The Secret History of the MiG-21 in Cuba: From Crisis to Defection

Video from the channel Más Allá del Avión about Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 21:01. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.

A chronicle of the MiG-21's arrival in Cuba and its role in the island's military aviation. It traces the secret transfer of the first aircraft during Operation Anadyr, the 1962 missile crisis, the training of Cuban pilots, missions in Africa, and defections by aviators to the United States.

In the 1950s, the air force of Fulgencio Batista relied on surplus American equipment: F-51D Mustang fighters, B-26 Invader bombers and T-33 trainers. After the January 1959 revolution, the embargo left the fleet without spare parts and many of its pilots left. At the Bay of Pigs, in April 1961, both sides ended up flying the same American models. The Soviet Union later shipped disassembled MiG-21 F-13 fighters packed in crates aboard civilian freighters that were unloaded at night in Mariel and Casilda. According to the video, the 32nd Fighter Regiment of the Guard assembled them in Santa Clara. In mid-October 1962, U-2 photographs showed them at Santa Clara and San Antonio de los Baños, and the United States reinforced its Florida bases with interceptors. On 27 October, so-called Black Saturday, two anti-aircraft missiles shot down the U-2 flown by Major Rudolf Anderson.

The video stresses how difficult the adaptation was for Cuban pilots. The instruments read metres and kilometres per hour instead of feet and knots, the manuals were in Cyrillic and the interpreters did not master the technical vocabulary. The cockpit was very cramped and the delta wing required landing at high speed, which caused fatal accidents during training. In the 1970s and 1980s, Cuban pilots and technicians fought in Angola and Ethiopia. In March 1991, Major Orestes Lorenzo Pérez defected in his fighter, flying at sea level until landing in Key West. According to the video, these defections led to loading only the exact fuel needed for each mission. The surviving aircraft now sit in semi-abandoned bases and museums.