January 21, 1968

By Arnold Markowitz and Robert Reno

A cargo plane full of medicine, clothing and food parcels schedules for delivery to Cuba was gutted by a bomb explosion Saturday morning as it sat parked at Miami International Airport. Two other planes parked nearby received minor damage.

The FBI got a late start on the case because of a time lag of nearly five hours between the explosion and its actual discovery.

The agency began looking into the possibility that a Cuban exile organization may have planted the bomb on the plane.

Shortly before the 3 a.m. blast, an anonymous man telephoned Ramiro Boza, who monitors Havana Radio for the Miami Bureau of the Associated Press, and said "something is going to happen."

In two subsequent calls, at about 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., the man called back with background details about the converted B-25 warplane and its cargo. Some of those details were later confirmed by investigators.

The man said an organization called Cuban Power had planted the bomb, but several exile sources said they had never heard of such an organization.

It was learned that men working for the Guatemalan airline Avetica, in a hangar near the ramp on which the cargo plane was parked, heard the explosion at 3 a.m. but did not report it to authorities.

The discovery of the damage was made between 7:30 and 8 a.m. by a man police identified as John Puccereila, and employee of SAM airlines which leases the ramp on which the B-25 was parked.

Police said a Convair 240 and a Cessna parked alongside the B-25 also were damaged.

Investigators think an unsuccessful attempt may have been made to get the bomb into the locked plane, and that whoever planted it had to settle instead for fastening it to the left wing. An engine there was wrecked, and the wind itself and an adjacent part of the fuselage were damaged.

The FBI said it might take a few days to determine exactly what sort of explosive and timing the device, if any, was used in the bomb.

The plane is owned by Ramon Masso Rodriguez of 63-500 Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. Its pilot was Jorge Erales, also of Merida, who arrived from Mexico Friday with a crewman, Coello Pastor.

The anonymous caller who talked to Ramiro Boza said the plane is part of an operation flying $11 million worth of goods per year to the people of Cuba. He said the goods were shipped to Merida and transferred to a DC4 for regular deliveries to Cuba.