REMEMBERING THE CUBANA AIR DISASTER

Oct 08, 2017 Editorial, Features / Columnists

Forty-one years ago, eleven young Guyanese men and women perished in what came to be known as the “Cuban air disaster.” Wednesday October 6, 1976 will always be remembered by Guyanese as one of the most fateful days for those who died so tragically when two bombs exploded on a Cuban airline flight number CU455.
The Cuban DC 8 passenger aircraft had left Guyana for Trinidad, then on to Seawell International Airport in Barbados which was renamed the Sir Grantley Adams International Airport that same year.
From Barbados, the plane was scheduled to fly to Jamaica and then to its final destination in Havana, Cuba. It did not make it. The tragedy that struck the Cuban airline remains etched in the minds of most Guyanese.
The late President Forbes Burnham, with tears in his eyes, asked the nation not to forget them.
Shortly after the plane took off from Barbados, a bomb located in the aircraft’s rear lavatories exploded. Captain Wilfredo Perez radioed and informed the control tower in Barbados of an emergency and requested immediate landing. As the pilot tried to steer the plane towards Seawell International airport, another bomb exploded and the plane quickly went into a tail spin and descended rapidly.
Realizing that a successful landing at Seawell Airport was not possible, Captain Perez skillfully and courageously steered the aircraft away from Paradise beach which was packed with tourists and towards the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Barbados where the plane crashed.
It was the worst aircraft crash in the Caribbean region. All 73 passengers and crew on board died. Among them were 57 Cubans, five Koreans and 11 Guyanese of whom six were students going to Cuba to study medicine and engineering. It was a sad day for Guyana which for the first time had experienced such tragedy.
Among the Cubans who died were 24 members of the 1975 Cuban national fencing team. There were many teenagers and their managers who had won gold medals in the Central American and Caribbean Championship games. The young athletes proudly wore their gold medals on board the aircraft.
The crash sent shockwaves throughout the Caribbean and Guyana causing many to weep openly in the streets of Georgetown. It was the first terrorist attack on an aircraft in the Caribbean that was condemned by the leaders of the region. But the Cuban and Guyana governments immediately accused the United States government of being an accomplice in the attack.
They claimed that it was the work of the imperial forces in the United States and vowed to get to the bottom of it. After a thorough examination, it turned out that both governments were correct.
Evidence revealed that several CIA-linked anti-Castro Cuban exiles conspired with members of the Venezuela Secret Police to bomb the Cuban aircraft in protest of Castro’s dictatorial policies in Cuba. This was confirmed by the CIA in 2005. The agency had concrete advance intelligence as early as June 1976 of plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups in Miami to bomb the airline but the agency did not share the information with Cuba, which at the time was a nemesis to the US.
Four men who had joined the plane in Trinidad and disembarked the aircraft in Barbados were subsequently arrested and charged with the murder of 73 persons.
We will never forget Margaret Bradshaw, Sabrina Harrypaul, Seshnarine Kumar, Ann Nelson, Eric Norton, Raymond Persaud, Gordon M. Sobha, Rawle Thomas, Rita Thomas, Violet Thomas and Jacqueline Williams—who perished on that tragic day.

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