Cubana Flight 455
| Bombing summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | October 6, 1976 |
| Summary | Airliner bombing |
| Site | 8 km west of Seawell Airport, Bridgetown, Barbados |
| Passengers | 68 |
| Crew | 5 |
| Fatalities | 73 (all) |
| Aircraft type | Douglas DC-8-40 |
| Operator | Cubana de Aviación |
| Registration | CU-T1201 |
Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 was a Cuban flight from Barbados to Jamaica that was brought down on October 6, 1976 by a terrorist bomb attack. All 73 people on board the Douglas DC-8 aircraft were killed. Two time bombs were used, whose explosives have been variously described as dynamite or C-4. The crash wiped out the Cuban National Fencing team.
Several CIA-linked anti-Castro Cuban exiles and members of the Venezuelan secret police DISIP 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 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 terrorist operative Luis Posada Carriles denies 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 member, 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 April 27, 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 entering the country illegally, but was released on April 19, 2007.
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Wikipedia