A tugboat captain has been charged in a deadly Miami collision that killed three girls from a sailing camp, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Yusiel Lopez Insua, 46, of Miami, faces a charge of seaman\u2019s manslaughter in the July collision, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of Florida.<\/p>\n
Insua didn\u2019t have a clear view as the tugboat pushed a barge full of construction debris in Biscayne Bay, according to the office. There was also no one assigned as lookout as it sailed through the body of water sandwiched between Miami and Miami Beach, the office said.<\/p>\n
The sailboat was carrying a counselor and five girls when it stalled in the barge\u2019s path, and Insua didn\u2019t see it before the collision, according to the statement. The girls were ages 7 to 13, while the counselor was 19, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.<\/p>\n
The counselor and two girls were dragged under the barge, but were able to escape. The other three became trapped in the wreckage and drowned, according to the office.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur hearts are with the families of the children who lost their lives in this tragedy,\u201d Jason Reding Qui\u00f1ones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said in a statement. \u201cThis information alleges a preventable loss of life on our waterways, including the failure to follow basic maritime safety rules and cellphone use during transit at or near the time of the collision.\u201d<\/p>\n
The internet had also been accessed on Insua\u2019s cellphone around the time of the collision, according to a forensic review.<\/p>\n
Insua faces up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted.<\/p>\n
The Miami-Dade Public Defender\u2019s Office and the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of Florida did not immediately respond to queries about whether Insua has a lawyer.<\/p>\n
Four of the children were rushed to a hospital, where a 7-year-old and 13-year-old were pronounced dead, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Days later, the Coast Guard said that a 10-year-old who had been in critical condition had also died.<\/p>\n
The sailing boat had been submerged beneath the barge in Biscayne Bay, where there are several small islands, including Star Island, peppered with ritzy mansions.<\/p>\n
The children were in their last week of camp, according to the Miami Yacht Club.<\/p>\n
Across the U.S. in 2024, there were over 550 deaths in recreational boating, but only a sliver of those \u2014 43 \u2014 were caused by vessels crashing into each other, according to Coast Guard statistics.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tugboat captain has been charged in a deadly Miami collision that killed three girls from a sailing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-218032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}