Tugboat captain pleads guilty in barge crash that killed 3 girls on sailboat

David Goodhue, Miami Herald on Jul 21, 2026

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MIAMI — The operator of a tugboat that was pushing a construction barge that ran over a sailboat last summer in Biscayne Bay, killing three summer campers, pleaded guilty to seaman’s manslaughter in federal court on Tuesday.

Yusiel Lopez Insua, 47, faced 10 years in prison if convicted at trial. Prosecutors are recommending he serve a year as part of the deal, plus six months of home detention, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

The July 28, 2025, crash killed Mila Yankelevich, 7; Erin Victoria Ko Han, 13; and 10-year-old Arielle “Ari” Mazi Buchman. They were trapped underneath the barge and tangled in the wreckage of the sailboat and drowned.

The plea deal was anticipated since May, when Lopez Insua’s attorney, Walter Reynoso, said his client did not want to “put the families through a trial and expose them to relive this terrible tragedy.”

Miami Herald news partner CBS News Miami reported that Reynoso told reporters after the hearing Tuesday that Lopez Insua accepts responsibility “for his criminal negligence in the tragic boat accident.”

“My client is deeply remorseful for his conduct,” Reynoso said. “He feels awful. He feels awful about the unimaginable pain and loss suffered by the three families who lost three very young daughters.”

The girls’ families did not want to attend the hearing, but some planned on attending sentencing, which is scheduled for Oct. 13, CBS News Miami reported.

Based on recommendations from the Coast Guard Investigative Service, federal prosecutors charged Lopez Insua with seaman’s manslaughter in March for operating the barge with obstructed visibility and without a proper lookout.

The crash happened around 11 a.m. that day when Lopez Insua was operating a 25-foot tug pushing a 108-foot-long, 149 gross-ton barge hauling concrete debris from a seawall-disassembling job on Star Island. The barge slammed into a 17-foot Hobie Getaway sailboat operated by a 19-year-old Miami Yacht Club camp counselor with five girls on board.

The counselor and two other girls, ages 7 and 8, survived. The two girls were seriously injured.

One of them, 7-year-old Calena Areyan Gruber, was trapped underneath the barge, but swam to safety.

Prosecutors said in the March 31 charging document that Lopez Insua’s cellphone was unlocked in the wheelhouse, and he was “on internet marketplaces, including at the time the collision occurred.” His view of the water in front of him was obstructed by the concrete debris, a deckhouse and a crane on the barge, prosecutors said.

The barge was hauling the debris to Di Lido Island in Miami Beach across the bay. That part of Biscayne Bay was known to be busy with sailboats, prosecutors said, adding Lopez Insua had several “near misses” in the days prior to the collision.

Two crewmen were on the barge, but neither was assigned as a lookout, according to the charging document. Prosecutors said the sailboat lost wind propulsion when it crossed paths with the barge, and Lopez Insua did not reverse course or slow down before crashing into the smaller craft.

The counselor at the helm of the Hobie stood up and tried to alert the tug crew before impact, prosecutors say.

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