1980 Sunshine Skyway Bridge tragedy 

What we learn from history is we don’t learn from history.

An old friend of mine, Art Mathews, was driving the yellow car shown sitting on the bridge. He said he saw the buss ahead of him dissappear along with the pick up truck behind it before slamming on his brakes. The truck hit the ship and guy driving it flew out of the truck and into the water. Art watched them "fish the guy" out of the water, as he put it. I worked with Artie, as I called him, for a couple of years , down in Fort Myers. He was in his late 80's back then. Art grew up in Lakehurst New Jersey and witnessed the Hindenburg crash when he was 9 years old. He said it happened right behind his house. His parents transported burn victims to the hospital in their car to the hospital. There was so much burnt flesh stuck to the inside of the car that the navy bought them a new car. He once showed me a small piece of the Hindenburg he still had after all those years. I'm sure Artie has passed on by now. He was a helluva nice guy. RIP Artie.

I remember this bridge collapse in 1980 like it was yesterday. How did we all get so old. The clock keeps ticking

I live in St. Pete at the time… and my fiancé was in the Coast guard he dove for bodies when that bridge collapsed. I will never forget it. He was so upset that day. It was so hard to listen to the news and know he was out there looking for bodies

Enjoy life now. Because in a blink of an eye your entire life can change.

Everyone forgets this one... "On September 22, 1993, an Amtrak Sunset Limited passenger train derailed on the CSX Transportation Big Bayou Canot Bridge near Mobile, Alabama, United States. It was caused by displacement of a span and deformation of the rails when a tow of heavy barges collided with the rail bridge eight minutes earlier. Forty-seven people were killed and 103 more were injured."

My uncle was on the greyhound bus that morning when that freighter hit that broIt was during a bad thunderstorm and the power went off then He along with others on that bridge died They have a memorial plaque put up at the end of the new bridge and everyone that died that morning their names are on it

My wife passed over the Minnesota 35W Bridge about an hour before it too collapsed in 2007.

In the Seventies we teased my cousin in St Pete who was afraid to drive over the Sunshine Skyway. Our teasing didn’t age well.

Why on earth do we not build these bumpers/dolphins around all of our U.S. bridges?!

I also thought the captain was drunk. I’m saddened that this bit of misinformation has apparently got staying power.

You can clearly see in the video the ship lost power.... you can not steer a ship that size without power! It's become part of our culture to play the blame game before the facts are in!

I remember that day.That was so sad.I still remember it to a stay and my prayers still go out to all their families and friends

I was there that morning. We were headed north and had already paid the toll when suddenly an Highway Patrolman went by us just as we were about to get on bridge and pulled sideways in fr9nt of us. He got out of his car, walked over to us and said sorry bridge is down. With the most somber look. I can still see it in my head. The sky was grey, the wayer was grey and real choppy and the boat was grey. If we hadnt stopped for 10 minutes in Oneco because raining so hard could'nt see we would have been on opposite span when it it. I remember the original bridge. Now that was scary.

It was horrible drivng on the Skyway and going past the section that fell. Those poor victims.. RIP....

loss of power happens usually. My father is a captain. He told me a story just last week he lost power and was drifting to shore. Coastguard tugboats asked them if they're ok. They said yes, emergency generator kicked in and they moved out slowly. Coastguard was still asking if they're ok. The reason is they get paid A LOT for emergency rescue. New ships dont have that problem but older ships do. In that case, ship was too big for emergeny generator to kick in and stop. Usualy cargo ships are 10k tons. This one was 15X times bigger. It's basically 15 cargo ships combined into 1.

Very well stated. A bridge that is a fracture critical design that doesn’t have significant pile protection will catastrophically fail by removing just one of the piles holding up the bridge. There is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE for NOT having massive pile protection in place after similar circumstances of hitting and removing just one pile destroyed the Florida Sunshine SkyWay bridge tragedy. I remember that well studding the failure in my College engineering classes.

I was in Tampa at High School.... We were headed to Sarasota...for a field trip to Ringling Art Museum... they thought we were on the bridge

Was working at Longboat Key PD that day…What a tragic scene…..😞

Nice professional & heartfelt reporting, well done. We need more stations around the country to report in detail like this one did. In order to improve & plan for the unthinkable, these reports are critical to remember.

I was one of the first responders to Fort Desoto and Potters pier.

How the hell can a major harbour like this with a massive bridge and giant ships operate without TUG boats ? I really need to understand this simple query

I bet they will now have to sit down and work on to prevent something like this in the future for all bridges.

