History of Cubana de Aviación CIA plan to execute sabotage, assassinations, and to attack and invade Cuba with the objective of overthrowing its revolutionary government. This broad strategy of aggression and sabotage culminated in the failed, CIA-planned and executed April 1961 invasion of Cuba at Playa Girón (also known as the Bay of Pigs). When an aerial bombardment of several Cuban airports by CIA-piloted and owned U.S. B-26 bombers (using fake Cuban air force livery to confound defenders) occurred on 15 April 1961, Cubana was forced to discontinue all its operations. One of Cubana's Douglas DC-3 aircraft, registered CU-T138, that was parked at Santiago de
United States involvement in regime change Sarit. It also deployed the CIA-sponsored Police Aerial Reinforcement Unit (PARU) to operations within Laos. With the help of CIA front organization Air America to airlift war supplies and with other U.S. military assistance and covert aid from Thailand, General Phoumi Nosavan's forces captured Vientiane in November 1960. The CIA orchestrated a force composed of CIA-trained Cuban exiles to invade Cuba with support and equipment from the US military, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States.