May 9, 1980, forty-three years ago. It was an early morning for Richard Hornbuckle, a second-hand car salesman, as he left his house in St. Petersburg, Florida, to meet three friends to play golf in Bradenton. His car, a 1976 yellow Buick Skylark, had just been serviced the previous day with new brake pads. After breakfast along their route, they made their way toward the Sunshine Skyway Bridge on Route 19. It was raining, and by the time they arrived at the toll booth of the bridge, the weather had turned into a totally unexpected vicious wind and rain squall. Rae Duato, who was the toll supervisor that morning, took the $10 bill for the 50 cents toll and was grumbling as she gave the $9.50 change because she got wet from the driving rain through her tollbooth window. The extra time it took her might have been part of what saved Richard’s and his friends’ lives that morning. Rae, who worked a total of 33 years at the bridge before retiring, would live to the age of 93, continuing to recount her collections of the catastrophic collapse.
They continued towards the top of the bridge at a speed of no more than 20 miles an hour, with blinkers flashing as the combination of strong winds, rain and fog resulted in almost zero visibility.
He remembered the Greyhound bus overtaking them. Even with the terrible weather, it seemed strange to Richard how the bus could disappear completely and so immediately. He later stated that the realization and the strange feeling in his stomach caused him to hit the brakes, but he doesn’t really know why. He mentioned that he thought that the red lights on the masts at the top of the bridge were gone, but he could not have seen that yet because of the fog and blinding rain. His car tires gripped the metal grid roadwork at the top of the slanted bridge. Hornbuckle and his golfing mates got out of the car and crawled out of the way using their fingers in the metal see-true grid to prevent themselves from sliding back on the wet slippery surface. Although unaware of it at the time, Richard and his friends had stopped their car some fourteen inches from where 1200 feet of the southbound Skyway Bridge had broken off and fallen 150 feet into the waters below, plunging the Greyhound bus driver, his passengers, and six cars to a certain watery death.
I-275 and Rt-19 lead over this spectacular bridge.
A container ship makes its way along the 58-mile channel.
The sudden squall had disappeared as fast as it had appeared, displaying a gruesome scene of the disaster. Richard gazed at his car perched precariously at the edge of the abyss in astonishment. Probably because of shock, he stated he was going back to close the doors and get the golf clubs from the trunk. His friends convinced him otherwise. It was only 7:35 in the morning when the bridge pilings had been hit by the empty freighter “Summit Venture” on its way to the Tampa docks to pick up a load. The sudden storm hitting the area took everyone by surprise, as weather services only sent out warnings after the ship hit the bridge.
At the time, the 600+ foot freighter was under the control of 37-year-old Captain John Lerro, the Tampa Bay harbor pilot, who, according to several sources, had already captained this route as a harbor pilot over 900 times. He was accompanied by 32-year-old Bruce Atkins, who was on his last training session before being accredited as a full-fledged harbor pilot himself.
When visibility suddenly dropped to zero during the rainstorm, hitting totally unexpectedly with 70-mile-hour winds and without forecast warnings, John had the option to anchor and sit out the fog and wind. However, he realized the risk of being hit by another vessel if they stayed in that stationary position. A tanker named “Pure Oil” was moving towards them in the opposite direction in the busy shipping lane. The roughly 58-mile-long channel into Tampa Bay is one of the longest and busiest in the world. Both radio and radar had momentarily given out in the storm and therefore, John and Bruce did not realize that the fierce winds had blown them outside the channel as they decided to continue instead of anchoring out, waiting for the storm to abide, and hoping to avoid the potential risk of a collision with the other vessel. Suddenly the sky opened, and they were shocked to see the bridge looming ahead of them. John ordered emergency astern and anchors to be lowered, but it was too late as they slammed into the bridge giving way to the southbound lanes.
The construction is a stunning 197 feet high, fifty feet more than the original bridge.
From the end of the causeway, the view to the top is exquisitely graceful and quite ethereal.
From the command post of the Summit Venture, they witnessed helplessly as the Greyhound bus and cars plunged into the angry waters.
John frantically called Mayday, Mayday, at first not getting any response. When he finally got radio contact and screamed to have traffic stopped on the bridge, a pickup truck plummeted down and bounced off the Summit Venture superstructure disappearing underwater. Luckily, the driver, Wesley Macintyre, was a retired Navy diver who managed to break the window in his truck and swim to the surface. There he grabbed a tow ladder a crew member of the ship tossed at him. However, he no longer had the strength to pull himself up, and several crew members hoisted him up. Wesley suffered a severe cut on his forehead and had taken in a lot of salt water but was the only survivor of the 150-foot fall with his pickup into the water.
For nine years, he suffered psychologically from the experience and sadly died at the age of 69 of throat cancer. Thirty-five other people, including 26 passengers and the driver of the Greyhound bus, perished that early morning on May 9, 1980. The pilot, John Lerro, was cleared in court of wrongdoing as the horrific accident was considered just that and an act of nature. However, he was never the same and blamed himself for the remainder of his life. His trainee, Bruce Atkins, whose childhood wish was to become a harbor pilot was no longer interested in his former dream job and moved to Massachusetts. The bridge, originally built in 1954, now seemed doomed as only four months earlier, the US Coast Guard cutter, “Blackthorn,” collided with the tanker, “Capricorn,” at the bridge and killed 23 of the 50 crew members in the worst U.S. Coast Guard disaster in history.
Until 1987 all traffic was moving over the two northbound lanes of the bridge, and it gave me an eerie feeling in my stomach as I drove across witnessing the large gap.
The new bridge was constructed at a cost of fifty-four million dollars and according to several sources, it is the longest “cable-stayed” bridge in the world. It was officially named the John Graham Skyline Bridge. The approach to the bridge is spectacular as the structure rises 197 feet high, which is fifty feet higher than the original bridge. It appears as if two giant golden sails hold the bridge up. From the end of the causeway, the view to the top is exquisitely graceful and quite ethereal. There is no steel grate see-through roadbed near the top anymore, so no longer allowing a view to the bay below. Nevertheless, the bad rap seems to continue as it is estimated that over 300 people have committed or tried to commit suicide from here and the special bulwarks built to protect the structure from ships have been hit numerous times by wayward vessels. The approach piers to the old bridge have been converted into some of the longest fishing piers in the world, offering a fisherman’s paradise managed by Florida State Parks.
(Remembering reports of the disaster vividly, I continue to be intrigued by the story every time I have driven over the new bridge. Please note that I have tried to give as accurate a description of events as possible by checking numerous sources. However, disasters of this magnitude tend to take on a life of their own as they continue to be told. Therefore, it is possible that some facts may have become distorted over time. I apologize for any discrepancy).
