Mailen Díaz Almaguer, the sole survivor of the 2018 plane crash in Havana, shared an emotional message this Sunday on , reflecting on the fact that exactly four years ago, on August 23, 2022, she boarded a plane for the first time since the event that changed her life forever.
That flight took her to Cancun, Mexico, and although the stay lasted just three days, for Mailen it represented much more than an ordinary trip: it was the moment she overcame the fear that had bound her since the tragedy of May 18, 2018.
"This day marked a turning point in my life. It was the first time I flew on a plane after that terrible accident," he wrote.
In her text, the young woman described the mix of emotions she experienced while boarding that plane: "Excitement, nerves, happiness, but above all, the certainty that fear no longer ruled me, but faith; the certainty that everything that happened in my life was under God's will and that Christ had set me free from all fear."
He honestly acknowledged that he didn’t fully take advantage of those three days of stay, but he clarified that this was not the essential part: "The best thing was that I broke free from something that was still holding me back."
"That flight was not just a trip to Cancun. It was a leap of faith, a victory over fear, and yet another testament to the fact that when God sets us free, we can once again do what we once believed we could never do," he concluded in his post.
Mailen was 19 years old when the Boeing 737-200 operated by the Mexican company Global Air, leased to Cubana de Aviación, crashed minutes after taking off from José Martí Airport. Of the 113 occupants on the flight, she was the only survivor. In the accident, her first husband, Jean Michel López Salinas, died.
The physical repercussions were devastating: she was left paralyzed from the waist down, suffered burns, and had her left leg amputated at the knee. She spent months hospitalized at Calixto García in Havana and underwent a long rehabilitation process along with multiple surgeries.
The Christian faith has been the central focus of her public testimony since the accident. Identified with the Methodist Church, she married Mario Jesús Rodríguez Oliva in March 2022 in a ceremony at her home in Havana under the auspices of that congregation, and in September 2025 she began a Bachelor’s degree in Theology at the Methodist Seminary of Havana.
In 2026, Mailen has maintained an active presence on social media, seeking justice for the victims of the accident and reflecting on her faith and the situation in Cuba.
This Sunday, as the fourth anniversary of that flight to Cancun arrives, she chose to look back not with sorrow, but with gratitude and hope.
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