Frances Robles

It means that the Brothers to the Rescue kind of no longer has a mission.

So they change their mission.

And they start getting a little bit more provocative.

and poking a stick in the eye of Fidel Castro.

How so?

They started dropping leaflets over Cuba.

They dropped religious medallions, doing things like that that were a little bit more protest actions as opposed to rescue missions.

The Cuban government was furious.

They felt like this was an illegal incursion into their airspace.

They kept on turning to the Clinton administration, saying, you guys got to put a stop to this.

Everybody and their mother warns the organization, you got to stop, this is going to blow up in your face.

And the founder of the organization was a man named Jose Basulto.

He felt really strongly that this was his right.

This was his right as a Cuban, as a Cuban-American, and he was going to continue those flights.

And he did.

And what happened?

So one day, February 24, 1996...

He left an airport outside of Miami.

He and two other planes left and they fly down to Cuba.

That day, they did cross what's known as the 24th parallel.