Pilots

"Freedom."

To most people lucky enough to be born in a free society, the word itself rings of cliché.

But in the summer of 1994, Americans were reminded of how concrete a concept freedom can be, how desperately coveted it is by those to whom it's denied. In the blistering heat of the Florida Straits, thousands of impoverished and oppressed Cuban refugees took to the seas in makeshift rafts, often constructed merely of truck tire tubes, plastic sheets, and rope. They took their families and their few possessions — often just the clothes they wore and the scribbled address of a relative in the United States. For provisions, many carried only a few bottles of sugared water, the scarcity of food in Cuba ranking high among reasons for fleeing. And they hungered as well for a better life.

Ahead of anyone attempting the journey lay a treacherous voyage: 90 miles of open water in unpredictable weather.

Although some rafts have sails or old outboards, most must be paddled across the Straits of Florida — risking exposure, sharks, thirst, and strong currents that carry many families fatally out to sea. They paddle not just for freedom; they paddle for their lives.

Although small numbers of rafters have attempted the perilous journey over the years, and continue to do so, it wasn't until the mass exodus of late this summer that their plight came into full view of most Americans. Regardless of one's political views or opinion on the refugee issue, who could not be moved by footage of tearful, emaciated refugees being rescued at sea or reunited with relatives at the processing centers and camps?

Jose Basulto knows too well the hardships of life in communist Cuba and the great dangers faced by occupants of those isolated, tiny rafts at sea. A combat veteran of Brigada 2506, the volunteer army of Cuban expatriates who fought the ill-fated Bay of Pigs campaign in 1961, Basulto now is a successful construction contractor in Miami. In 1991, he founded Hermanos Al Rescate, or Brothers to the Rescue, in which civilian pilots use private, general aviation airplanes to search the Straits, locate rafters, drop them supplies, and report their positions to the U.S. Coast Guard. The operation, which enjoys full cooperation from the Coast Guard, has been hugely successful, having accounted for thousands of rescues over the years. But until the mass emigration began in August, the group's pilots flew mostly on weekends, locating only the occasional, lonely raft. As of mid-August, Hermanos Al Rescate had located and facilitated the rescue of about 3,800 rafters. But by the end of the first week in September, when negotiations with Cuba ended the recent crisis, that number had increased to about 8,900. (According to the Brothers, the Coast Guard rescued 37,086 Cuban rafters from January 1 to September 19, 1994, and 20,740 Haitian refugees in the same period.)

We visited with the Brothers at the height of the crisis, and were sandwiched between reporters and video crews from France, Poland, and Chile. Always in need of publicity before the crisis, the Brothers were swept up in the international media blitz that accompanied it. Footage shot by the Brothers' rescue aircraft helped bring the refugees' plight into living rooms here and abroad, and Basulto appeared on several national television shows.

While reporters scribbled notes and took pictures on a steamy September morning at Opa Locka Airport in suburban Miami, home of Hermanos Al Rescate since Hurricane Andrew wrecked their Tamiami Executive base, the Brothers prepared for a mission. Their aircraft of choice is the Cessna 337 Skymaster. The Brothers own four of them and a Cessna 320 Skyknight. Most missions are flown by volunteers in their own airplanes, many of them 337s also. While the pilots preflighted the centerline-thrust twins, volunteers wrapped rescue supplies in bubble wrap. Upon sighting rafters, the pilots will contact the Coast Guard and drop the supplies: fresh water, life jackets (13,000 airline life preservers were donated for the operation by American Airlines), smoke grenades, food, and small Radio Shack transceivers. "It's desperation," Basulto says as he tries to answer questions while attending to a hundred last-minute details at once. "These are people who feel suffocated by their government. They're not looking for the American dream. They just want out of the Castro nightmare."

Today's mission will include six aircraft flying designated search patterns above the Straits, within sight of Cuba. After checking the AccuWeather computer briefing and loading the airplanes, they gather in front of the hangar, join hands in a circle, and pray. Then they depart, one by one, on a flight plan pre-approved by ATC. Basulto's 337 is last to go, but in the minutes before departure, he scrubs his part of the mission because of a persistent stream of fuel from his left-wing vent. Despite repeated attempts to fix it and go, the leak will keep us on the ground this day. It is frustrating — lives are at stake — but it does give us a minute to talk.

Basulto, 54, grew up loving airplanes and became a pilot at 18 while still in Cuba. "I love flying. It's the feeling of freedom it gives me," he says. But when he came to Boston College in 1959, he tasted another kind of freedom. Space prevents us from telling his full story, but he was recruited by the CIA and quit college in 1961, then got U.S. training before joining the Cuban underground. After the Bay of Pigs debacle, he jumped the fence at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay. He insists, however, that the real story here is not Jose Basulto, but the organization he founded.

Over the years, Basulto maintained close ties in the Cuban- American community and with other Brigada 2506 veterans, many of whom now participate in Hermanos Al Rescate. Concerned about the plight of the rafters, Basulto realized that he and other private pilots could help. Since it was founded, Hermanos Al Rescate has flown more than 1,500 missions. Basulto, a 3,000-hour multiengine-rated commercial pilot, has flown about 150. Still, he estimates that only one in three rafters survives the voyage (the Coast Guard estimate is three out of four — still not enviable odds). The rest are carried out to sea or die of thirst and exposure. Empty rafts are a common sight in the Straits of Florida.

Today, the group has 35 pilots (and a waiting list of about 250) from 17 countries. They are airline pilots, flight instructors, private pilots — even some former rafters. The man who was to be our copilot on the scrubbed mission is a former MiG jock who returned home to Cuba after witnessing perestroika in the Soviet Union. "In Cuba," Juan Pablo says, "no perestroika." So, he defected to the United States. How? He explains sheepishly, with a slight grin: "I swam Guantanamo Bay."

It's sobering to think what people will do for freedom.

William L. Gruber, a former AOPA Pilot staff editor, is a freelance writer living in Venice, Florida.