Cuban Pilot Defects to U.S. With MIG-27 Fighter

A 38-year-old Cuban pilot flew his Soviet-built MIG-27 fighter jet to a U.S. military base at Key West on Wednesday and asked for political asylum in a rare military defection from the Communist island nation.

A spokeswoman at Key West Naval Air Station said the swing-wing jet, designed chiefly for attacking ground targets, was not carrying any weapons when it landed without incident at 11:50 a.m.

Base officials would not disclose the pilot’s rank or identity in what apparently was the first defection of a Cuban fighter plane to the United States in more than 21 years. A terse statement from the base said “standard debriefings” were in progress and that the MIG, an older model, was under Navy control.

Cuban exile sources in Miami had no immediate information on the apparent defection, but one expert commented that some Soviet-trained military personnel reached a fairly high rank at an early age.

“If you have access to a MIG, you’re pretty high up,” he said.

The pilot was being debriefed by State Department officials, who must decide whether to grant asylum, the base spokeswoman said.

U.S. Air Force officials said in Washington that the MIG-27, which carries the Western designation “Flogger,” does not represent an intelligence coup for the United States. The original version of the aircraft was first introduced in the late 1970s and is old by military standards.