It's an early spring morning, but a severe storm has engulfed the bay.
Poor visibility clouds the Sunshine Skyway bridge crossing. Drivers are unaware that
there is no bridge in front of them, only an abyss and a deep blue sea.
Florida is the place to be in springtime. Mild temperatures and sunny days attract millions of
tourists to this part of the United States. However, today, May 9, 1980, is different.
A fog falls on Tampa Bay and the busy sea lane leading from the Gulf of Mexico to the Port of
Tampa Bay. Captain John Lerro, at the helm of the Summit Venture carrier ship, knows he has to be
very careful in maneuvering through the bay when the weather is terrible. En route toward the port,
he has to pass underneath the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. There’s another vessel coming from the
opposite direction, making him extra cautious. Then, out of nowhere, a gust hits the bay. Lerro
can barely see anything in front of him, and his radar goes wild. It’s best he stops the ship.
Easier said than done, however, as the wind swings his vessel like a toy. Then, he hits it - one of
the Skyway Bridge pillars. From the pilothouse, John Lerro can only watch as the bridge collapses
into the water. A tragedy is on the way. John Lerro had a wealth of experience as
a pilot. During his carrier, he sailed all sorts of vessels from Japan and Europe to South Africa.
At the time, he worked as a deputy harbor pilot and was to become a ship’s master in a few days.
His job was to safely take ships from the Gulf of Mexico to Tampa Bay. By the day of the disaster,
he had performed the procedure on more than 800 occasions. He knew the bay as well as the back
of his hand but also knew how treacherous it could be, especially when the weather was bad.
On the morning of the disaster, there was only a slight mist hovering over the bay.
At 6:30 a.m., Liberian registered carrier ship Summit Venture stopped at Egmont Key
to take Lerro on board. Upon taking control of the ship, Lerro directed it toward the Skyway
Bridge. Unfortunately, the fog became denser, and the rain started to fall. In this area of the bay,
where waters are shallow, bad weather could make maneuvering such a large vessel a problematic
task. With another ship, tanker Pure Oil, leaving the port at the same time and heading toward the
bridge, Lerro had to be extra careful. Before we get into what Lerro’s ship has
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And now back to John Lerro on the Summit Venture.
As he approached the bridge from the west, at 7:18 a.m., heavier rain started to fall. With
the precipitation constantly rising, Lerro reduced the speed from 12 miles (19.31km/hr) per hour to
only 6 miles (9.66km/hr) per hour. Three hundred and fifty yards away from leading buoys placed
to aim the navigation toward the bridge's main span, heavy rain turned into a blinding downpour
followed by strong winds hitting the ship. The visibility was reduced to barely 500 feet (152m),
and that’s when the radar went wild. Because he could not see the buoys, Lerro sent two lookouts
to the bow. At 7:28 a.m., one of the lookouts spotted the southern buoy 2A to the ship's port
side. It meant Summit Venture was running south off the predicted course. Luckily, it was not by
much. Assured that the wind was blowing from the southeast and in his favor, Lerro made a
left turn to get the ship back on the proper course. To his misfortune, the wind suddenly
changed direction and started blowing from the northeast. Instead of getting back on course,
the ship was sailing further from it. Even worse, Lerro was utterly unaware of it. At 7:32 a.m., he
noticed one of the bridge’s piers to his starboard side. He was just about to collide with it.
Even though he was surprised to see the pier, Lerro kept his composure. He ordered the anchors
to be dropped and reversed his engines to stop the ship. However, even though he ran slowly,
he could not stop it. The wind blowing from the northwest was too strong. With the vessel
being empty and riding high on the waves, it simply slid straight into the anchor arm
Pier 2S of the bridge’s southbound span at 7:33 a.m. The secondary support pier
collapsed immediately upon impact, causing the 1,297-foot-long (almost 400m) part of the
bridge's main span to drop into the sea. Aware of the dangerous situation, Lerro
immediately radioed the Coast Guard screaming for help: “Get emergency, all the emergency equipment
out to the Skyway bridge. The vessel has just hit the Skyway bridge. The Skyway bridge is
down! … This is Mayday. Emergency situation. Stop the traffic on that Skyway bridge!”
Stopping the traffic straight away at a 14-mile (22.5km) route between two tolls was impossible,
especially during the morning rush hour. At the moment of impact, hundreds of vehicles were
still on the bridge. In one of them was Wesley MacIntire, a retired driver working part-time
jobs to make ends meet. As he climbed the bridge and toward the central span, he felt his Ford
Courier pickup bobbing up and down. The poor fellow thought it was the wind blowing through
the bridge. Because of the fog and heavy rain, he didn’t see the bridge collapsed in front of him.
Then, all of a sudden, his pickup plunged. Shocked, MacIntire hit the brakes, but he was
already in the air. Before he realized what was happening, the vehicle fell on the ship’s deck
and bounced off into the water. Only when the car started to sink and fill with water did MacIntire
come to his senses. He twisted the driver’s door and squeezed out of the sinking vehicle.
Luckily, MacIntire had been trained as a swimmer in the Navy, so he swam as hard as possible until
he reached the surface. As he was gasping for air, the driver could see the entire main span
of the bridge was missing. Only a yellow Buick sedan stood at the edge of the collapsed bridge.
