Pilot, Passengers Divert Cuban Plane to U.S.

Forty-eight Cubans sought political asylum in the United States on Tuesday after the pilot of their commuter flight commandeered the plane with the help of some passengers who overpowered other crew members.

The Soviet-made twin-engine turboprop Antonov-26, landed in Miami about 9:30 a.m. EST after the co-pilot and a security officer on board had been restrained, said Michael Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs Service in Miami.

The pilot of the plane, who was first reported to air traffic controllers as having been kidnaped, was the “primary instigator” of the diversion, Sheehan said.

It was not clear how many passengers knew ahead of time that the plane would be rerouted or how many participated in the scheme, but the pilot told reporters at the airport that he had been planning the escape for about 18 months, and officials said most of those aboard were thought to be in on the plan.

The plane, with 53 people on board, was scheduled to fly from Havana to Varadero, a resort community on the north coast of Cuba. Only five people on board--the security officer, a flight attendant, the co-pilot and his wife and daughter--requested to return to Cuba.

Sheehan said the diversion occurred after takeoff when the co-pilot was somehow lured to the passenger section of the plane and then was overpowered and restrained with either handcuffs or a rope.

“At the same time, the security officer was given chloroform and was also restrained” with handcuffs or a rope, Sheehan said. Then a man who had been “planted” in the passenger section entered the flight cabin and acted as co-pilot for the flight to Miami, he said.

The pilot, identified as Carlos Lucio Cansio, was the “major force or primary instigator” of the flight to Miami, Sheehan said.

“It would appear that with ropes, handcuffs, drugs and a co-pilot being planted, that a fair amount of planning and participation went into this,” he said.

The defection from Cuba is apparently the largest since the 1980 Mariel boatlift, when a total of 125,000 Cubans came to Florida during a chaotic sea migration that lasted five months.

Wendi Jackman, a spokeswoman for the Dade County Aviation Department, said the Miami International Airport control tower was notified of the approach of the flight about 9 a.m., minutes after its departure from Havana.

“They were told the flight had been ‘kidnaped,’ ” Jackman said.

Officials speculated that Cansio made the false report so he would be permitted to land.

Upon arrival, most of the Cubans seemed overjoyed to be on U.S. soil.

Mario Miranda of the Cuban-American National Foundation, who witnessed the arrival, said passengers exchanged smiles and high-fives as they were escorted by INS officials into an airport terminal.

As he was escorted from the plane by U.S. officials, Cansio gave the thumbs-up sign to cheering Cuban-Americans who were on hand to greet the arrival.

“I feel very good,” Cansio told Spanish-language reporters in a brief interview through a fence at the airport. “I’ve been planning this maneuver for a year and a half--a year and a little bit.”

Aviation workers told reporters they had witnessed a scuffle between the pilot and co-pilot on the Tarmac. The co-pilot was led away in handcuffs, and the security officer was carried off the plane on a stretcher and taken to a nearby hospital.

Among those aboard Tuesday’s flight were Cansio’s wife and two sons, according to Tomas Garcia Fuste, news director of Spanish-language radio station WQBA.

Passengers were still being interviewed at the airport late Tuesday by agents from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Justice Department and the State Department, said Dan Gelber, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami.

Gelber said the 38 adults and 10 children will be taken to an INS detention facility pending a ruling on their asylum requests.

Minors were to be released to family members or friends in the Miami area if their parents requested it, officials said. Three of the children were released late Tuesday.

Efforts were being made to arrange the return or those who asked to return to Cuba, Gelber said.

He said earlier that the FBI was investigating to determine whether hijacking charges would be filed in the matter. Until charges are filed, U.S. officials are not using the term “hijacking” to describe the incident, he said.

However, Cuban authorities said they were treating the incident as a hijacking.

The Cuban news agency Prensa Latina said the “diversion” of the plane had been “part of a long list of terrorist acts and stems from the United States’ confrontation of more than 30 years against Cuba.”

The Cuban-American National Foundation said most of those on the plane were expected to be released while awaiting asylum, which is nearly always automatically granted to Cubans under a special federal law.

Under international agreements signed by both Cuba and the United States, the plane will be returned to Cuba, Sheehan said.

This year, about 2,550 Cubans have made it to U.S. shores by rafting across the ocean, but other dramatic escapes from the island have come by air, including the daring trip 10 days ago of former Cuban air force pilot Orestes Lorenzo.

Almost two years after he flew a Cuban MIG to Homestead Air Force Base and asked for political asylum, Lorenzo flew back to Cuba, landed a small plane on a little-used road and scooped up his wife and two children.

Lorenzo was in Southern California on Tuesday to appear on NBC-TV’s “Tonight” show.

Harrison is a Times staff writer and Clary is a special correspondent.