--- alias: - Cubana Flight 455 - Cubana bombing category: Terrorism created: 2026-09-21 location: Barbados start: 1976-10-06 summary: Bombing of a Cubana DC-8 off Barbados on October 6, 1976, killing 73, planned in Caracas by Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, and a DISIP officer, after a CIA source heard Posada promise it. tags: - Event - CubanaFlight455 - Terrorism - CubanExiles - OrlandoBosch - LuisPosadaCarriles - DISIP - CIA updated: 2026-09-21 --- On October 6, 1976, a bomb destroyed a Cubana DC-8 shortly after it left Barbados for Havana, killing the 73 people aboard.[^1] ### The Two Passengers Two Venezuelans had flown from Caracas to Trinidad on Pan Am 443 in the early hours of that day, checked into the Holiday Inn at two in the morning as "Jose Garcia" and "Freddy Perez," boarded the Cubana flight at 11:50, left it at Barbados, returned to Trinidad the same day on BWIA, and checked into the same hotel at eleven at night without their suitcases. One, holding a passport in the name José Vázquez García, was Hernán Ricardo; the other was Freddy Lugo, "a Venezuelan newsman who is also employed as an investigator by [Luis Posada](/people/luis-posada-carriles/)." Lugo's passport carried a Barbados entry stamp of July 9, 1976; the FBI noted that "the bombs which went off at the BWIA office and at the general manager's car and yacht in Bridgetown, Barbados, took place on 10 and 11 July, 1976." Ricardo had asked the FBI's legal attaché in Caracas for a visa to San Juan on October 1, on Posada's referral.[^2] The two were arrested in Trinidad. Their first telephone call after the crash was to the office of Posada's security company. Ricardo told the Trinidad police he had been paid 16,000 dollars and Lugo 8,000; the explosive had been carried in a Colgate toothpaste tube and fired by a pencil timer after they left the aircraft. Deputy Commissioner Dennis Ramdwar swore that Ricardo "in his own handwriting recorded the steps to be taken before a bomb was placed in an aircraft and how a plastic bomb is detonated." An FBI informant reported that Ricardo had telephoned [Orlando Bosch](/people/orlando-bosch/) from Trinidad and said: "A bus with 73 dogs went off a cliff and all got killed."[^1][^3] ### Caracas On October 7 a confidential source told the legal attaché that a party whose name is redacted was "arranging for Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch Avila to leave Venezuela as soon as possible. The source all but admitted that Posada and Bosch had engineered the bombing of the airline." Bosch had arrived at Maiquetía airport on September 8 on a false Costa Rican passport and been met by Posada, [Orlando García](/people/orlando-garcía-vásquez/), the security adviser to President Carlos Andrés Pérez, and [Ricardo Morales Navarrete](/people/ricardo-morales-navarrete/) of DISIP. On October 14 the CIA reported a fund-raising dinner for Bosch in September at the house of a Cuban exile doctor, attended by Venezuelan officials, at which Bosch said his group had done "a great job" in killing [Orlando Letelier](/people/orlando-letelier/) and would "try something else." A few days later, the report went on, "Luis Posada Carriles was overheard to say that 'we are going to hit a Cuban airplane' and 'Orlando has the details.'" A State Department memorandum to [Henry Kissinger](/people/henry-a-kissinger/) of October 18 repeated the remark. The CIA had reported "Possible Plans of Cuban Exile Extremists to Blow Up a Cubana Airliner" on June 22, 1976.[^2][^4][^5] Morales, chief of DISIP's counterintelligence section D-54, told a Dade County detective on October 23 and 24 that the plan had been discussed at the bar of the Anauco Hilton by [Frank Castro](/people/frank-castro/), Gustavo Castillo, Posada, and himself, and again in his own apartment, where there was "disagreement as to who would take part in the various phases of the operation, and who would claim credit for the bombing." The group had tried before to bomb Cubana aircraft in [Panama](/places/panama/) and Jamaica. "Some people in the Venezuelan government are involved in this airplane bombing," he said, "and if Posada Carriles talks, then Morales Navarrete and others in the Venezuelan government will 'go down the tube.'" "We'll have our own Watergate." García told the detective that DISIP's bomb expert, Carlos Fabri, "became very nervous" when told he would have to testify. On October 27 the Venezuelan government announced "there is no Ricardo Morales Navarrete in DISIP."[^4] ### Afterward Venezuela arrested Posada and Bosch. Posada escaped in September 1985; Bosch was acquitted after eleven years and returned to the [United States](/places/united-states/) in 1988. A CIA summary filed in court in 2011 states that Posada was its paid agent from 1965 to 1967 and from 1968 to 1974, that he "provided unsolicited threat reporting" from 1974 to 1976, and that the agency severed ties in February 1976. In January 1977 an FBI informant reported that a [CORU](/organizations/coru/) member had come to Miami on the instructions of García to arrange "a naval operation against Cuban shipping enterprises, which should result in a maximum number of Cuban nationals killed," and a bombing of an embassy of a country with relations with Cuba, to "take away the 'pressure' from Orlando Bosch." The informant said Bosch had acted in bad faith: "The plane was to have been sabotaged on the ground and not in the air."[^5][^6][^7] [^1]: National Security Archive, "Bombing of Cuban Jetliner 30 Years Later," Electronic Briefing Book 202, October 5, 2006, with the affidavits of Trinidad and Tobago police officers and the FBI report of November 5, 1976, to the Secretary of State. [^2]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, message relay, Director to SAC Miami and legal attachés, "Suspected Bombing of Cubana Airlines DC-8 Near Barbados," October 7-8, 1976. National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 153, document 9. [^3]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Director to the Secretary of State, November 5, 1976, in National Security Archive, "Bombing of Cuban Jetliner 30 Years Later," Electronic Briefing Book 202, October 5, 2006, with the affidavits of Trinidad and Tobago police officers and the FBI report of November 5, 1976, to the Secretary of State. [^4]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami, teletype to Director, "Bombing of Cubana Airlines DC-8 Near Barbados, West Indies, October 6, 1976," November 2, 1976, JFK Assassination Records Collection. National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 153, document 10. [^5]: Central Intelligence Agency, intelligence report, "Activities of Cuban Exile Leader Orlando Bosch During his Stay in Venezuela," October 14, 1976. National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 334, document 7. [^6]: Central Intelligence Agency, "Unclassified Summary of the CIA's Relationship With Luis Clemente Posada Carriles," filed by the Department of Justice in *United States v. Posada Carriles,* W.D. Tex., 2011. National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 334, document 1. [^7]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami, file 2-471, "Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU)," January 24, 1977. National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 153, document 12.