Cuba
- On 4 September 1962, a Cuban pilot-instructor Jose Diaz Vasquez defected with a Zlin 326 Master-Trainer and landed at Key West, USA. His trainee, Edel Ramirez Santos asked to return home.
- On March 20, 1964, A Mil Mi-4 was hijacked by crew members Guillermo Santos and Andres Izaguirre who shot dead the commander of the helicopter, Jose Garcia, and changed the course of the flight in the direction of Naval Air Station Key West, where they ultimately landed.
- On 5 October 1969, a Cuban pilot, Lieut. Eduardo Guerra Jiminez defected with his MiG-17 to Homestead Air Force Base of Miami. The plane was returned to the Cubans and ten years later, on June 12, 1979, the pilot hijacked Delta Air Lines Flight 1061 back to Havana.
- On May 28, 1987, Cuban Brigadier General Rafael Del Pino Diaz defected to the United States in a Cessna 402 airplane of Aerocaribbean, with his third wife, his daughter, and his son Ramsés, an ex-MiG-23 pilot. Del Pino Diaz remains the highest-ranking Cuban defector.
- On March 20, 1991, Cuban Major Orestes Lorenzo Perez defected in his MiG-23BN to Naval Air Station Key West, Florida on a training mission. On December 19, 1992 he returned to Cuba in a borrowed small, twin-engined 1961 Cessna 310, landing on a well known bridge along the coastal highway east of Havana in Northern Matanzas Province at the agreed time. His wife Victoria and their two sons, Reyneil, 11, and Alejandro, 6, were already waiting on his order delivered through a messenger earlier. Orestes Lorenzo Perez picked up his family and managed a successful safe return to Miami.
- On September 20, 1993, Cuban Captain Enio Ravelo Rodriguez defected in a MiG-21MF to Naval Air Station Key West, Florida. His aircraft was subsequently returned to Cuba and Capt. Rodriguez remained in Florida, in the vicinity of Key West for years afterwards.
Read more about this topic: List Of Cold War Pilot Defections
Famous quotes containing the word cuba:
“Education is a necessity, it helps to understand life. Like that compagnero in Cuba who talked about politics, back when they were on strike. He knew many things, that hijo de puta, and he unraveled the most confusing situations in a marvelous way. You could see each point in front of you on the line of his reasoning like rinsed laundry set up to dry; he explained things to you so clearly that you could grasp it like a good hunk of bread with your hand.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“Warmest climes but nurse the cruelest fangs: the tiger of Bengal crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba knows tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Bernstein: “Girls delightful in Cuba stop. Could send you prose poems about scenery but don’t feel right spending your money stop. There is no war in Cuba. Signed Wheeler.” Any answer?
Charles Foster Kane: Yes—Dear Wheeler, You provide the prose poems, I’ll provide the war.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1985)