Defecting Cuban Pilot Lands Russian Plane At South Florida Airport

OCHOPEE, FL — A Cuban pilot defecting from the communist island nation landed a Russian-made plane at a South Florida airport Friday morning, according to multiple reports.

The pilot, 29-year-old Ruben Martinez, landed the Soviet-era plane, a dual-winged, single-engine Antonov An-2 near the runway of the Dade-Collier Airport, reports said.

U.S. Customers and Border Protection agents responded to the airport around 11:30 a.m., CBS News said.

Martinez told those working at the airport’s control tower that he was low on fuel and needed to land quickly, the Miami Herald reported.

“He said he was a defector from Sancti Spiritus, Cuba,” Gregory Chin, a spokesperson for the Miami-Dade County Aviation Department.

Sancti Spiritus, located in central Cuba, is about 270 miles from the Everglades airstrip.

The pilot, who was the only passenger, told authorities that he worked for a domestic flight charter company operated by the Cuban state, according to reports.

Martinez took a selfie with the plane after landing in Florida, NBC 6 reported.

The plane featured yellow and blue identifiers showing it belongs to the Empresa Cubana de Servicios Aéreos, which sends crop dusters to agricultural areas of Cuba, Local 10 News said.