Jim Long, a Fire Department spokesman, said that 17 people had been taken to area hospitals, with the most serious case involving a woman who had experienced chest pains and difficulty breathing. “The other 20 will be evaluated, treated and they could be transported to hospitals,” he said. Among the injured were two police officers assigned to the ferry for security duties, said Paul J. Browne, a Police Department spokesman.
Officials said that the crash appeared to have been caused by mechanical failure — when pilots were unable to pull back on the throttle as the vessel was approaching the dock.
“I want to distinguish between the 2003 incident — where it was not a mechanical failure,” Ms. Sadik-Khan said. “This is a very different situation.”
She said the ferry was approaching the dock at regular speed, 5 knots, when the pilots realized that they could not operate the ferry as usual. She said they had enough time for crew to warn passengers and begin moving people away from what would have been the chief point of impact — the front deck. Ramps were brought down to brace the boat from impact.
Deputy Chief Stephen Tanzosh, of the New York Fire Department, said the key to limiting injuries was quick action by crew members as soon as they saw something was awry.
“Once they realized that they were going too fast or something was going wrong, they moved the people to the back and that made all the difference in the world,” Chief Tanzosh said.
Charles Rowe, a spokesman for the Coast Guard, said that there were 252 passengers and 18 crew members on board.
Ferry service has resumed, according to Mr. Rowe, but Slip 5, where the crash occurred, had been closed.
The damaged ferry is the Andrew J. Barberi, the same one involved in the 2003 accident that killed 11 people. The pilot in 2003, Richard J. Smith, had passed out at the helm because he had been using pain medication.
The Barberi was recommissioned at a cost of nearly $9 million and put back into service.
Alicia Eason, a director of operations for a non-profit organization from Nashville, Tenn., was traveling with her husband and two friends on the ferry. She had gone inside as it approached the dock.
Right before the crash, “I heard over the intercom, very faintly, someone saying ‘red,’ and I heard an alarm,” Mrs. Eason said. “A second before we impacted, a ferry worker came over and said ‘brace yourself.”
She said it all happened very quickly, within two or three seconds. “It didn’t slow down at all,” Mrs. Eason said. “That’s why we didn’t know we were at the dock.”
But she knew the instant it hit the dock. “It jolted your whole body,” she said. “Luckily we were sitting down. It scared you.”
She said they immediately went onto the deck. “We saw a woman crying,” she said. “ We came down to the bottom level and we saw a woman laying down unresponsive.”
She said that firefighters and police officers boarded the ferry before passengers disembarked, helping people off the boat.“They calmed you and made you feel safe,” she said.
Last July, a Staten Island ferry crashed into the St. George terminal, when the boat lost power before docking. There were 15 injuries. As the ferry was attempting to dock, the captain had told the passengers to brace for a hard landing.
On Saturday morning, the terminal building was teeming with emergency crews and ambulances as stretchers were being loaded with injured passengers, according to one witness, Antonina Rose, who was in the terminal.
“I felt this big boom, the whole building was trembling,” Ms. Rose, 53, from St. George, said.
“This did not go off course — it looked like it crashed into the place where it was supposed to dock,” Ms. Rose said. She had been waiting for the 9:30 a.m. ferry to Manhattan.
City Room will provide updates as more is known. If you were on the ferry or saw the crash, use the comments box below to provide details.
