Havana Cuba. — On February 3, 1980, a Cubana de Aviación Yak-40 aircraft, registration CU-T1219, crashed at the Baracoa airport, leaving four dead and 37 injured. The tragic event is part of the list of accidents in which the company has been involved since it was nationalized by the late dictator Fidel Castro in 1959.
Since the mid-1980s, that airline’s accidents have risen considerably, making Cubana de Aviación one of the most dangerous in the world, especially if one takes into account its limited fleet and reduced number of flights, compared to with other Latin American and global companies.
Both Cuban and Aerocaribbean, which operated charter flights regionally and in recent years has handled domestic travel, are avoided by passengers. Any other option is more reliable, especially after the May 2018 accident, where 112 of the 113 people on board lost their lives; a tragedy whose causes came to light, revealing the serious security problems that probably played as a common denominator in previous accidents.
Eight of the largest accidents involving Cuban civil aviation occurred in the 1990s, coinciding with the so-called “Special Period”, a period of deep economic crisis for the Island. Mortality was high, adding a total of 222 fatalities. Three of those accidents left no survivors and foreign citizens died in several.
It is unknown if Cubana de Aviación was sued for issues related to the violation of security protocols. In those years there was no Internet and the Castro regime maintained a tight monopoly over communications.
Among the causes that caused a large part of these accidents is “the inexperience of the crew” and the reuse of damaged planes, such as the one that fell into the Bartlett Trench after taking off from the Santiago de Cuba airport on July 11, 1997. According to an article published by Radio Televisión Martí, that ship had survived a grenade explosion during a hijacking attempt to escape to the United States.
