Downed pilots remembered with flight, flowers
BY PAUL BRINKLEY-ROGERS
When the lilies tumbled out of the sky on Saturday at a
place Cuban Americans now call Martyr's Point, there were
no hostile MiGs there to blast the flight of three small
Brothers to the Rescue planes out of the sky.
Brothers co-founder José Basulto, at the controls of a
Cessna 337, led the formation, just as he did five years ago
when rockets knocked down two other planes of the same
kind. Killed were his friends, Carlos Alberto Costa and Pablo
Morales, both 29, Mario de la Peña, 24, and Armando
Alejandre, 45.
Radio traffic from Havana airport officials crackled over his
headset as he circled the spot, reciting a name of each of
``our martyrs'' as he hurled bouquets onto a glistening sea.
The gleaming white Coast Guard cutter Legare was on
station below in international waters, its radar probing the
skies for any fighter jets from Cuban military fields near
Havana, just 20 miles to the south.
The anniversary was a day full of sombre theater and tearful
emotions for the 50 Cuban American friends and family
members of the lost fliers who gathered at Opa-locka Airport
to watch the planes take off in the early afternoon.
A similar memorial flight has been made every year since
the shoot-down, an act that dragged U.S.-Cuba relations to
a new low and resulted in legislation toughening the
decades-old embargo. In October, the Clinton administration
agreed to release $58 million in frozen Cuban assets as part
of a court-ordered award of more than $100 million to the
family members of the four pilots.
Eva Barbas, 75, the silver-haired mother of Morales, came
with four red silk roses -- one for each of the dead -- which
also were dropped at the site. Prayers were offered.
Nine-year-old Reynaldo ``R.J.'' Martín, son of Ray Martín,
who was a crew member on one of Saturday's group of
aircraft, hugged his mother, Maria, and wept. She said he
worried about his dad's safety.
LAST-MINUTE RULING
The flight came only hours after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that Basulto could make the
flight.
Randall Marshall, legal director for the American Civil
Liberties Union in Florida, said the court stayed a gag order
issued by U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard that could have
grounded Basulto, a witness in the ongoing Cuban spy case
in Miami that Lenard is hearing. In question was whether
Basulto had violated Lenard's order by announcing that he
planned to participate in Saturday's airborne memorial.
The lead defendant in the spy case, Gerardo Hernández, is
specifically charged with conspiracy to commit murder by
allegedly giving Cuba the flight plan of the Brothers planes.
Also flying Saturday were Aurelio Hurtado De Mendoza, who
flew with Basulto, and Billy Schuss, Raul Martínez and
Guillermo Lares, an Argentine volunteer.
Two Federal Aviation Administration inspectors, Daniel
Castro and Mark Hemmerle, checked out the planes and
passed all three. They stood to one side to watch the aircraft
take off and head west toward the Everglades, and then
south to Flamingo and the Florida Keys.
OVER THE STRAITS
A few minutes out over the Straits of Florida, as they left
airspace controlled by Miami and entered airspace
controlled by Cuba, the pilots tried radioing Havana Centro --
Havana air traffic control. Sometimes when Brothers to the
Rescue planes announce themselves the Cubans reply, and
sometimes they do not, Basulto said.
But on Saturday, Havana was quick to acknowledge the
flight. The controller was also quick to warn the pilots that
they were entering a zona peligroso -- a danger zone.
Basulto said Havana claims the zone is used by Cuban
military aircraft for training, ``but they don't have much
money nowadays, and so their planes don't fly much.
Nowadays, the danger zone is for us.''
REPEATED WARNINGS
Both Basulto and his copilot kept a watchful look at the
horizon for hostile aircraft. A haze obscured the Cuban
coast, and clouds also interfered with visibility. But other
than the repeated warnings from Havana -- very much like
the warnings issued five years ago before the missiles were
fired -- no threat materialized.
The aircraft circled at 500 feet over Martyr's Point.
Basulto recited the names of the dead fliers over the radio,
meaning that the Havana controllers got the message, too.
The operator admonished him for using the radio frequency --
also used by commercial airliners landing at Havana's Jose
Martí International Airport -- for the ceremony.
But Havana was courteous, even after Basulto declared that
his friends had been ``murdered'' and appealed for ``justice
for this crime.''
Bringing Fidel Castro and other Cuban officials to trial for the
death of the pilots is an aim of both Basulto and the
relatives.
Before the fight took off, Basulto said Gov. Jeb Bush -- who
was in Miami on Saturday to talk with members of the
Cuban community -- had agreed to deliver a letter from Eva
Barbas to the governor's brother, President Bush. The letter,
he said, asks the president to indict the Cuban leader, who
Basulto claims gave the order to shoot down the planes.