A small plane with its pilot slumped over flew a ghostly 1,700-mile journey down the Atlantic Coast shadowed by two US fighter jets before finally crashing in the waters off Jamaica.

A CUBAN plane carrying 35 passengers and crew was hijacked on Wednesday night and forced to fly to Florida, where it landed in Key West under escort of US military jets, US and Cuban authorities said.

The 15-year-old student pilot who crashed a small plane into a Florida skyscraper wrote a note expressing sympathy for Osama bin Laden and support for the September 11 terrorist attacks, police said.