That was a very good and concise report.

44 years of knowledge and yet- no bumpers for this new bridge disaster. Do we really need repeated disasters to learn? Really?

I was a Junior at Lakewood High School in South St. Pete when that happened. I drove over that bridge hundreds of times to see family. That was a very sad and somber day when that bridge fell. I actually got to work on the rebuild several years later. I was a DOT crew boat captain hauling workers out to the construction site. Seems like a few lifetimes ago.

I live 45 min from the Skyway bridge. Driven over this bridge and the Baltimore bridge. Sso sad. 💔😭

Excellent coverage 👏

That was a good report from a local TV station

I was working there when it happened. Crossed the bridge about a hour before it collapsed. Got to work and heard the news of it. Felt really weird.....

Raised in St Pete. Drove over it many times. It was shaky. I was in AK at the time on a remote assignment. Someone left newspaper at my door on it. Same thing happened years later when the space shuttle blew up, I was on a remote Germany assignment. Someone left newspaper at door.

Me and my family went over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge the day before it collapsed May 8, 1980. I had just turned 20 years old 5 days before that. Weeks before this happened I had continuous nightmares about drowning. We had just been over to the Ringing Bros. Museum in Sarasota and were traveling across the bridge towards Clearwater to see my grandmother. I was utterly shocked the next morning to see it on TV. Prayers to those who lost loved ones then and now.

44 years later inspectors couldn't create a buffer around the bridge, 😮😮 Columns

Pilings of Baltimore bridge are completely unprotected. So tugs should be used through that channel at slow speed. Very obvious. It was only a matter of time.

Damage far above water line, ship in Baltimore did hit pillars first. In 1980 another ship did hit bridge, it did ship pillar. In 1980 they already knew pier was not wide enough.

My grandfather was the captain of that ship. Must have been horrifying for the people on that ship and bridge.

This is a fear common to all humans. Failing in a way that can't be recovered from... or dying.

I remember this day from when I was a little boy on vacation in St Pete visiting family.Under the new bridge is where I first learned to tube on the water and I still remember the fear that went through my body when I was in those waters that a person from one of those victims was going to grab my feet and drag me under.

As important as this port is, it might be worth having tugboats escort each ship beneath the bridge.

aint no protection on those pillars wouldve saved the bridge this morning.

Similar to when an explosion happened at the towers in New York on February 26, 1993. 8 years before a much worse disaster.

Why don't all bridges near cargo ship routes have those bumpers? It seems like a no-brainer, if you ask me.

I-35W in Minneapolis was just as bad

Learning from the Past is an Important Challenge.

I wonder if that white Buick skylark perched at the end of the bridge is still around, I doubt it though, maybe 20 years ago, but not 40+ years ago. That was the luckiest guy in the world that day

I love the fish bag, can you tell me where you purchased it from?

There was a Greyhound Bus involved and maybe that is it at 1:02 I was able to see these bridges in March 1981 and people were using the closed causeway to fish, as I recall. Last time there in 2014 and the new bridge is a scary looking behemoth up in the sky!!

I had a feeling that this previous disaster would be mentioned.

Learn history , Learn why an iconic bridge built in 1937 in SF has stood the test of time, if it had taken a hit from this ship it would still b standing .

A Harbor Pilot on board , but without power, no chance of control. Tugs should always be stationed to intercede in an emergency during docking.

Give Him and His country the bill rebuild! Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for it!!!!

Good report

I miss my hometown St Petersburg It's pretty much unrecognizable anymore........

Dang, something similar happened before?

Why didn't you mention the Silver Bridge that fell in WV/Ohio in 1967? Forty-six people died in that accident.

What bothered me is not that the ship hit a pylon, or even that a span collapsed. The problem was that the collapse propagated along the bridge taking out several pylons and the decking. This violates one of the normal design criteria for a structure. There should not normally be a progressive collapse. Even though we saw such a thing in the twin towers. Yet that was not the result of a foreseeable collision.

Big difference between this disaster and the one that just happened. In this one, the pilot was in a storm and there was no warning at all. With the one that just happened the pilot was fine, the ship failed and put out a mayday, the bridge was closed (no traffic) and only a few construction workers died. They managed to prevent a lot of deaths this time - that time back in 1980 when I was living in Tampa many died, and I remember the old bridge before it went down

ThankYou 4 Sharing !!! ❤ 🕊 MuchLove

Wow , the Americans destroyed that ship and knocked their own bridge down.... What a mess.

