Crash of Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 - Paynes Bay, St James, Barbados
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denben
N 13° 09.540 W 059° 38.226
21P E 214121 N 1456217
The memorial was erected in 1998 in recognition of the 73 people who were killed in the crash of Cubana Flight 455 just off the coast of Bridgetown, Barbados, in early October 1976.
Waymark Code: WM1A9TM
Location: Barbados
Date Posted: 07/13/2024
Views: 0
From Wikipedia: "Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 was a Cuban flight from Barbados to Jamaica that was brought down on 6 October 1976 by a terrorist bomb attack. All 73 people on board the Douglas DC-8 aircraft were killed after two time bombs went off and the plane crashed into the sea. The crash killed every member of the Cuban national fencing team.
Several CIA-linked anti-Castro Cuban exiles, among them Rafael De Jesus Gutierrez, a Cuban intelligence officer of the Batista regime turned CIA spy after the Cuban revolution, were implicated by the evidence. Political complications quickly arose when Cuba accused the US government of being an accomplice to the attack. CIA documents released in 2005 do indicate that the agency "had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cubana airliner." Former CIA operative and anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles denied involvement but provides many details of the incident in his book Caminos del Guerrero (Ways of the Warrior). The Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, of which Carriles was a founder, is widely seen as responsible for the bombing.
Four men were arrested in connection with the bombing, and a trial was held in Venezuela. Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo Lozano were each sentenced to 20-year prison terms. Orlando Bosch was acquitted and later moved to Miami, Florida, where he lived until his death on 27 April 2011. Luis Posada Carriles was held for eight years while awaiting a final sentence but eventually fled. He later entered the United States, where he was held on charges of the country illegally, but was released on 19 April 2007." (
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The inscription on the Cubana memorial reads in English and Spanish: "IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE BOMBING OF THE CUBANA DC 8 AIRCRAFT FLIGHT CUT 1201 WHICH CRASHED IN THE SEA OFF BARBADOS ON OCTOBER 6TH, 1976 - MAY THEIR SOULS REST IN PEACE"