Cuba's failure to compensate the families of victims of a May 2018 air disaster has come to light in recent press reports. Irregularities regarding the cause of the incident and persecution by Cuban authorities of international lawyers representing relatives of the deceased have also been reported.
Cuban airlines are some of the worst-ranked in the world for security and service. Cuba Archive has documented at least 18 civil aviation accidents of Cuban airlines since 1959 with a toll of 673 fatalities, including 112 killed May 18, 2018, when a Cubana de Aviación Boeing 737, operated by the Mexican company Global Air, went down near Havana en route to Holguín. That is a very high accident rate compared to the number of flights.