Fifty Years Later, Guyana Remembers Its Eleven Victims of Cubana Flight 455

By Mark DaCosta-On the afternoon of Wednesday, 6 October 1976, a Douglas DC-8 lifted off the runway at Seawell Airport in Barbados and climbed into the sky above the Caribbean Sea. Within minutes, two bombs had torn through it. All 73 people aboard died when Cubana de Aviación Flight CU-455 plunged into the Atlantic. Eleven of them were Guyanese, and most were young people on their way to build futures that were never allowed to begin.

This month marks half a century since that day. For many families in our country, the passing of fifty years has not softened it.

The flight had begun its journey at Timehri, as the airport now named for Cheddi Jagan was then known. Its route took it through Trinidad and Barbados, onward to Jamaica, and finally to Havana. Aboard were 48 passengers and a crew of 25: 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese and five North Koreans. Among the Cubans were members of the national fencing team, young athletes returning home from a regional championship.