{"id":347475,"date":"2026-07-21T16:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T16:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/347475\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T16:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T16:57:08","slug":"tugboat-captain-pleads-guilty-over-biscayne-bay-sailing-camp-crash-that-killed-3-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/347475\/","title":{"rendered":"Tugboat captain pleads guilty over Biscayne Bay sailing camp crash that killed 3 girls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published:\u00a0July 21, 2026 at 12:30 PM<\/p>\n

Updated:\u00a0July 21, 2026 at 12:44 PM<\/p>\n

MIAMI \u2014 A 46-year-old tugboat captain pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a federal charge stemming from the Biscayne Bay crash<\/a> that killed three girls in Miami.<\/p>\n

Yusiel Lopez Insua<\/a> will not be going to trial in the case of the deaths of 7-year-old Mila Yankelevich<\/a>, 10-year-old Arielle Buchman<\/a>, and 13-year-old Erin Ko Han<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lopez Insua had been charged with seaman\u2019s manslaughter<\/a> after the July 28, 2025, collision off Hibiscus Island, as the girls participated in a youth sailing camp. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy client will not put the families through a trial and expose them to relive this terrible tragedy,\u201d Walter Reynoso, Insua\u2019s defense attorney, recently told Local 10 News.<\/p>\n

Lopez Insua was using his cellphone around the time of the crash, and data \u201cindicated activity on internet marketplaces, including at the time when the collision occurred,\u201d according to the indictiment. <\/p>\n

Prosecutors also alleged the tugboat\u2019s pilothouse view was obstructed by a deckhouse and crane on the barge, and that the vessel lacked adequate lookout systems such as cameras or radar.<\/p>\n

Court filings reported Lopez Insua had prior \u201cnear-misses\u201d in the same area. The crash is also the subject of at least one lawsuit<\/a> in Miami-Dade County court.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

\"TrentTrent Kelly<\/p>\n

Trent Kelly is an award-winning multimedia journalist who joined the Local 10 News team in June 2018. Trent is no stranger to Florida. Born in Tampa, he attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he graduated with honors from the UF College of Journalism and Communications.<\/p>\n

\"AndreaAndrea Torres<\/p>\n

The Emmy Award-winning journalist joined the Local 10 News team in 2013. She wrote for the Miami Herald for more than 9 years and won a Green Eyeshade Award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published:\u00a0July 21, 2026 at 12:30 PM Updated:\u00a0July 21, 2026 at 12:44 PM MIAMI \u2014 A 46-year-old tugboat captain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-347475","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\/347475","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=347475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}