"What a Horrible Sight!"

A fogbound freighter crashes into a Florida bridge

It was rush hour on a foggy morning in Tampa Bay last week, and traffic was heavy on the 15-mile-long Sunshine Skyway, a chain of five bridges and six causeways that links St. Petersburg with Bradenton and Sarasota. Thundershowers and fierce winds lashed the bay from time to time. Suddenly, at 7:38 a.m., the Summit Venture, a 609-ft. Liberian-registered freighter that had been heading for Tampa to pick up a cargo of phosphate, smashed into a bridge abutment. A 1,300-ft. stretch of roadway trembled violently, then ripped away from the bridge. Steel and concrete crashed down, some of it landing on the freighter's bow. A Greyhound bus carrying 23 people plummeted 140 ft. into the water, along with three cars and a pickup truck.

Richard Hornbuckle, 60, of St. Petersburg was driving with three companions just behind the doomed vehicles. Said he: "As I came to the top of the bridge, I saw metal sticking out of the edge. I applied mY brakes immediately and stopped about two feet from going in. My God, what a horrible sight!" Said Jay Hirsch, another eyewitness: "The first thing I did was look for heads bobbing in the water. There were none."

The bus sank in 20 ft. of water on top of the cars. Two tugboats were able to tow the freighter away from the bridge, but divers were hampered by squalls and by fears that a 40-ft. slab of roadway hanging precariously from the abutment might tumble in too. Nonetheless, the divers soon were able to recover 18 bodies; at least 14 more people were believed dead.

The only survivor of the fall from the bridge was the driver of the pickup truck, Wesley Mclntyre, 56, of Gulfport. His truck first hit the Summit Venture and then bounced into the water. Recalled Mclntyre of his miraculous escape: "The bridge was swaying. I could see the ship, and the end of the bridge was breaking off. I couldn't stop. I just slid, and then I hit the ship and dropped into the water. The next thing I remember I was in the water, and I managed to get the door open. I started swimming to the surface, and I finally made it." Crew members of the ship heard his cries for help and pulled him out; his only injuries were a sprained neck and a gash over his right eye.

Even as the bodies of the victims were being recovered, an investigation was beginning. Heavy fog had reduced visibility to near zero. Officials reported that the ship had apparently veered out of the channel and headed through the wrong opening between the cement abutments.

The Skyway has been the scene of three other major accidents this year. On Jan. 28 a collision between the Coast Guard cutter Blackthorn and a 605-ft. oil tanker killed 23 Coast Guardsmen. On Feb. 6 a boom from a Greek freighter slammed into the center supports of the bridge. Ten days later a Liberian-registered oil tanker hit an abutment. In the last two cases, damage was slight and there were no injuries.

Asked in February if a future accident could conceivably cause a section of the bridge to topple, Skyway Inspector Glen Arvi replied: "Certainly. That's why we put all those lights on it, so ships won't run into it." Last week, after officials closed the remaining sections of the bridge to all traffic, the lights were still shining brightly.

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