Do-It-Yourself Airlift

CUBA Do-It-Yourself Airlift

The U.S.-Cuban airlift can handle only a trickle of the flood of Cubans who would leave for the mainland if they could. For those who are barred by Castro or lack the patience to wait as much as five years for a plane seat, there are other routes. Last week four Cubans hijacked a 43-ft. government mineral-resources boat and tootled into the Florida Keys. Seven others put into Marathon, Fla., in a 16-ft. sailboat, and the U.S. Coast Guard rescued an other twelve Cubans in a small craft just off the Cuban coast. But the week's boldest try was by air.

Shortly after sunset one evening, a Cubana Airlines Ilyushin-18 took off from Santiago, Cuba's second largest city, bound for Havana with 91 passengers. Among the crew was Flight Engineer Angel Betancourt Cueto, who was prepared to risk his life to escape Cuba. Seventy miles west of Havana. Betancourt made his move. Locking the door that separates the flight deck from the passengers, he suddenly slugged the guard who stood just behind the pilot and copilot and ordered Captain Fernando Alvarez Perez to set a course for Miami. "From this moment," as a government communique later described it, Havana's "flight control, in combination with the air force and air defense, drafted a plan by which the pilot was to pretend he was flying directly to Miami, when in reality he would be maneuvering back toward Havana." Meantime, he was to continue his communication in English, pretending that he was in contact with Miami.

As the plane neared Key West, four U.S. Navy F-102s streaked aloft to give it the once-over. But it already was curving back toward Cuba. It was long after dark, and the plane was touching down on the runway at Havana's Jose Marti Airport, when Betancourt caught on to the trick. Angrily, he ordered Alvarez to take off again. When the pilot refused, Betancourt shot him dead and frantically tried to get the plane off the ground himself. But the Ilyushin only roared off the end of the runway and came to rest in a plowed field. Leaping out of the pilot's window, Betancourt managed to escape into the darkness.

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