The operator of a tugboat pushing a barge that T-boned a sailing vessel last year, killing three children on board, was browsing internet marketplaces on his cellphone at the time of the crash, prosecutors alleged Tuesday.
The cellphone belonging to Yusiel Lopez Insua, 46, of Miami, “indicated activity on internet marketplaces” at the time the 108-foot construction barge struck the catamaran the kids were in, prosecutors alleged. Insua is charged with seaman’s manslaughter.
“This 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,” U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones said in a statement Tuesday.
The crash caused the catamaran to become submerged. The three children, ages 7, 10 and 13, drowned because they “were entangled in the Sailboat’s wreckage that was pinned up against the bottom” of the tugboat and the barge, the filing says.
Two girls were pronounced dead when they arrived at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, the Coast Guard said in a statement the day of the collision. A third child died two days later, on July 30, after having been hospitalized in critical condition, prosecutors said in Tuesday’s filing.
Insua waived his right to prosecution by indictment and agreed to face the allegations as presented in Tuesday’s filing, according to the court documents. A lawyer representing him in the case did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The felony case, filed in federal court in South Florida, also alleges Insua failed to ensure he had a sufficient view of the waterway ahead when the tugboat he operated pushed the barge across Biscayne Bay on July 28.
The barge, carrying material from a seawall demolition, included a deckhouse and a construction crane that blocked the view ahead from the tugboat’s pilothouse, which should have prompted Insua to have someone else on the boat act as a lookout, prosecutors alleged.
At the time of the crash, the tugboat’s radio was also tuned to a channel used to communicate with drawbridge operators instead of one used for emergencies on the water, according to prosecutors, even though the boat’s path didn’t include any drawbridges.
The catamaran set sail that day from the Miami Yacht Club to Flagler Monument Island, prosecutors said in the filing. The Miami Yacht Club said the crash involved youth participants from the Miami Youth Sailing Foundation.
The sailboat stalled in the waterway amid a lack of wind, prosecutors said in the filing, but the barge kept coming and crashed into it near Hibiscus Island in a crowded Biscayne Bay between downtown Miami and Miami Beach.
A camp counselor sailing the catamaran, as well as two children on board, escaped before the sailboat was subsumed under the barge, according to the filing.
Seaman’s manslaughter states that “every captain, engineer, pilot, or other person employed on any steamboat or vessel” is criminally responsible for negligence on the water that results in death.
Despite 12 years having operated the tugboat, Insua failed to observe basic safety and navigation measures, prosecutors argued in the filing, which accused him of “misconduct, negligence, and inattention to his duties” that led to the three children’s deaths.
If he is convicted, Insua faces up to 10 years in prison.
