Aerocaribbean plane ATR 72 (CU-T1545) at the airport Holguin, Cuba, similar to the plane that crashed today
How many human dramas around each victim in the crash of Aerocaribbean Flight 833. The similarity of names in the passenger list suggest that parents and children, brothers and sisters, couples with their offspring, have been lost. I remember that among the names mentioned on the news this morning was that of a Japanese tourist, who also lost his life thousands of miles from that other island so different from ours. I can't stop thinking about him or the others who died in the plane that should have been a road, a bridge, a highway, but never the last one.
Behind each of the 40 Cuban passengers the tragedy is also enormous. They bought that fatal ticket three months before their departure day and waited in a long line to board a mode of transportation that in this country is rare and extremely expensive. Probably relieved to know that they would make the trip from Santiago de Cuba to Havana in something a little less chaotic than the national train. Their presence on that ATR 72/212 was the conclusion of a sequence of sacrifices that started just when they had the need -- or the desire -- to travel within Cuba, and that would end only when they arrived at their fate.
Misfortune lurks on all sides, this we know, but it is difficult to process the idea that people climb the stairs of an airplane and a shortly afterward their names are read, in a solemn voice, on national television. I return again and again to the images of the possible family embrace that was waiting in the arrival airport, of the mother who learned in Buenos Aires or Amsterdam that her son would not return, or of the pilot's wife saying goodbye while thinking, like every other time, that he would soon return home. These are the personal catastrophes, the human dramas, that began to descend in the same minute that the plane fell to earth.
Yoani's blog, Generation Y, can be read here in English translation.
Translating Cuba is a new compilation blog with Yoani and other Cuban bloggers in English.
Follow Yoani Sanchez on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yoanisanchez
In summary, Cubana has the worst safety record of any airline in the world.
http://www.planecrashinfo.com/
The figures on this site are just for international airlines. Apparently it is not a requirement to report statistics for domestic flights, so you can probably imagine that the statistics for Cubana’s domestic flights could well be even worse.
http://www.suzannestravels.com.....rways.html
Cubana de Aviacion 27 Mar 1962 Santiago de Cuba, Cuba Ilyushin IL-14
Cubana de Aviacion 09 Feb 1967 Near Mexico City, Mexico Antonov AN-12
Cubana de Aviacion 18 Mar 1976 Havana. Cuba Antonov An-24B
Cubana de Aviacion 06 Oct 1976 Off Bridgetown, Barbados McDonnell Douglas DC-8-43
Cubana de Aviacion 13 May 1980 Off Varadero, Cuba Ilyushin IL-14
Cubana de Aviacion 19 Jan 1985 Havana, Cuba Ilyushin IL-18D
Cubana de Aviacion 03 Sep 1989 Near Havana, Cuba Ilyushin IL-62M
Cubana de Aviacion 23 Mar 1990 Santiago de Cuba Antonov AN-26
Cubana de Aviacion 24 Oct 1990 Santiago de Cuba, Cuba Yakovlev YAK-40
Cubana de Aviacion 11 Jul 1997 Off Santiago de Cuba, Cuba Antonov AN-24
Cubana de Aviacion 29 Aug 1998 Quito, Ecuador Tupolev TU-154M
Cubana de Aviacion 25 Dec 1999 Bejuma, Venezuela Yakovlev YAK-42D
Cubana de Aviacon 03 Feb 1980 Baracoa, Cuba Yakovlev YAK-40
Cubana de Aviacon 21 Dec 1999 Guatemala City, Guatemala McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30
- Deficient maintenance
- Lack of spear parts (for money saving reasons)
- Deficient emergency training
- Deficient simulation training (for money saving reasons)
- And the most important reason of all…… in Cuba the pilots that gets the job are not the best ones but the most loyal to regimen. This is a norm to avoid massive desertions.