US intelligence-gathering flights are surging off Cuba

U.S. military intelligence gathering flights are increasing off the coast of Cuba, according to a CNN analysis of publicly available aeronautical data.

Since Feb. 4, the U.S. Navy and Air Force have conducted at least 25 such flights using manned aircraft and drones, most near the country’s two largest cities, Havana and Santiago de Cuba, and some within 40 miles of the coast, according to FlightRadar24.

Most of the flights were carried out by P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, designed for surveillance and reconnaissance, while some were carried out by an RC-135V Rivet Joint, specialized in the collection of signals intelligence. Several MQ-4C Triton high-altitude reconnaissance drones were also used.

These flights are notable not only for their proximity to the coast, which places them within range of intelligence gathering, but also for the suddenness of their appearance – before February, such publicly visible flights were extremely rare in this region – and their timing.

Trump’s public statements against Cuba sharpened significantly in the weeks leading up to this wave, with the US president reposting on Truth Social a comment by Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen that Trump would visit a “free Havana” before leaving office. Just days after this publication, Trump ordered an oil blockade of the island.

Now, Trump is imposing an expanded sanctions regime on Cuba and insists it poses a “threat” to U.S. national security. (Cuban officials, meanwhile, have rejected the notion that their communist government poses any danger to the United States. They insist they are open to negotiations, but have also pledged to wage a prolonged guerrilla war against U.S. forces if attacked.)

The Pentagon declined to comment on the findings; CNN also contacted the Cuban government.

A familiar playbook

Similar patterns, in which the Trump administration’s intensified rhetoric coincided with an increase in publicly visible surveillance flights, occurred in the run-up to U.S. military operations in Venezuela and Iran.

In the case of Venezuela, Trump announced the first U.S. strike against a suspected drug ship in the Caribbean on September 2, specifically alleging a connection to then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom he accused of “massacres, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror.”

Publicly visible surveillance flights began a week later off the coast of Venezuela, continuing – with a hiatus in October and November – into the days before Maduro was captured at his compound in Caracas by US special forces.

A similar trend occurred in Iran, where a much larger array of intelligence-gathering aircraft and unmanned drones openly monitored Iran’s southern coast ahead of joint U.S. and Israeli strikes. The P-8A Poseidon, RC-135V Rivet Joint and MQ-4C Triton, all of which have been spotted in recent weeks near Cuba, are among the aircraft active in the Iranian conflict.

Since early 2025, dozens of these same U.S. surveillance aircraft have been active around the war zone in Ukraine and near geopolitical hotspots on the Korean Peninsula and along Russia’s western border. Grouped data aggregated by adsb.exposed shows flights in these and other regions operating consistently over several months.

However, the increase in flights observed off the Cuban coast is new and a departure from where these planes have historically been deployed.

A public message?

All flights described above were tracked using publicly available open source flight tracking dashboards, such as Flightradar24 or ADS-B Exchange.

And in some cases, these thefts have been widely shared on social media, whether on X, Discord or other platforms.

This is even though the planes involved are capable – if they choose – of masking their presence by turning off their tracking beacons, raising the question of whether the United States is deliberately signaling the presence of these planes to its adversaries.

Whether or not this signal is explicitly intended by the American army or administration, the message risks being, to say the least, destabilizing for Cuban officials.

CNN’s Natasha Bertrand and Patrick Oppmann contributed to this report.

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