On the 9th of May, 1980, early morning travellers on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida found
their view of Tampa Bay obstructed by a thick fog.
Though visibility had improved as the morning went on, it was still bad enough to hide one
very important fact from drivers.
Just minutes before, at 7:33am, the bridge had been involved in a catastrophic accident…
and rather than a solid steel bridge, what waited in front of them was only a gaping
void.
In the early years of the 20th Century, Saint Petersburg in Florida was a city on a peninsula.
Residents who wished to visit communities across the water would either have to endure
a long drive, or rely on a ferry service to complete their journey.
A bridge was first proposed in 1926, and while the idea was a popular one, any practical
action was deferred first by the Great Depression, and then by the advent of World War Two.
It wouldn’t be until 1954 that a bridge across the lower end of Tampa Bay became a
reality.
Built by the firm Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Hogan & Macdonald and named by a competition for
state residents, the bridge was a significant achievement.
Although quite narrow, it was at the time the longest bridge on Earth, with a main span
measuring 6.7 kilometres (or 4.14 miles) in length.
It was of a steel cantilever design, with a two-lane roadway perched on concrete columns
anchored in the floor of the bay.
A relatively steep elevation at either end allowed the bridge to stand high enough above
the water to avoid obstructing the busy shipping lane beneath.
The bridge was immensely popular…
so much so that in 1971 a second span was added to ease congestion.
The second span was, essentially, a copy of the first, and provided a second roadway so
that traffic going in each direction had its own separate side.
While the bridge was tall enough for ships to pass beneath, the concrete supports did
represent a hazard to boats.
Between 1969 and 1980, seven vessels collided with these supports, although in almost every
case the ships involved were relatively small, damage was minimal, and the functioning of
the bridge was not affected.
This was until the 9th of May 1980.
At 6:30am that morning, experienced harbour pilot John Lerro was transported out to the
MV Summit Venture – a 186 metre (or 609 foot) long bulk transport barge.
Lerro’s job was to safely guide the ship out of the harbour.
It was standard practise for large ships like the Summit Venture to use local, knowledgeable
and experienced pilots to handle harbour navigation.
Once out of the harbour, Lerro would leave the ship, and the Captain of the Summit Venture
would take control once more.
The weather that morning was less than ideal, with patchy rain and fog.
Lerro had spent the early morning monitoring the weather, checking in with at least one
other ship near the Sunshine Skyway to get updates on conditions.
Though they were certainly not perfect, a severe weather warning hadn’t been issued
to mariners, and visibility was reasonable.
With this in mind, Lerro started guiding the Summit Venture out of the harbour.
As the ship neared the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, it was caught by a sudden squall.
Strong winds, rain and fog descended abruptly – with the rain so heavy that it rendered
the ship’s radar ineffective.
Lerro ordered lookouts to the front of the ship, where they would be required to watch
for marker buoys in the water.
He proceeded cautiously, ordering crew to be ready to drop anchor quickly if necessary.
At this point the Summit Venture was already off course.
Rather than heading for the open centre span of the bridge, it was veering towards one
of the concrete supports.
Lerro, however, was unaware of this until the bridge itself loomed from the fog in front
of him – just a single ship’s length away.
Lerro ordered the anchors to be dropped, and attempted evasive action… but it was too
late.
At 7:33am the freighter struck a support pier at the centre of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.
Almost immediately a 395 metre (or 1,297 foot) span of the southbound roadway collapsed straight
into the water below, taking several vehicles along with it.
Lerro made an immediate emergency call to the coast guard:
“All the emergency equipment out to the Skyway Bridge.
Vessel has just hit the Skyway Bridge.
The Skyway Bridge is down!
Get all emergency equipment out to the Skyway Bridge.
The Skyway Bridge is down.
This is Mayday.
Emergency situation.
Stop the traffic on the Skyway Bridge!”
Stopping traffic was, however, not something that could be done instantly.
