CUBA DOWNS CIVILIAN CRAFT.

Byline: Nicole Winfield Associated Press 

Cuban government fighter planes shot down two small aircraft Saturday belonging to an exile group flying off the coast of Havana, officials said.

The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy were searching international waters for four people who were on board the Brothers to the Rescue planes, said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Mark Woodring. A third plane in the group was not hit and returned safely to Miami.

Officials said there were no debris or signs of survivors from the two planes.

President Clinton dispatched F-16 fighters to protect search and rescue operations. He demanded an immediate explanation from the Cuban government.

"I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms," Clinton said in Seattle.

It was not clear whether the three Cessna 337 Skymasters had flown over Cuban territory, and Clinton did not know the location of the planes when they were downed.

The wife of Arnaldo Iglesias, a returning crew member, said her husband told her the planes had not strayed into Cuban airspace.

"He told me they were definitely in international waters," Mirta Iglesias said. "He saw Cuban planes. He didn't tell me anything else."

Late Saturday, officials from U.S. Customs Service were questioning Iglesias and the returning pilot, Jose Basulto, head of Brothers to the Rescue, at the group's headquarters at Opa-Locka Airport in Miami.

A Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that while details were still unclear, early indications suggested the planes may have been heading to Cuba to land, pick up people and fly them out of the country.

White House spokeswoman Mary Ellen Glynn said the flight plans indicated the planes would take off from Opa-Locka Airport, fly south and then return.

"We're not sure how far, just out and back, no touchdown (in Cuba)," she said.

White House press secretary Mike McCurry said U.S. officials had been unaware that Cuba was the real destination of the planes. "They clearly had detoured" from their flight plan "if they were in this vicinity," McCurry said. "We would not have accepted flight plans indicating Cuba as a destination."

Pilots from Brothers to the Rescue dropped leaflets over Havana in July and again in January urging peaceful protest to the communist regime of President Fidel Castro.

Basulto was under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration for violating Cuban airspace in the previous flyovers. The case is still pending.

After the July 13 flyover, Castro warned that any aircraft that violated Cuban airspace risked being shot down.

The search area was in international seas, eight miles north of the 12 miles of water that Cuba claims as its own, said Coast Guard Petty Officer David French. The first Coast Guard jet on the scene reported seeing two oil slicks in the area.

The Coast Guard was using a C-130 cargo plane, a helicopter and two cutters from Key West, about 90 miles north, in the search. Two Navy ships also were in the area.

Every Saturday, Brothers to the Rescue flies to the Bahamas to drop supplies to refugees staying in camps. The group of mostly older Cuban exiles also makes routine flights over the Straits of Florida, which separate Florida and Cuba, in search of rafters who have fled.

Mirta Iglesias said Bahamian officials had refused give the group permission for Saturday's mission, so they instead flew over the straits in search of rafters. She identified the missing four as Armando Alejandre, Mario de la Pena, Pablo Morales and Carlos Costas.

Roberto Gutierrez, who answered the phone at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, which is Cuba's diplomatic arm in the United States, said he knew nothing about the shooting down of the planes.

"We don't know anything," Gutierrez said. "We haven't had any news."

There was no mention of the shooting on Cuban newscasts.

A coalition of peaceful dissident organizations was scheduled to have a conference in Havana on Saturday, but it was postponed following the reported arrests of 50 members of human rights groups. Opposition leaders in Cuba said those detained were held up to 12 hours and then released.

The State Department has condemned the arrests.

Jorge Mas Canosa, head of the powerful Cuban American National Foundation, which has been most vocal about the arrests, condemned Saturday's attack.