Aero Caribbean Ilyushin IL-18 – CU-T1532

In 1982, the state-owned airline Cubana formed Aero Caribbean as a subsidiary for charter flights within the country and to destinations to neighboring islands and countries around the Caribbean, such as the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico. Initially, six IL-18s were in use. These were later supplemented and finally replaced by modern ATR-42s and ATR-72s. One of these Ilyushin IL-18s was CU-T1532, which was originally built for East Germany’s Interflug in 1968 and entered service there as DM-STO. After a brief stint as D-AOAU with short-lived Berline, founded by former Interflug employees in 1991, it flew for Air Zory of Bulgaria for four years before being sold to Cuba in 1995, where it remained in service in this colorful and unusual livery into the new millennium. Due to an engine fire, CU-T1532 had to abort take-off in the eastern Cuban city of Holguín on March 6, 2004. After the incident, in which no one was injured, the aircraft was cannibalized for spare parts for several years until all remaining IL-18s were finally decommissioned by 2011.