{"id":426639,"date":"2026-10-13T14:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T14:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/426639\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T14:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T14:52:09","slug":"tugboat-captain-to-be-sentenced-in-miami-sailing-camp-tragedy-that-killed-3-girls-nbc-6-south-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/426639\/","title":{"rendered":"Tugboat captain to be sentenced in Miami sailing camp tragedy that killed 3 girls \u2013 NBC 6 South Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Miami tugboat captain who pleaded guilty in last year’s crash in Biscayne Bay<\/a> involving a barge and a sailboat carrying campers that killed three young girls is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Yusiel Lopez Insua, 46, pleaded guilty in July<\/a> to seaman’s manslaughter<\/a> for operating a barge with obstructed visibility and without a proper lookout in the July 28, 2025 incident.<\/p>\n

Insua faces a maximum of 10 years in prison, though a plea agreement recommendation would sentence him to one year plus one day in prison with six months of home confinement.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Yusiel<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNBC6NBC6<\/p>\n

Yusiel Lopez Insua (center) outside court on July 21, 2026.<\/p>\n

A group of five girls and their 19-year-old sailing instructor were on the sailboat when it was struck by the barge near Hibiscus Island.<\/p>\n

The girls were in their last week of a sailing camp for children aged 7 to 15, according to the Miami Yacht Club.<\/p>\n

Three girls – 7-year-old Mila Yankelevich, 10-year-old Arielle Buchman and 13-year-old Erin Ko – were killed in the incident.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Mila<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tFamily PhotosFamily Photos<\/p>\n

Mila Yankelevich, Erin Victoria Ko, Ari Buchman<\/p>\n

A fourth girl was hospitalized and later released, while the fifth girl and the instructor were treated at the scene.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said Insua was piloting a tugboat pushing the barge that was loaded with construction debris when it struck the sailboat.<\/p>\n

The vessel\u2019s forward view was obstructed by a deckhouse and crane, and no one aboard was assigned as a lookout, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida said in a news release.<\/p>\n

Insua was also using his phone around the time of the collision, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA tugboat captain is facing a manslaughter charge in last year’s crash in Biscayne Bay involving a barge and a sailboat carrying campers that killed three young girls, authorities said. NBC6’s Niko Clemmons reports\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The counselor and two children escaped after being dragged under the barge but the other three girls were trapped in the wreckage and drowned, the release said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Miami tugboat captain who pleaded guilty in last year’s crash in Biscayne Bay involving a barge and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226,123],"class_list":["post-426639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news","tag-miami"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426639","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=426639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}