Cuban defector lands Soviet-era biplane on Everglades airstrip

MIAMI — A Cuban defector flew a Soviet-era biplane from the communist island on Friday and landed it safely at an isolated airstrip in the Everglades west of Miami, authorities said.

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The pilot radioed the control tower at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, located in the Big Cypress National Preserve, and said he was low on fuel, WSVN-TV reported.

The plane was identified as an Antonov AN-2 aircraft, and it landed at about 11:30 a.m. EDT, WPLG-TV reported.

The 29-year-old pilot was flying solo, according to Rachel Torres, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. His call to the control tower enabled federal agents to reach the runway when he landed, the Miami Herald reported.

“He said he was a defector from Sancti Spiritus, Cuba,” Gregory Chin, a spokesperson for the Miami-Dade Aviation Department, which owns the airstrip, told the newspaper.

Sancti Spiritus is located in central Cuba, approximately 270 miles from the runway in the Everglades, an area that had once been proposed as the site of a major jetport, the Herald reported. The proposal was scuttled over environmental concerns in 1970, and the site now averages about 10 flights daily, according to the newspaper.

According to family members, the pilot was identified as Ruben Martinez, WTVJ reported. Spain-based news outlet CiberCuba also identified Martinez as the pilot and said he worked for a small Cuban state domestic chartered flight company, according to the Herald.

WPLG reported that the plane had the yellow and blue identifiers of the Empresa de Servicios Aéreos (ENSA), which provides crop dusters in agricultural areas. The plane’s identifier on the right-top wing was CU-A1885.

Brian Cone was fishing in the Florida Keys near Islamorada when he saw the plane at about 10:45 a.m. and took a video of the aircraft, WSVN reported.

Cuban defectors flying from Cuba to the U.S. is rare, but it happened twice during the 1990s, the Herald reported. In both cases, the defectors were high-ranking military figures in Cuba.

In March 1991, Cuban Air Force Maj. Orestes Lorenzo flew a MIG-21 into the Key West Naval Air Station, the newspaper reported. Two years later, Capt. Enio Ravelo Rodriguez landed his Soviet-made MiG-21 at the same location.

On July 31, 2001, John Milo Reese, a pizza delivery man, stole a single-engine plane from Marathon in the Florida Keys and flew to Cuba, the Sun-Sentinel reported. He was arrested after being returned to Miami.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is investigating Friday’s flight and the pilot, the Herald reported.

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