Pilot steals 172 and heads to Cuba (on first solo)!
New Pilot Steals Plane in Florida, Flies to Cuba
MIAMI (Reuters) - A small plane flown by a novice pilot was stolen from a flight school in the Florida Keys on Tuesday and has landed in Cuba, authorities said.
The manager of Paradise Aviation in Marathon said the pilot, a man in his early 30s, was on his first solo flight, Fox affiliate WSVN Channel 7 reported.
The manager, Brian Hanson, said the pilot was taking instruction from the company. He was supposed to go once around the perimeter of Marathon airport then bring the Cessna 172 into land.
"He came round and got within a hundred yards then powered up,'' Hanson said. "He headed south...we thought he was just panicking.
Aviation officials later told him the plane had landed in Cuba, about 100 miles south of Marathon across the Florida Straits, he said.
"It looks like the aircraft was stolen from Paradise,' he joked.
The pilot was the only person on board.
The State Department confirmed the incident. A spokeswoman said the State Department was aware that an American citizen had taken off from Marathon and that a Navy plane unsuccessfully tried to make verbal contact with pilot.
The spokeswoman said the Navy plane tracked the civilian aircraft to Havana, adding that the U.S. Interest Section in Cuba has been asked to follow up with authorities there.
In Havana, there was official silence, with airport, Civil Aviation Institute officials, and Foreign Ministry sources all telling Reuters they had no information.
Reuters reporters were not immediately able to sight the plane at airport facilities in Havana.
Although several planes have been hijacked to Cuba since the 1959 revolution, in recent years the traffic has been the other way by Cubans wanting to escape Communist rule.
In the last incident in September 2000, a group of 10 Cubans stole a crop-duster which crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. They were picked up by a freighter and the nine survivors were brought to the United States.