NEW YORK (AP) – A tugboat crashed into a barge on the Hudson River north of New York City early Saturday killing one crew member and leaving two still missing.
The 90-foot tugboat named Specialist hit a barge at around 5:20 a.m. near where the new Tappan Zee Bridge, which connects two counties north New York City, is being built, police said. The tugboat sank, spilling an unknown amount of fuel into the water, authorities said.
New York State Police, the U.S. Coast Guard and fire and police agencies from Westchester and Rockland counties are searching for the missing crew members. The name of the victim who was recovered was not immediately released.
“There are some dive teams here but the conditions of the river make it difficult and unsafe for the dive teams to enter the water,” he said.
Westchester County Police spokesman Kieran O’Leary said the tugboat hit a barge that is part of the bridge construction project.
The tugboat was pushing a separate barge down the Hudson when it crashed, O’Leary said. It was the tugboat itself that crashed into the stationary barge, authorities said, not the barge it was pushing.
The tugboat left Albany and was en route to Jersey City, New Jersey. No one on the barge that was hit was injured.
He said the water is about 35 to 40 feet deep where the crash occurred.
The crash occurred near the scene of an earlier boat crash in 2013 that killed a bride-to-be and her fiancé’s best man.
That crash, which killed Lindsey Stewart and Mark Lennon, both 30, also involved a Tappan Zee Bridge construction barge. Victims’ families have filed lawsuits against several construction companies in that crash. The Coast Guard and the state Thruway Authority, which is building the bridge, said the barge was properly lighted, although additional lighting was installed after the crash.
The new bridge is to replace an adjacent aging span that now connects Westchester and Rockland County. Construction on the $3.9 billion project began in October 2013 and is expected to be completed by 2018.
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