MV Summit Venture

The M/V Summit Venture was a bulk carrier built in 1976, in Nagasaki, Japan. She was 579.8 feet (176.7 m) long, beam of 85.5 feet (26.1 m), and displacement of 19,734 tons. She would cruise (loaded) at 13.5 knots at 100% power and 10.9 knots at 50% power.

1980 incident
The collapsed original bridge on May 9, 1980 after the Summit Venture collision. Photo by St. Petersburg Times.

Summit Venture was involved in a fatal collision with the original Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa Bay, Florida, on May 9, 1980. While negotiating a required turn in the narrow channel during a storm, the radar failed, and the freighter struck one of the piers on the southbound span of the bridge. 1,400 feet (430 m) of the steel cantilever highway bridge collapsed, causing a Greyhound bus, and six other vehicles, to fall 165 feet (50 m) into the bay. A total of 35 people died.

The new Sunshine Skyway bridge, as of July, 2006.

The pilot of the Summit Venture on that day was John E. Lerro. He was cleared of wrongdoing by both a state grand jury and a Coast Guard investigation. In 2016 the book titled Skyway: The True Story of Tampa Bay's Signature Bridge and the Man Who Brought It Down shed new light on what transpired on the day of the accident. Although Capt. Lerro resumed his shipping duties soon afterward, he was forced to retire months later by the onset of multiple sclerosis,[1] dying from complications caused by the disease on August 31, 2002, at the age of 59.

Wesley MacIntire was the only person who survived the fall. His truck fell off the bridge but bounced off the bow of the Summit Venture before falling into Tampa Bay. He was pulled from the water by the ship’s crew. Physically, MacIntire only suffered from a cut on the head and water in his lungs.[2] He sued the company that owned the ship, and settled for $175,000 in 1984.[3] He died in 1989 of bone cancer at the age of 65, always regretting being the sole survivor among those that fell.[4] Every year he would have driven to the bridge on the accident's anniversary and saluted those who did not survive.

A new bridge was completed in 1987 to replace the old. Several safeguards were included in the design to prevent a repeat occurrence of the Summit Venture incident, such as the installation of massive concrete bumpers or "dolphins" around the main span's piers to mitigate collisions.

Return to service and subsequent demise

The Summit Venture, after having her hull repaired, continued service under the Liberian flag for another 13 years. Her last return to Tampa Bay was in 1990 for a Coast Guard inspection. The ship was sold to Greek interests in 1993, and rechristened Sailor 1, predominantly plying the waters off the west coast of the U.S. In 2004, the ship again traded hands and was sold to a Singapore firm. It was renamed the KS Harmony, and sailed in the Caribbean. It was then sold to Jian Mao Intl., renamed the Jian Mao 9 and was lost in a storm without loss of life off the coast of Vietnam in November 2010. [5]

References
  1. Heller, Jean (2000-05-07). "Memories stay with man at command of the ship". St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved 2007-07-04.
  2. "What happened to those who made headlines after the Skyway bridge accident?". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 2020-05-30.
  3. "Suit In Bridge Fall Settlement". The New York Times. May 6, 1984. Retrieved 2007-10-31.
  4. "The Day the Skyway Fell". St. Petersburg Times. May 7, 2000. Archived from the original on October 17, 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-31.
  5. https://shipwrecklog.com/log/2010/11/jian-mao-9-sinks-crew-rescued/
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