Havana/Alejandro, a 12-year-old boy, died last Saturday on the Isla de la Juventud after an accident that occurred during a tandem paragliding flight in the Cayos Los Monos area. The incident was reported this Sunday by the Cuban Aviation Club (CAC), which, in a statement, detailed that moments after takeoff, the pilot and the minor “were dragged by a strong current of offshore wind, landing about 500 meters from the coastline.”
According to the CAC, “in his effort to get rid of the paraglider’s harnesses, the pilot lost control over the passenger, who disappeared before the pilot could avoid him.”
Several residents reported the mobilization of ambulances and emergency teams to the area where the incident occurred, reported the communicator Niover Licea, who collected testimonies from neighbors. The search had to stop when night fell.
“Operations were resumed in the early hours of this Sunday with the hope of finding the minor,” the communicator added. After 21 hours, he said, Alejandro was located after noon. In the comments to postsome users pointed out that the body was found by “a fishing boat that was reinforcing the search.” According to Licea, Alejandro lived with his mother, identified as Marisleydis, in the Abel Santamaría neighborhood, in the municipality of Nueva Gerona.
After 21 hours, he said, Alejandro was located after noon
Neither his current status nor his name has been reported about the pilot, only that he was rescued alive shortly after the accident.
The CAC statement indicates that authorities are investigating the circumstances of the case. In addition, he points out that “a commission from the club, in conjunction with the Institute of Civil Aeronautics of Cuba, will leave next Tuesday for the Isle of Youth to join the investigation and evaluate the legal, technical and safety elements of the flights relevant to the case.”
The message was published in the Facebook group Air Sports in Cuba and bears the signature of former spy René González Sehwerert, president of the Cuban Aviation Club, one of the members of the Wasp Network.
González Sehwerert, in 1990, when Cuba was beginning to feel the economic damage after the fall of the Soviet Union, took one of the small planes from the airfield where he worked as a flight instructor to leave the Island and arrive after an hour of travel to the United States. After serving his sentence, he returned to Cuba and the regime designated him Hero of the Republic and assigned him the presidency of the CAC, the governing body of air sports in the country.
After serving his sentence, he returned to Cuba and the regime designated him Hero of the Republic.
Tandem paragliding flight allows one person to fly accompanied by an expert pilot, who controls the equipment. This activity can be affected by sudden changes in wind direction or intensity, so technical investigations are usually key to determining what happened.
The CAC assured that the final results of the investigation will be announced once it concludes.
A similar case was recorded in December 2023. Cuban parachutist Edelio Varona Pino died during a paragliding jump in the town of Canasí, in Mayabeque, the president of the Cuban Sports Parachuting Federation, Eutimio Barrera Pérez, reported at the time on Facebook.
In August of that year, athlete Miladis Ríos Góngora, 51, died while performing parachute training jumps at the Bayamo airport. The woman graduated in Physical Culture and Sports, and also worked as a professor at the University of Granma, in the subject Preparation for Defense.
