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Tug Pilot Gets 1 Year, 1 Day In Prison For Duck Boat Crash
Updated: Tuesday, 01 Nov 2011, 3:39 PM EDT
Published : Monday, 31 Oct 2011, 4:02 PM EDT
PHILADELPHIA - A tug pilot distracted by a family emergency was sentenced Tuesday to one year and a day in prison for a deadly river crash in Philadelphia.
Pilot Matthew Devlin of Catskill, N.Y., was on a cellphone and laptop for nearly an hour before ramming a huge barge into a stalled duck boat in July 2010.
The crash killed two Hungarian students and sent 35 others into the Delaware River. Devlin, 35, had faced up to three years for involuntary manslaughter.
Both sides agreed a string of incredible events led to the crash. But U.S. District Judge Legrome Davis noted that if Devlin had done just one thing differently, he could have broken that chain and avoided the crash.
Instead, Devlin failed to go on break, moved to the lower wheelhouse, turned off the marine radios and used the cellphone and laptop.
Devlin spoke publicly for the first time at his sentencing hearing, saying he sees images of the bodies and flotation devices in the water every day.
Twenty-year-old Szabolcs Prem and 16-year-old Dora Schwendtner drowned. They were part of a group of Hungarians visiting the U.S. through a church exchange.
Prosecutors played a video of the crash and one from the victims' families in Hungary.