Up on the bridge, one driver was proceeding slowly along the southbound carriageway, when
he noticed that he could no longer see any cars on the bridge in front of him.
He later gave an account of his experience to the National Transportation Safety Board:
"I could see the red airplane warning lights atop the bridge structure on the west side
of the bridge.
Suddenly those red lights fell from their original position to a point out of my view
below the roadway ahead.
I began stopping and, immediately after the light dropped, I saw the overhead steel superstructure
ahead falling.
It seemed to wave and roll as it was falling."
The man stopped his vehicle, and began reversing back down the roadway.
"I must have backed about one-half to two-thirds down the ascending portion that I had just
crossed.
I saw lights from the southbound traffic approaching me, so I stopped.
I rolled my left window down and started waving my hands outside the window, slapping the
side of my car and yelling at traffic that went around me to stop.
After I stopped, I remembered about three cars and then a bus passed traveling southbound."
Most of these vehicles, the bus included, were unable to stop in time upon reaching
the fallen section of the bridge.
They plunged down into the water below.
The driver of the last vehicle to reach the broken section was able to stop with only
moments to spare.
He fled from his vehicle, leaving it balanced precariously on the very edge of the drop.
In total, six cars, one truck and a Greyhound bus either fell when the initial collapse
took place, or were unable to stop before driving off the broken roadway.
The drop was a significant one – about 46 metres (or 150 feet).
The National Transportation Safety Board later noted that the damage to vehicles which fell
from the bridge into the water was equivalent to the damage that would be expected if they
had impacted a solid surface.
Only a single person who entered the water survived.
56-year-old Wesley MacIntire’s vehicle fell during the initial collapse of the bridge.
He later described how the rapid drop caused him to reflexively apply his brakes – something
which, of course, was not effective in his situation.
His pickup truck impacted the Summit Venture, and then fell into the water, at which point
Mr MacIntire was able to force his way out and swim to the surface.
He was pulled out of the water by the crew of the Summit Venture.
Mr MacIntire was the only one to be rescued in this manner.
The other 35 individuals who fell from the bridge inside their vehicles did not make
it out of the water alive.
25 of those who died were on board the bus, a Greyhound that was carrying a large number
of students from Tuskegee University, among others.
In the aftermath of the disaster, an investigation was launched.
An inquiry carried out by the Coast Guard criticised pilot John Lerro’s decision to
proceed despite adverse weather conditions, and said that this decision had contributed
to the crash.
However, it also acknowledged that many other factors had also played a part.
These included the fact that the squall had not been forecast, and the favourable reports
of weather conditions given by other ships in the area at the time.
It was also noted that there was no impact protection for the concrete supports.
Wooden fenders had been installed around the base of the supports during the construction
of the bridge, but these had swiftly rotted away and not been replaced.
Ultimately, Mr Lerro was cleared of negligence, and it was acknowledged that he had taken
actions that were reasonable given the information and options he had available at the time.
Mr Lerro was allowed to return to work as a harbour pilot, but was soon thereafter diagnosed
with multiple sclerosis, and was unable to continue.
He worked a number of different jobs during the later years of his life, including training
nautical science students at the State University of New York’s Maritime College.
While there he used his experience as an example to new cadets, often telling them: “If you
misjudge, you’ve got hell to pay.”
Later, he worked as a counsellor, providing support for convicts and the victims of crime.
The new replacement bridge, which stands in place today, was opened seven years after
the disaster.
Concrete fenders were installed around the bridge supports to protect them from collisions.
These proved immediately effective, when a shrimp boat collided head-on with them the
day before the bridge’s official opening, causing the boat to sink but the bridge to
be entirely unaffected.
A warning system was also put in place to inform drivers of hazardous conditions and
close access to the bridge in the case of extreme weather.
In 2014, the Skyway Memorial Project, started by a local author, raised $9,000 to build
a granite memorial with a bronze plaque in memory of the 35 people who lost their lives
in the collapse.
This now stands in a small rest area which overlooks the site of the accident in the
middle of Tampa Bay.