The story of the 1996 shootdown that could lead to Raúl Castro's indictment

Politics The story of the 1996 shootdown that could lead to Raúl Castro's indictment By Joe Walsh Joe Walsh Senior Editor, Politics Joe Walsh is a senior editor for digital politics at CBS News. Joe previously covered breaking news for Forbes and local news in Boston. Read Full Bio Joe Walsh May 18, 2026 / 6:44 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google In February 1996, three small civilian planes took off from a Miami-area airport, operated by a Cuban exile group that searched for people seeking to flee the island nation in rafts. Two of the planes were shot down by a Cuban fighter jet, killing four people.Now, 30 years later, the deadly shootdown appears to be the focus of a potential federal criminal case against one of the most powerful figures in Cuba.The U.S. is taking steps to indict Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old who led Cuba after the retirement of his older brother, Fidel, CBS News was first to report last week. An indictment would mark an escalation of the Trump administration's pressure campaign against Cuba and a new phase in the U.S.' long, tense relationship with the Castro family.The organization that flew the planes, Brothers to the Rescue, was founded in the early 1990s by José Basulto, a Cuban American who has described himself as a participant in the Bay of Pigs invasion, the botched CIA-sponsored operation to oust Fidel Castro in 1961. A Brothers to the Rescue plane flies over The Democracy Movement flotilla at the twelve-mile limit north of Havana, Cuba, on July 10, 1999. ALAN DIAZ The group operated search-and-rescue flights over the waters between Florida and Cuba, aiding thousands of people who fled Cuba on makeshift vessels, according to Basulto. He later said the group also sought to help Castro opponents. By the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration stopped automatically admitting these emigrants into the U.S., causing the number of people taking to the sea in rafts to drop significantly.The Cuban government accused Brot...