{"id":318161,"date":"2026-08-10T22:52:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T22:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318161\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T22:52:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T22:52:27","slug":"survivor-of-nyc-boat-tragedy-that-killed-mom-and-baby-slams-skipper-it-was-too-much-weight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318161\/","title":{"rendered":"Survivor of NYC boat tragedy that killed mom and baby slams skipper: ‘It was too much weight’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A survivor of the deadly New York Harbor charter boat mishap<\/a> that left a mom and her baby daughter dead revealed new harrowing details of the watery tragedy Monday \u2014 and slammed the skipper of the overloaded craft.<\/p>\n

Jorge Ortiz, who was on the ill-fated boat when it capsized<\/a> on Saturday night, told The Post that the captain, Manuel Hernandez, had allegedly informed the group that they didn\u2019t need life jackets \u2014 and then didn\u2019t lift a finger to help after his 13 passengers all plunged into the darkened waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I looked, he was over there on the top, sitting in the middle of the boat,\u201d Ortiz recalled.<\/p>\n

Jorge Ortiz, who survived the deadly boat crash, said he had concerns about the cruise from the beginning. Stephen Yang for NY Post<\/p>\n

Boat captain Manuel Hernandez leaving Manhattan federal court after his arraignment on Aug. 10, 2026. Gregory P. Mango for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was weird,\u201d he said. \u201cI even told my wife.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, several passengers desperately searched the waters for mom Sara Sanchez, 27, and her 5-month-old daughter, Antonella Garcia, but were unable to save them, Ortiz said.<\/p>\n

The 2019 Yamaha motorboat chartered via a luxury tour company was packed with 14 people despite a listed capacity of no more than 10.<\/p>\n

The 21-foot motorboat that capsized Saturday was pulled from the harbor by the NYPD on Sunday. Gregory P. Mango for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was too much weight\u2026 He should\u2019ve known better,\u201d Ortiz, 58, said about Hernandez. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then that little girl shouldn\u2019t\u2019 have been\u00a0in\u00a0the boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ortiz \u2014 whose wife Johana Cespedes also survived the $150-a-head \u201cZeus Luxury\u201d charter to celebrate a friend\u2019s birthday \u2014 said he was apprehensive about the cruise from the start after the passengers had to board off the rocks off Randall\u2019s Island instead of a legitimate dock.<\/p>\n

Andres Garcia and Sara Sanchez were on the Saturday night New York Harbor cruise with their baby daughter. Instagram\/Sara Sanchez<\/p>\n

Andres Garcia, whose wife, Sara Sanchez, and their baby girl drowned in the Saturday night boat mishap. Paul Martinka for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was\u00a0weird that we were getting on from the side of Randall\u2019s Island off a rock,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m like, if this is a boat that we\u2019re paying for \u2026 the guy is\u00a0charging money\u00a0to to\u00a0take us, why are we getting on through\u00a0rocks?<\/p>\n

Ortiz was on the cruise because his wife knew Paul Rivera, the passenger whose birthday was being celebrated, from their local church.<\/p>\n

He said the ride started off fine, with a stop at a restaurant in New Jersey for dinner and a cruise around Liberty Island before they headed for home.<\/p>\n

FDNY units take a survivor of the deadly Saturday night boat mishap to the hospital for evaluation. Paul Martinka for NY Post<\/p>\n

Ortiz said Sanchez was smiling and taking one final photo of her baby girl with the Statue of Liberty looming in the background when everything suddenly went wrong<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was actually looking at the baby with the mother,\u201d he recalled. \u201cAnd that\u2019s when everything, the boat just went down from the front.\u00a0And when\u00a0the water started coming in, that\u2019s the last thing I saw. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then, boom, it\u00a0flipped upside down quickly,\u201d he said. \u201cIt flipped front to back. The water came in, and then it just slammed down first,\u00a0flipped it\u00a0completely, completely, quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Captain Manuel Hernandez, center, and survivor Jorge Ortiz, right, are seen at the NYPD Harbor Charlie base. Paul Martinka for NY Post<\/p>\n

Panic gripped the passengers when they hit the water, with most of them not wearing life jackets, said Ortiz, adding that he immediately looked for his wife before a grim realization hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody\u2019s going, \u2018Where\u2019s the baby?’\u201d he remembered. \u201cSo, I tried to swim a little bit towards the bottom, but I couldn\u2019t reach the bottom of the boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

After, they found out \u201cshe was under the boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sara Sanchez holds her daughter Antonella Garcia in a video posted to Instagram in July 2026. Sanchez and Antonella did not survive the boat capsizing. Instagram\/Sara Sanchez<\/p>\n

He said Hernandez allegedly climbed onto the hull of the overturned boat and did nothing to help the search. <\/p>\n

The survivors were eventually rescued, first by another party boat and then the NYPD harbor patrol and several US Coast Guard vessels that plucked everyone to safety.<\/p>\n

Hernandez, 46, was charged with more than a dozen counts<\/a> of reckless endangerment after the mishap and was awaiting arraignment on more serious federal charges of misconduct and neglect resulting in death.<\/p>\n

The Coast Guard is part of the investigation to determine if Hernandez was operating an illegal charter operation without required certification and safety requirements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A survivor of the deadly New York Harbor charter boat mishap that left a mom and her baby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8948,1015,68,57,9,4180,11,10,103,23589,58],"class_list":["post-318161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-boat-crashes","tag-deaths","tag-exclusive","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-harbor","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-nypd","tag-statue-of-liberty","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}