bound for Miami.

“The incident, a Coast Guard Board of Inquiry would later rule, was the result of a chain of unforeseeable circumstances, of bad timing and even worse luck. It began with blinding gusts of rain-choked wind — 60 or 70 mph — and the unexplained failure of the Summit Venture‘s radar system just as Lerro was to make a crucial turn that would safely clear the bridge’s 150-foot main span.

“The Coast Guard, and a state grand jury, declared the incident an act of God….

“Lerro was exonerated and returned to piloting the bay, but the onset of multiple sclerosis docked him for good within two years. He died in 2002 — haunted to the very end, his widow would tell reporters later, by his role in the deaths of those 35 people….

“After the collapse, a new Sunshine Skyway was built using a different design. It opened to traffic in April 1987, nearly seven years after the accident.

“The new bridge incorporated new safety features, including bumpers, or dolphins, placed near the support piers to buffer the bridge. They are said to be able to withstand two-thirds more force than the Summit Venture brought to bear against the old bridge.

“After the collapse, the Army Corps of Engineers deepened the tricky Tampa Bay shipping channel from 34 feet to 43 feet. In the portion north of the bridge, it was widened from 400 feet to 500 feet. Two of the major turns, located near MacDill Air Force Base, also were widened.”

(DeYoung, Bill. “The Skyway tragedy, 30 years later, as recalled by harbor pilot on the ‘Summit Venture’.” Tampa Bay Times, 5-7-2010.)

Konrad, 2007: “….At 7:25 a.m. on May 9, 1980, with the Greyhound approaching Pinellas Point a few miles from the north end of the Sunshine Skyway bridge, Capt. John Lerro tensed at the helm of the freighter Summit Venture, a ship as long as two football fields.

“Lerro, 37, an experienced harbor pilot from Tampa, shouldered the responsibility of guiding the Summit Venture from the Gulf of Mexico 58.4 miles up Tampa Bay to the Port of Tampa. It is one of the longest shipping channels in the world, and one of the most treacherous, given the shallow waters of the bay and the ambush style of Florida weather.

“With the ship’s belly empty of cargo and her tanks nearly empty of ballast, she rode high in the water.

“She ran through intermittent fog and rain along the first 19 miles of her journey. Then southwest winds exploded to tropical-storm force. Rain sheeted at rates exceeding 7 inches an hour. Visibility plunged to near zero, and shipboard radar failed. It couldn’t have happened at a worse point. Lerro faced the most critical course change of the run, a 13-degree turn that would take him between the two main piers of the Skyway bridge.

“It was at almost this exact spot that the Coast Guard cutter Blackthorn had been rammed four months earlier by the tanker Capricorn. The Blackthorn sank. Twenty-three men died.

“Lerro approached the critical bend on a ship weighing nearly 20,000 tons battered by winds of nearly 60 mph. And he approached it blind….Lerro considered his options. Visibility was so bad he could no longer see the bow of his ship. He judged it too risky to turn the Summit Venture out of the shipping channel to the north to anchor and ride out the storm because the outbound Pure Oil had been approaching. Without radar or visibility to locate the tanker, Lerro feared he might ram her if he steered across her path. If he tried to stop, or if he turned south out of the channel, the winds could usurp control of the ship and hurl him into the bridge. Thinking the wind was still from the southwest, his right, Lerro judged it would push the Summit Venture safely through the main spans of the Skyway. He made the decision to proceed.

“Lerro didn’t know the squall had forced the wind around to the west-northwest, his left. Instead of keeping him in the channel, it pushed his high-riding vessel off course. At 7:32, the weather cleared marginally. Lerro saw part of the bridge superstructure directly ahead. With heart stopping clarity, he realized he was no longer in the shipping channel. He ordered a series of maneuvers, including emergency reversal of the engines and the deployment of the anchors. But it was too late. At 7:33, the bow of the Summit Venture collided with bridge pier 2S. The pier toppled, taking the roadway with it….

“…[a] Buick, the Greyhound bus that carried Chip Callaway, Gerta Hedquist and 24 other people to their deaths lay on its roof…Also in the water was a 1980 silver Chevrolet Citation carrying a couple from Pinellas Park, a 1979 green Chevrolet Nova carrying a man from St. Petersburg, a 1980 light blue Ford Grenada carrying a man from Tampa, a 1975 black-and-yellow Ford sedan carrying a St. Petersburg couple, a 1976 white-and-tan Chevrolet El Camino carrying a man from Seminole and a 1979 silver Volkswagen Scirocco carrying a couple from Pennsville, N.J.

“Autopsies revealed that 28 of the victims, including Hedquist, died of blunt trauma injuries; seven, including Callaway, drowned….” (Konrad, John. “Skyway Bridge Accident and Collapse — May 9, 1980, Tampa Florida.” gCaptain.com. 8-6-2007.)

Sources

Associated Press. “Suit in Bridge Fall Settlement.” New York Times, 5-6-1984. Accessed 6-16-2017 at: http://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/06/us/suit-in-bridge-fall-settlement.html

CBS. “Worst U.S. Bridge Disasters.” 8-2-2007. Accessed at: http://wcbstv.com/national/water.projects.House.2.287309.html

DeYoung, Bill. “The Skyway tragedy, 30 years later, as recalled by harbor pilot on the ‘Summit Venture’.” Tampa Bay Times, 5-7-2010. Accessed 6-16-2017 at: http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/the-skyway-tragedy-30-years-later-as-recalled-by-a-harbor-pilot-on-the/1093384

Hutchinson News, KS. “Freighter rams bridge killing at least 31.” 5-8-1980, p. 1. Accessed at: http://newspaperarchive.com/hutchinson-news/1980-05-09/page-1/

Konrad, John. “Skyway Bridge Accident and Collapse — May 9, 1980, Tampa Florida.” gCaptain.com. 8-6-2007. Accessed 6-16-2017 at: http://gcaptain.com/may-9-1980-tampa-skyway-bridge-disaster/

National Transportation Safety Board. Marine Accident Report. Ramming of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge by the Liberian Bulk Carrier Summit Venture, Tampa Bay, Florida, May 9, 1980 (NTSB/MAR-81-3). Washington, DC: NTSB, 1981.

National Transportation Safety Board. “Safety Recommendation(s) M-81-18 through -22.” Washington, DC: NTSB, 4-22-1981 letter forwarded to Honorable Ray A. Barnhart, Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation (3 pages). Accessed 6-16-2016 at: https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-recs/recletters/M81_18_22.pdf

National Transportation Safety Board. Select NTSB Investigations into Bridge Collapses/Collisions. Washington, DC: NTSB, 4-25-2009. Accessed at: http://www.ntsb.gov/Pressrel/2007/Investig_bridge-collapses_080307.pdf

United States Coast Guard. Marine Board of Investigation: M.S. Summit Venture (Liberian Registry); Collision with Sunshine Skyway Bridge, Tampa Bay, FL on 9 May 1980 with Multiple Loss of Life 16732). Washington, DC: Commandant, USCG, February 9, 1981, 26 pages. Accessed at: http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/docs/boards/summitventure.pdf

1980 — May 9, freighter hits Sunshine Skyway Bridge, span collapse, Tampa Bay, FL– 35