Sweetwater plans memorial to downed ‘Brothers to the Rescue’

Sweetwater plans memorial to downed 'Brothers to the Rescue'
BY REBECA PICCARDO RPICCARDO@MIAMIHERALD.COM
11/07/2014 6:03 PM 11/07/2014 6:32 PM

The city of Sweetwater will build a plaza next year as a memorial to
four men from Brothers to the Rescue whose unarmed planes were shot down
by Cuban MiG fighter jets 18 years ago.

Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario M. de la Peña and Pablo
Morales were volunteers for the Miami-based nonprofit that coordinated
rescue missions with the U.S. Coast Guard, spotting Cuban rafters over
international waters. The organization also dropped pro-democracy
leaflets over Cuba.

The Cuban Air Force shot down the two planes the men were flying in
February 1996. The Cuban regime said the planes were flying through
Cuban airspace, but an investigation by the United Nation's aviation
branch concluded that the planes were shot down far out in international
airspace and in violation of established procedures.

Sweetwater officials rededicated a wooden bridge to honor the victims in
2009. Now the city is building a Brothers to the Rescue plaza in front
of the 109 Tower student apartments that connects to the bridge.

City officials want to finish the plaza by early 2016, so that it will
be open for the 20th anniversary of the 1996 incident. Bronze plaques
placed throughout the plaza will recount the sequence of events during
that last mission, and memorialize each member of the group.

Miriam de la Peña, the mother of one of the pilots, lived in Sweetwater
for a number of years while her son was growing up.

"All the families are very grateful to the city," she said. "It is
particularly touching for me."

De la Peña's son was the youngest in the group, and was on his way to
becoming a commercial airline pilot through an internship with American
Airlines. He was finishing school at Embry Riddle Aeronautical
University and flying on Brothers to the Rescue missions in his spare
time. At 24, he had completed almost 100 search-and-rescue missions
before he died.

"He was happy when he was called to a mission. It was very fulfilling,"
de la Peña said. "He was saving lives — that's what kept him going."

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, about 54 percent of Sweetwater's
13,500 residents are of Cuban descent.

The architecture firm that the city hired for the project consulted with
the families of the victims when designing the plaza. It will look like
a large stone-floor corridor with four elongated seagull-shaped concrete
structures, with wooden benches, trees and other greenery.

"Their call names for each other were seagulls," said Cristina Canton,
founding partner of NC-Office architecture firm, which designed the plaza.

Sweetwater Commissioner Manuel Duasso, who was in the city government
when the planes were shot down, has pushed to build a major plaza to
honor the pilots for years. With the recent boom in development, the
city could finally afford to fund the project.

"My dream has been to make this plaza," Duasso said. "It's not about
politics, it's about being human and having a heart."

NC-Office is working along with T.Y. Lin International Group to build
the plaza and build a flood wall by the canal next to it and light up
the wooden bridge and plaza. The projected cost is $600,000.

The firm is also looking into adding audio recordings to the plaques,
said NC-Office partner Elizabeth Cardona, like adding sound bites from
the radio communications of the military aircraft that shot down the planes.

Since the plaza will be an area students from Florida International
University will walk through, the city and the families wished to make
it an educational space for them.

The city will undergo other beautification projects along 109th Avenue
with the TIGER Grant funds for the UniversityCity district; the plaza
design and color palette will also influence the rest of the city's
improvements.

"This will be a model for, potentially, the rest of Sweetwater," said
Nikolay Nedev, from NC-Office.

BROTHERS TO THE RESCUE
Brothers to the Rescue started out as a group that flew near Cuba
looking for rafters. The group later dropped leaflets within Cuban
airspace, antagonizing the Communist state. Cuban MiGs shot down two of
the Brothers' unarmed planes on Feb. 24, 1996.

These four men died in the incident:

▪ Pablo Morales, born in Havana, was spotted in the ocean by Brothers to
the Rescue in 1992, and later joined the cause. He died at age 29.

▪ Carlos Costa, born in Miami Beach, flew in 141 missions in four years
as a Brothers to the Rescue member. He died at age 29.

▪ Armando Alejandre Jr., born in Havana, fled Cuba with his family at
age 10 and grew up in Miami, graduating from Florida International
University. He joined Brothers to the Rescue to express his gratitude to
the United States for giving refuge to Cubam exiles. He died at age 45.

▪ Mario M. de la Peña, born in New Jersey, worked as a volunteer pilot
for Brothers to the Rescue while he finished school to become a
commercial airline pilot. He died at age 24.

For more information, visit www.shootdownvictims.org.

Source: Sweetwater plans memorial to downed 'Brothers to the Rescue' |
The Miami Herald -
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/west-miami-dade/article3649539.html