Sign-carrying crowds at airport, plane land, crewmen go into immigration office, emerge, go to plane more crowd shots, plane disappearing in sky back to Havana




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Background: An angry, placard-carrying crowd, shouting "Castro-Go-Home" greeted a Cuban airliner Monday ( 21 September) as weekly flights between Havana and Nassau were inaugurated.

About 300 Bahamians, angered by the British government's approval of the flights under a 16-year-old air pact with Cuba, brandished signs with such slogans as "Yankees Si, Communists No."
The 100-passenger, Russian-built Ilyushin airliner carried only a six-man crew and some mail.

The pilot, Capt. George P. Requany, and three crewmen left the plane and were taken to immigration headquarters for questioning. Two crew members were left aboard the plane to guard it.

Later the pilot and the three other crewmen went back aboard and the airliner departed for Havana as empty as it had arrived.

Government sources speculated Tuesday (22 September) that Premier Fidel Castro might be hoping to use the air route to transport American spare parts, machinery and other brought in Nassau.

One high government would detain and deport any passengers arriving from Cuba.

In the picketing crowd were businessmen, church people, labor union representatives, Cuban exiles and representatives of Chinese and Greek communities in the Bahamas.