Brothers to the Rescue will mark the 1996 shooting down of two of its planes by Cuban MiGs on Feb. 24 with the prayers, commemorative flight and other memorial gestures made each year -- and something new: a televised message to the Cuban people.

The organization will send three planes along the path that three planes followed Feb. 24, 1996, when only one returned.

They will toss flowers into the sea, say the names of the four volunteers who died -- Armando Alejandre, Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña, Pablo Morales -- and utter a prayer.

Brothers founder José Basulto, who piloted the third aircraft on that day seven years ago, said the organization will try to do something different on this flight -- transmit a UHF TV signal they hope will be seen on the island.

''We are going to tell them that we are remembering our brothers who died that day there. We are going to tell them how dangerous the Florida Straits are,'' said Basulto, who announced this month that the group would no longer respond to calls for service from South Florida relatives of missing migrants.

``The message isn't finalized. Maybe we'll have something recorded. One thing we are going to express is the significance Carlos, Armando, Mario and Pablo have had in the labor of the nonviolent struggle.''

The message should be available on Channel 58 of any cable-ready television, Basulto said Thursday.

Osvaldo ''Tito'' Pla, the organization's ham radio guru, said he has sent TV transmissions before.

''We already contacted a radio aficionado, and he is making antennas,'' Pla said.

The TV campaign is called Operation Leonardo Bruzón Avila, named for a Cuban dissident imprisoned since Feb. 23 for planning commemorative activities on the island.

The State Department and Amnesty International, which said in its last report that 'dissidents' efforts to commemorate the anniversary are often repressed by security forces,'' are concerned about Bruzón's health because of considerable weight he lost in a hunger strike and repeated denial of independent medical care.

''We are indebted to him. He is one of the few who took it upon himself to demonstrate openly in memory of our fallen pilots,'' Basulto said.