It was a truly a miracle that he survived a 150-foot fall (46ft). Unfortunately, he was
the only survivor of the 36 people that fell from the bridge. Along with his pickup, the collapsing
structure took down five more cars, one truck, and a Greyhound Bus with 23 passengers on board.
After spending some time in the water, holding to a piece of floating metal, Wesley MacIntire
was saved by a crew from Summit Venture, the very ship that caused him to end up in there.
Inside the yellow car on top of the bridge were Richard Hornbuckle and his three friends. When he
saw the bridge missing in front of him, Richard hit the brakes. He managed to stop his car on a
sloped section, only 14 inches (35cm) from the edge. They were as near to death as one
could be. With the engine still running, they all left the car and ran to safety.
Not long after the collapse, the storm stopped, allowing rescue boats to arrive
at the scene. The first to arrive was the Eckerd College marine rescue team.
Their effort was futile, though. There were no survivors to rescue, only dead bodies to
recover. Soon, the Coast Guard arrived as well as the police and other rescue services. By the
time of their arrival, however, it was all over. They could only observe the scene and wonder how
on earth it came to this. Bridges were designed to withstand the impact of ships. Weren’t they?
The Skyway Bridge was opened to traffic on September 6, 1954, replacing a ferry crossing
the Tampa Bay from Point Pinellas to Piney Point. The bridge consisted of two flanking deck truss
spans and a steel cantilever span in between. The construction was 4,2 miles (6.8 km) long
and was carried by concrete piers set every 135 feet (41m) apart except for the main span,
where the piers were set at a distance of 864 feet (263m). On both sides of the bridge, a long
low-level deck span connected it to the shores of Tampa Bay. The length of the entire project
was 14 miles (22.5km). In 1969, the construction of a twin bridge began right next to the existing
one. Opened to traffic in 1971, the new bridge was supposed to handle the southbound traffic,
while the old one handled northbound traffic. The main span’s vertical and horizontal clearances
were 155 feet (47m) and 800 feet (244m), respectively. The sea bed beneath it was
dredged to a depth of 35 feet (11m), allowing the largest ships to pass through the shipping lane.
Piers holding the main span were massive concrete structures designed to withstand the impact of
large vessels. To add to their protection, concrete fenders were installed. All in all,
it was difficult for the ship to hit one of the central piers, let alone collapse it.
However, the bridge designers should have considered a scenario where a ship would
sail outside the main shipping lane, which is precisely what happened with Summit Venture.
The ship slammed not into the main span pier but into an adjacent anchor arm - pier 2S. The pier
had no fenders and was of weaker construction, enough to be destroyed by the impact. Providing
support to the flanking deck truss span and the anchor arm span, the pier was critical
for the stability of the entire construction. When it collapsed, it dragged down the whole
section of the bridge it was supporting. National Transportation Board investigators
later determined that the Summit Venture’s bulwark and forecastle hit the pier before
its lower bow struck the pier crash wall. Crash walls are built at the base of the pier and are
larger and stronger than the pier itself. Their role was to take a hit for the pier. If the crash
wall on pier 2S were a bit larger, it would have taken the initial impact of the ship,
absorbed it, and redirected the ship so that its bulwark and forecastle would not strike the pier.
The investigators also found that the bridge lacked a failure detection and warning system,
which contributed to the fatal outcome of the tragedy. When the bridge section collapsed,
the bus and four sedans were still a way away from it. If the warning system had been installed and
activated, it could have warned the drivers of the danger ahead. This way, due to the heavy rainfall,
they could not see a part of the bridge was missing and drove straight to their death.
Ultimately, the National Transportation Board's study of the collapse determined
that the main factor that contributed to the disaster was a severe storm.
It was the squall - the sharp increase in wind speed that lasted for a couple of minutes - that
caused the accident. John Lerro, at the helm of Summit Venture, was taking into account a
southeast wind when he tried to redirect the ship back to the main shipping lane. However,
a sudden squall changed the wind direction and started to blow from the northeast,
pushing the ship straight into the anchor arm pier. In the given circumstances,
there was nothing Lerro could do about it. In a three-to-two vote, the National Transportation
Safety Board determined that the captain had only been partially responsible for the accident. The
Board’s chairmen stated: “He acted reasonably in the situation in which he found himself.”
As a conclusion to their study, the NTSB made a series of recommendations to the Federal Highway
Administration that primarily referred to developing standards for the design,
performance, and installation of bridge span failure detection and warning systems.
In cooperation with the Coast Guard, the Federal Highway Administration was
required to determine which bridges in the United States were not equipped with
adequate structural pier protection and to develop standards for their design.
After the collapse, the bridge's southbound span was closed, with all traffic redirected to the
old span. The construction of a new replacement bridge began in 1983. It was opened on April 30,
1987. Consisting of a pair of long beam bridges with a central cable-stayed bridge,
the new Sunshine Skyway Bridge is entirely different than its predecessor. The main
span construction is 1,200 feet wide (365m) with a vertical clearance of 180 feet (55m).
As for the old bridge, its approaches were kept intact and turned into a fishing pier. The last
person to drive over the bridge before it was demolished was Wesley MacIntire,
accompanied by his wife. At the top of the main span, they dropped 35 white carnations
into the water in memory of the people who lost their lives in the 1980 Skyway Bridge Disaster.
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