The Sunshine Skyway Bridge carries Interstate 275 and U.S. 19 across the mouth of Tampa Bay, linking St. Petersburg to the Manatee County shore. The present bridge is a cable-stayed structure with two yellow pylons. It replaced an earlier pair of cantilever spans. The first of those opened in 1954. A parallel span for southbound traffic opened in 1971. On the morning of May 9, 1980, the Liberian bulk carrier MV Summit Venture, inbound to the Port of Tampa under harbor pilot John Lerro, was caught in a sudden squall. Visibility dropped. The ship struck a support pier of the southbound span. About 1,200 to 1,300 feet of roadway collapsed into the bay. Six cars, a pickup truck, and a Greyhound bus fell roughly 150 feet. Thirty-five people died. Twenty-six of them were on the bus. The only survivor was Wesley MacIntire, whose pickup struck the hull and fell into the water. A Buick driven by Richard Hornbuckle stopped a few feet short of the gap. The National Transportation Safety Board later cited the unexpected severe weather, the lack of a timely severe-weather warning for mariners, and the pilot’s decision to continue when visual and radar references were lost. Three months earlier, on January 28, 1980, the Coast Guard cutter Blackthorn had collided with the tanker Capricorn in the western approach and sank with the loss of 23 crew. The damaged southbound span was later demolished. The remaining piers became fishing piers. The new bridge opened in 1987. That is the documented history. The ghosts are the stories that attached themselves to it.
The most common reports are a blonde woman who appears on the shoulder or accepts a ride and then vanishes before the car reaches the other side, and a spectral Greyhound bus that is said to be seen plunging or floating above the water, sometimes with a passenger in the rear who waves. Fishermen on the old piers have described a sudden smell of gasoline or a breeze with no source. One 1990 account places two men on a pier on the anniversary morning who said they watched a bus pass with terrified faces and one smiling figure who turned and waved. Rest-area staff and paranormal groups have spoken of a child looking for his mother. The bridge also has a long record of suicides. Counts have run into the hundreds. Crisis phones, cameras, and later barriers were installed. None of the ghost figures is named. They are not tied to a specific death certificate the way a documented haunting sometimes is. The 35 people who died on May 9, 1980, are named in the official lists. Their names do not appear in the vanishing-hitchhiker or ghost-bus accounts.
What is documented is a 1954/1971 twin-span bridge, a January 1980 Coast Guard loss of 23, a May 9, 1980 ship strike that killed 35, and a 1987 replacement. The blonde woman and the phantom bus are the stories told about the fog and the piers. There is no contemporary account that names a particular victim and then records a later sighting of that same person on the span.
The present Sunshine Skyway Bridge, daytime and illuminated.
Relevant links
Tampa Bay Times photo archive of the 1980 collapse — the aftermath images
Wikipedia: Sunshine Skyway Bridge — the 1954 and 1971 spans, the May 9, 1980 collapse, the 35 deaths, the new bridge
NTSB Marine Accident Report on the Summit Venture — the weather, the pilot’s actions, the 35 fatalities
Haunted Places: Sunshine Skyway Bridge — the blonde vanishing-hitchhiker reports