Plane from Cuba causes consternation in Keys

Posted on Thu, May. 04, 2006

KEY WEST
Plane from Cuba causes consternation in Keys
A home-built plane that stopped in Cuba and then flew to Key West caused
a stir in the Florida Keys after Homeland Security officials became
interested in the unusual aircraft and its crew.
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com

Two French members of an environmental group landed a home-built
twin-propeller ultralight plane in Key West on Wednesday after flying
across the Florida Straits from Cuba, raising concerns by Homeland
Security officials who detained and questioned the two men.

After questioning, officials said, the two men were to continue on their
way -- with a stop scheduled in Sebring for maintenance of the plane
before trekking to Africa.

Zachary Mann, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said
the plane drew attention from Homeland Security because it took off from
Cuba, which the U.S. State Department has designated a terrorist state.

Nevertheless, there was no evidence that the men tried to evade
detection and there was no indication that U.S. military aircraft had
been scrambled to intercept the plane, Mann said.

''The plane was determined to be a legal target and nonthreatening to
the United States,'' said Mann.

Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration
in Atlanta, said the crew had filed a flight plan in Cuba for a trip
from Havana to Key West and that the plane was handled, as is routine,
by U.S. air traffic controllers who were in contact with Cuban air
traffic control.

Bergen said that after the plane took off from Havana it was in radio
contact with air traffic controllers in Cuba who eventually handed off
the flight to air traffic controllers at Miami Center.

The plane was registered in Chile, Bergen said. It was bought in Chile,
Mann added.

Peter Horton, director of airports in the Florida Keys, said that at
some point some U.S. officials concluded that the plane did not have
''proper documention'' or had not adequately identified itself. Horton
said Customs and Border Protection requested his agency's assistance.

Horton said the plane landed at 12:04 p.m. at Key West International
Airport.

The plane is linked to an organization called Wings For Earth and has a
slogan painted on it: ``For the Harmony of People and their Environment.''

The group's website, www.wingsforearth.org, displays the same slogan.

According to the website, Monaco-based Wings for Earth seeks to study
''interactions'' among animal migrations, human ''installations'' and
the planet's vegetation from the air.

''The goal is to support projects aimed at improving the balance among
those different fields,'' according to the website.

The website said the group has a presence in Kenya and an article posted
on the website noted the group planned to buy an ''aircam'' aircraft in
Chile.

A company in Sebring, Leza AirCam Corp., makes kits to build the type of
plane that landed in Key West.

María Elena Leza, who answered the phone at the number listed on the
Leza AirCam Corp. website, said she believes her company sold the kit to
a person in Chile from which Wings for Earth bought the plane.

She said the plane is equipped with a camera to take aerial photographs,
and that the crew members would spend three or four days in Sebring
before resuming their journey.

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