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"Scared" Novice US Pilot Crash Lands in Cuba
A novice US pilot who said he was too scared to land in the Florida Keys on his first solo flight on Tuesday headed instead south for Cuba, where his plane overturned in an emergency crash-landing on the coast.
After landing the Cessna 172 on rocky terrain next to the sea a few miles east of Havana, the pilot, who was the only person on board, emerged shaken from the upside-down plane and was taken away by police in a Lada, witnesses told Reuters.
US officials later said he was being treated at a Havana hospital for unspecified injuries.
An executive of the US flight school, Paradise Aviation of Marathon, named the man as John Reese, who she said was in his early 50s. Asked about a possible motive for his action, Paradise Vice-President Ute Steigerwald told Reuters: "We are totally in the dark."
Reese had been taking flying lessons for about two weeks from Paradise Aviation, which operates out of Marathon Airport in the Middle Keys.
Tuesday afternoon's exercise was his first solo flight - if indeed he was a novice pilot, she said. He was supposed to circle the airport once then come in to land.
"He said he couldn't land, he said he was afraid," Steigerwald said. "The instructor talked him through it. Then about 100 yards (91 meters) out he turned toward the ocean and didn't come back."
She added that at that point "he looked like he knew what he was doing." Although he had been in contact with instructors by radio, after he headed south he did not return calls.
The Cuban coast lies about 100 miles (161 kms) south of the Keys, an island chain dividing the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Straits.
Before crash landing, the plane skimmed close to the sea before landing, when a tire burst and it turned over, witnesses said. "He looked all-right, but a bit scared," one local resident, Johan Moran said.
"He was lucky, because he was going really close to the sea before he reached the ground," another witness, Fabian Alejandro Molina Herrera said.
A spokeswoman at the State Department was aware that a US citizen had taken off from Marathon and that a Navy plane unsuccessfully tried to make verbal contact with the pilot.
The spokeswoman said the Navy plane tracked the civilian aircraft to Havana, adding that the US Interests Section in Cuba has been asked to follow up with authorities there.
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