NEW YORK (MCT) — The captain of a cabin cruiser that capsized in the inky waters off Long Island after an Independence Day outing, killing three children, says he noticed lightning bolts in the sky minutes before a powerful wave slammed the 34-foot boat and flipped it over.

“It just bellied up,” a weeping Sal Aureliano told Long Island’s News12 television Thursday as details of the late-night tragedy unfolded, and as questions arose as to whether overcrowding could have caused the yacht to overturn. The dead were trapped in the cabin; 24 other people on the vessel escaped without serious injuries.