A Story from When Planes Flew to Havana

My assignment was to photograph the plane in flight before it landed—perhaps the least appealing job of all the photojournalists involved in covering President Barack Obama’s visit to Havana with his family. But it was the assignment I had, and I had to get it right. The rent on my apartment in Vedado wasn’t going to pay itself, and my salary at Granma certainly wasn’t going to cover it.

I felt a strange mixture of reluctance and unease. If the newspaper I worked for found out what I was doing, I would almost certainly be fired. And closing that door in Cuba meant, in practice, closing the doors of the entire national press.

The only part of Obama’s visit I was officially assigned to cover was his speech at the theater that evening. But for some reason, I was expected to spend the entire day in the press room at the Hotel Habana Libre. So I slipped away with the motorcycle rider I had hired to get around.

“I’m going to grab something to eat. I’ll be right back,” I told a colleague from the newspaper.

And off we went in search of the plane, several hours before it was due to arrive.

I positioned myself where I thought the aircraft might pass, but the police told me to move along. I couldn’t stay there. So we rode around for a while, and I decided to buy a pizza while I figured out where to go next. That was how I ended up on Calzada de Bejucal, a street running parallel to Boyeros, roughly level with the airport.

I wasn’t particularly confident that I would catch the plane, especially after a man there started telling me it would be difficult because aircraft usually approached from another direction. It all depended on the wind.

All I could do was hope my camera—a Nikon D7000—would behave. I would have only fractions of a second to get the shot, and the cheap lens I was using kept giving me a contact error. On top of that, the battery compartment door would pop open and the battery would fall out. I had developed a peculiar way of holding the camera, pressing upward with my little finger to keep the door shut. My finger always ended up hurting.

First White House aircraft to arrive in Havana in 88 years

From a balcony, a family who had also been following everything asked whether I was there to photograph the plane.

I said yes.

“Don’t worry, not yet. We’ll let you know.”

Apparently, they were following updates about the flight on the radio.

Two or three planes passed before the main arrival. I photographed every one of them and checked the images on the back of the camera. At 2:48 p.m., another aircraft flew overhead. Looking at the file, I spotted the American flag on it, but my new friends on the balcony told me that wasn’t the one.

“How can that not be it?”

It wasn’t. It was a White House aircraft, part of the advance operation.

Almost two hours later, the people on the balcony—by then practically friends—shouted down to me:

“Skinny! Aim and shoot!”

“Are you sure?”

I still couldn’t hear the aircraft’s engines.

“Yes! It’s already there!”

Then I heard it.

I fired a burst.

And it began to drizzle.

Air Force One touched down at José Martí International Airport at exactly 4:19 p.m.

Several people wave to the photographer from a balcony as they wait for Air Force One to arrive.

Still, I got lucky.

Everyone in the neighborhood was watching for Air Force One. For the first time in more than eighty years, a sitting president of the United States was visiting the island. Several planes passed overhead, giving me a better idea of the approach route.

I ran a few tests with the camera. The sky was overcast. I raised the ISO, adjusted the shutter speed, stopped down the aperture...

Then a rather insecure policeman came over and asked whether I was taking pictures of him. I told him I wasn’t and had to show him the last photographs on my camera.

An aircraft is seen from a neighborhood in Cuba on March 20, 2016.

A Copa Airlines aircraft is seen from a Cuban neighborhood on March 20, 2016.

An Aeroméxico aircraft is seen from a Cuban neighborhood on March 20, 2016.

A street near the airport, hours before the arrival of the plane carrying the Obama family.

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