A Cuban pilot flies away and lands in South Florida on an old Russian plane
- Drafting
- BBC News World
image source, Getty Images
This is the Antonov An-2, like the one that landed in South Florida.
On Friday, the authorities reported that a Cuban pilot landed at an airport in South Florida (United States) driving an old Russian-made aircraft.
The Antonov An-2 biplane landed at Dade-Collier Transition and Training Airport around 11:30 a.m. local time.
Dade-Collier Airport is located near the vast wetlands of the Florida Everglades, near the road from Miami to Tampa, known as the Tam Miami Trail.
The Cuban pilot said he flew from Sancti Spíritus, a province in central Cuba more than 400 kilometers east of Havana, officials at Miami International Airport said.
The US Customs and Border Protection has launched an investigation into what happened.
Digital CiberCuba identified the pilot as Rubén Martínez and showed images of the small plane, in yellow and blue, parked at the edge of the tarmac.
According to CiberCuba, Martínez was a pilot for the Cuban Air Service (ENSA).
The circumstances in which he took control of the aircraft to divert it are unknown.
Russian planes
The Antonov An-2, also called Anushkais a single-engine single-deck aircraft originally from the 1940s and was the first model in the Antonov family of aircraft, which also operates in commercial aviation.
The model that landed in Florida is generally used as a light 12-passenger transportation, skydiving, and agricultural work.
The number of Cubans arriving in the United States by land and sea has risen to historic levels over the past year.
So far in October, authorities have intercepted more than 400 people at sea on improvised boats.
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