Keeping the Flame Alive
Family of Martyred Pilot makes largest donation to Law School

Gathered for the ribbon cutting of the new Carlos Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic are FIU President Modesto A. Maidique; Carlos' niece Melissa Mendez Chantres, his sister Mirta Mendez and father Osvaldo Costa; FIU Provost Mark Rosenberg; Carlos' mother Mirta Costa and his nephew Michael Mendez; and Dean of the College of Law Leonard Strickman.

The family of an American pilot shot down by Cuban fighter jets during a humanitarian mission has turned its pain into pride with a $1 million contribution to FIU’s College of Law.

The donation will support FIU’s immigration and human rights clinic, renamed for Carlos Costa, which makes available trained law students, supervised by faculty members, to serve indigent clients who have fled persecution and are seeking haven in the United States. New offices and meeting rooms will be constructed for the clinic, which will be housed in the planned College of Law building designed by renowned architect Robert Stern. FIU will break ground on the new law school building this year.

In February 1996, Costa, a 29-year-old aviator from Miami, joined three colleagues in searching the international waters between Florida and Cuba, his parents’ native land. He was a member of the Brothers to the Rescue organization that sends small aircraft to locate would be Cuban refugees adrift at sea. That day, the men encountered deadly missile fire while trying to help others escape oppression. Their two single-engine planes went down in full view of horrified cruise ship passengers.

Their remains were never found.

“I think the mourning is done, and I think now it’s time to commemorate the life of Carlos Costa and celebrate what he did,” says nephew Michael Mendez, the director of the foundation that made the gift to FIU.

Both the largest gift ever made by the Costa Foundation and the largest donation received to date by the College of Law, which opened in 2002, the funds will serve a purpose uniquely related to Costa’s own passion.

Modesto A. Maidique, FIU’s Cuban-born president, hailed the family’s contribution as a perpetual tribute and one that will have a positive influence on many.

“The ideals that Carlos Costa embraced will live on as a beacon to guide our law students and open doors for those who will benefit from the services of the clinic,” Maidique says.

Lawsuits filed by the victims’ families in U.S. District Court resulted in a judgment against the Cuban government, and the case was settled when U.S. authorities agreed to transfer $93 million in frozen Cuban assets to the survivors. A portion of those funds have been used to establish charitable foundations in the names of the men.

Mendez, who was 16 when Costa was killed, describes him as a regular man who loved life and loved his family. Left behind were Costa’s parents, Mirta and Osvaldo, his sister and her three children, among them Mendez, a 2003 graduate of FIU.

“My uncle was a very normal person,” says Mendez, who believes that Costa, like the others involved, never foresaw the risk of an armed Cuban military attack. “What drove him was flying and helping these people out who... were crossing to freedom.”

Over the course of four years, Costa helped spot and then direct rescue boats to more than 500 so-called rafters, individuals who fled Cuba on homemade or otherwise ill-equipped vessels.

Says Leonard Strickman, dean of the law school, “Carlos committed his life to helping those who we refleeing oppression and seeking freedom. By naming this clinic in his honor, we will ensure that his memory and sacrifice are etched in the minds of everyone who will come through here.”