SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- Fatal air accidents have occurred on the island, leaving hundreds dead; some of them are among the most serious accidents in civil aviation in Cuban history.
The plane crash with the highest number of fatalities occurred on September 3, 1989 when an Ilyushin 62 bound for Milan crashed in Havana shortly after takeoff, killing all 115 people on board (two Cubans and 113 Italian tourists), as well as 40 people on the ground.
Since 1919 there have been more than 20 accidents in Cuba aerial with fatalities in which almost 500 people have died.
Eight of the largest accidents in 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, totaling 222 fatalities. Three of these accidents left no survivors and several of them resulted in the death of foreign citizens.
On October 24, 1990, 11 of the 31 occupants of a Yakolev-40 lost their lives when it crashed a few kilometers before landing at Santiago airport.
On July 11, 1997, all 44 occupants of a Cubana de Aviación twin-engine Antonov-24 flight en route between the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba and Havana died when one of its engines failed and it crashed into the sea.
On March 15, 2002, the 16 occupants, mostly European tourists, of an Antonov AN-2 aircraft of the Company National Air Services when it crashed in the town of Guaracabuya, in the central province of Villa Clara, while flying between Cienfuegos and the tourist enclave Jardines del Rey.
On October 24, 2010, a commercial plane belonging to the Cubana de Aviacion airline, a Soviet-made YAK-40, crashed near the Antonio Maceo Airport in Santiago de Cuba, killing 10 of its 31 occupants.
On November 5, 2010, all 68 passengers on board an ATR-72 aircraft belonging to the Cuban airline Aerocaribbean died after it crashed in the province of Sancti Spiritus, in the center of the island. The aircraft was flying from Santiago de Cuba to Havana.
In 2017, on the morning of April 29 of that year, an AN-26 plane of the Cuban Armed Forces crashed into a hill, known as Loma de la Pimienta, in the province of Artemisa. All eight soldiers on board were killed.
Both Cuban and Aerocaribbeanwhich operated regional charter flights and in recent years has taken over domestic travel, are being avoided by passengers.
Any other option is more reliable, especially after the May 2018 accidentwhere 112 of the 113 lost their lives people on board; a tragedy whose causes have come to light, revealing the serious safety problems that probably played a common denominator in previous accidents.
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