RADIO TELEVISION MARTI Editorial Office
A Cuban pilot would have escaped this Friday from the island to Florida in an AN-2 fumigation plane, according to the publication CiberCuba and later confirmed by Telemundo Channel 51 of Miami.
The aviator was identified by CiberCuba as Rubén Martínez, a pilot for the Cuban Air Services Company (ENSA).
The Cuban topics portal assures that his relatives on the island (his mother and sisters) are being interrogated in the city of Santa Clara.
Telemundo Channel 51 reported that the pilot left Cuba at 11 in the morning and that he is currently in the custody of US authorities.
The television station showed images of the AN-2 plane, with the initials of the ENSA company and the license plate CU-A1885, on the runway at the Florida Dade-Collier Airport (TNT), in Ochoppee, where it landed.
The Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (ICLEP) referred to the incident as “a kidnapping carried out by the pilot ship captain Rubén Martínez Machado.”
The incident occurred when Martínez Machado took off towards the Sur del Jibaro rice complex, where he was carrying out aerial fumigation work.
After having carried out two fumigation flights and after calculating the fuel, he went in the AN-2 plane with license plate 1885 along the so-called Cedar route, arriving in Florida, ”indicated the ICLEP.