By
The Associated Press
KEY WEST, Fla. - The FBI said yesterday the Cuban plane that crashed in the Gulf of Mexico doesn't appear to have been hijacked but the agency is withholding a final determination until it questions eight survivors still aboard the cargo ship that rescued them.
A ninth survivor, Rodolfo Fuentes, 36, was in a Key West hospital, where he was interviewed by U.S. authorities yesterday. He was air-lifted from the Panamanian-flagged freighter Chios Dream with severe head and neck injuries. Doctors said yesterday that he is in stable condition and doing well.
"We still need to interview the people on the ship before we can rule out a hijacking," said Judy Orihuela, an FBI spokeswoman in Miami. "At this point, it doesn't appear to be a hijacking, but until we interview them we can't be sure."
She said details of the Fuentes interview were being withheld until authorities finished the investigation.
Once the FBI determines whether the plane was hijacked or flown from Cuba voluntarily, immigration officials will be able to determine if the survivors should quality for asylum in the United States. U.S. authorities have returned hijackers to Cuba for prosecution and have prosecuted some in this country.
A Coast Guard cutter is waiting near the rescue ship to take the survivors from the freighter for interviews as soon as the sea calms.
"If they pass the credible fear test they will be taken to Guantanamo Bay (the U.S. base at the eastern end of Cuba). If they do not, they will be repatriated to Cuba," said Maria Cardona, a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The credible fear test requires would-be immigrants to demonstrate a fear of persecution in their home country "based on nationality, race, religion, political opinion or membership in a particular social group."
U.S. law lets Cubans apply for residency if they reach U.S. soil. Ordinarily, those who are picked up at sea are returned to Cuba, but authorities said it was too early to say what would be done.
When asked about the status of Fuentes, Cardona noted that he is now on U.S. soil and eligible to stay.
A hospital executive said yesterday that he had been told the eight survivors might be brought to a Key West hospital for evaluation to determine whether they need to be admitted.
"The Coast Guard had told me earlier that they had a plan to bring in the eight people," said Ron Bierman, chief executive of the Lower Keys Medical Center. "Now they say they haven't made a decision yet. My hope is they give us some indication with reasonable amount of time to make arrangements."
A doctor from the nearby Carnival Cruise ship Tropicale initially treated the survivors onboard the freighter. In addition to Fuentes' injuries, a women had a broken collarbone and another had a severe leg cut, Carnival spokesman Andy Newman said.
U.S. Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Cuban-American lawmakers from Miami, wrote to President Clinton yesterday asking that all nine Cubans be granted asylum.
"Certainly they will face persecution in Cuba for their involvement in such a high-profile and risky attempt to flee the island," the letter said.
The Cuban government had said the pilot reported to the control tower that he was being hijacked and that the plane, a Russian-built government crop-duster, was headed to Florida with a group of adults and children.
A statement from the Cuban government, published yesterday in the Communist Party daily Granma, said that pilot Lenin Iglesias Hernandez apparently first took off in the plane at 7:35 a.m. Tuesday from a small airstrip for what appeared to be a routine crop-dusting flight. It said he flew to another airport, picked up a group of people waiting at the end of a runway, then took off again at 8:35 a.m.
The plane crashed in the southern Gulf of Mexico about 50 miles west of Cuba and 285 miles from Key West. The Coast Guard said the craft was heading west, toward Mexico, when it went down.