No "Fenders" surrounding its anchor points either....look what happens..... i live near major port....our bridge that spans the ships route.....HAVE FENDERS ON ALL ANCHOR POINTS

Literally just said a boat has lost power in the same situation but was able to steer it😂

I WAS ON THAT BRIDGE IN 77 GOING ON VACATION FORM CONNECTICUT TO WALT DISNEY WORLD SAME AREA WHERE SHIP HIT MY LATE GRANDPARENTS WERE IN ST PETE SEEING FRIENDS LUCKY THEY DIDNT GO TO MIAMI THAT MORNING I STILL GOT THE NEWSPAPERS FROM THIS DISASTER

I also vividly remember the Oakland Bay Bridge disaster.

The Summit Venture didn't loose all power for a minute or two a few hundred yards on the approach to the bridge and was a much smaller ship than the Dali. Just a couple facts to consider.

What these accidents tell me is that we don't always learn from our mistakes. A ship that size should never be solely under it's own control and propulsion. Tugs are cheap, but we are even cheaper

Special steering propulsion system need to be set up to control steering.

I’m sure it’s going to take some time to rebuild….I lived in Silver Springs Maryland not too far from Baltimore….

With the weight of the bridge on the front end pressing it down and the weight of the cargo on the ogher end it will break apary at any moment. My advise is no one should get closer to th scene.

In America we don't learn from our mistakes, we just rebuild and pretend everything is fine.

Close the stable doors after the horse has bolted.

le pont devait être très très vieux, c’est un peu comme Notre-Dame de Paris. Pareil elle devait être trop vieille

I just have one question to say what changes in the United States with the loading and unloading service. Where are we going, what will it look like, how much will it cost us.

I remember when this happened

I suppose it was 40 years ago. Time sure does fly by.

Such Sadness, Don’t Think I Ever Want To Cross a Bridge Again 🙊🙈🤔

Good video.

Thank goodness New York got rid of the tappan zee bridge that was over similar design

Who controlled the ship?

Then: He was drunk. He was stoned. Now: It's DEI DEI DEI DEI DEI!

I know it's similar to that other bridge the Maryland bridge

We learned to add protection though…

Any bridge in a shipping 🚢 waterways should automatically be mandatory to have some kind of protection from ship's

So this happened before, and then they had 44 years to build massive reinforced dolphins around the pilings of every bridge in America that has large ships passing it, but they didn't, and now it's happened again. Smells like.... _negligence._

To be honist that is the worst spot for a bridge period

40-44 years ago today.

None. It will happen again. Really sad. Mankind just doesnt learn. Never will.

I'm guessing that at the time, unlike now, you didn't have people making it a political issue, or thinking that it was intentional.

Goes to show that bridge engineers DONT LEARN or Harbour authorities just think of the bottom dollar AND its never going to happen to them . 40 years is a LONG TIME to ignore basic safety issues

Fox 13 didn't exist in 1980. Fox didn't even start operations until 1986 and it wasn't until Spring 1987 before it really became a true network with actual shows. Even then, Fox certainly didn't own nor operate the Tampa Bay Area broadcast station, as a vast majority of these, nearly all, were affiliates for a decade or more before being O&O by Fox. So how about mentioning the stations call letters from that era "Fox 13 WTVT Film Archive" would actually be more accurate since its now Fox, but also is WTVT footage from a time that pre-dates Fox by more than half a decade.

You're Gonna Need a Bigger -Boat- Dolphin

How do you hit that? I mean come on…

Harbor Pilots are on the navigation bridge to assist the ship Master with safe port entry and exit. They are a dedicated and necessary addition to the crew but are not in total of the ship. The Master can override a Pilot command at their discretion at any time.

Just no live cams and cell phones back then

1:20 "IT'S OK, it's got brown seats"

The power of our waterways. Current and Tide. Now add a little wind. Marine life. I have a fear of the ocean. So i avoid them. Not for me. I grew up on the shores of Newfoundland. The Atlantic ocean. Standing on those cliffs and looking at the Atlantic ocean the ships looked so small until they came to dock.

If u can’t see while driving,STOP!!! Doesn’t matter what u r driving. So yes I totally blame that pilot driver. Not only should he NOT have been cleared of charges,he should have been put in prison for mass murder!

Beautiful woman

c’est normal un pays ça s’entretient on peut penser qu’à la guerre pour entretenir il a pas dû être entretenu c’est le point à céder du moment qu’il y a pas de mort c’est le principal

Its horrible

History always seems to repeat itself