Cuban Defectors Commandeer Copter

MIAMI —  Thirty-four Cubans commandeered a tourist helicopter and flew to Miami on Friday in one of the biggest defections in recent years, and one refugee said upon landing, “Freedom is marvelous.”

The Air Cubana helicopter took off from the resort of Varadero and flew at wave-top height to avoid Cuban radar. All 34 civilians aboard requested political asylum, U.S. Customs Service and Pentagon officials said.

“Everyone’s here voluntarily and they want to defect,” customs spokesman Mike Sheehan said, adding that it was the biggest single group of defectors ever to arrive in Miami by air.

The red and white aircraft, a civilian version of the MI-8 Soviet military helicopter, was detected before 9 a.m. local time 107 nautical miles from Homestead Air Force Base, Fla.

Customs officials said it was intercepted by a customs jet and Blackhawk helicopter, which escorted it to Tamiami Airport, a commuter airport southwest of Miami.

Before leaving the airstrip to be processed by immigration officials, the ebullient Cubans, members of several families who cooked up the escape plan together, described their joy at being here.

“I’m very happy to be here--freedom is marvelous,” said one young woman among the group, which consisted of 17 men, eight women and nine children.

“There’s very little food left in Cuba. Things are desperate,” said another woman in an interview with a local television station.

Cuba’s hard-pressed 10.5 million people are coping with tight fuel restrictions, rationing of food and virtually all consumer goods following a cutback in aid and oil shipments from the former Soviet Union, once the island’s key ally.

The Cubans at the airstrip passed around a portable phone, calling relatives in Miami’s large Cuban exile community. Relatives and representatives of some exile groups came to greet them.

A spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service said the group was taken to Krome Detention Center for processing, which would take a few days. Cubans are almost always granted U.S. residency.

The pilot was supposed to pick up a group of tourists Friday for a short flight from Varadero, a Cuban coastal resort about 80 miles east of Havana.

Instead, the escapees showed up at the airport and pretended they were the tourists. Two were disguised as co-pilots to fool the aviation authorities.