Southern Air Transport (SAT) (1947–1998), based in Miami, Florida, was a cargo airline best known as a front company for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (1960–1973) and for its crucial role in the Iran-Contra scandal in the mid-1980s. During the affair, Southern Air transported arms to Iran and to the US-backed stateless mercenary army in Central America known as the Contras, which were fighting the revolutionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
History
1947–1986
SAT was founded in 1947 in Miami as a charter airline flying cargo to The Bahamas. By the time it was acquired by the CIA in 1960 for $300,000 (from the company's founder, F. C. "Doc" Moor) it was still small, with three aircraft, and "plenty of debts". SAT became a subsidiary of the CIA's airline proprietary network managed by George A. Doole Jr., the Pacific Corporation. SAT's Pacific Division supported the US war effort in Southeast Asia, and operated 23 Lockheed L-100 Hercules aircraft in its fleet. According to the Miami Herald, during the 13 years the agency owned the airline it earned $3 million in profits, most of which were poured back into the firm to expand its operations.
At one point, SAT was the CIA’s largest “proprietary” – a private business owned by the CIA – with estimated assets of more than $50 million and more than 8,000 employees worldwide.
The CIA sold Southern Air Transport for $2.1 million in 1973 to an aviation executive who had fronted for the agency's ownership of the airline for 13 years, the Miami Herald reported on 10 March 1975. According to the newspaper, SAT had a stockholder equity of $4.2 million when the CIA sold it to Stanley G. Williams, who had fronted as president of the firm from 1962 to 31 December 1973, when he purchased the airline. The Miami Herald said, however, that Williams did not get as good a deal as he wanted for the airline. "It was a long, hard, arms-length transaction," Williams said of the sale.
SAT was sold again in 1979, this time to James H. Bastian – described by the Los Angeles Times in 1986 as "a top-notch Washington, D.C., aviation attorney who had worked with Doole at the Pacific Corp. from 1961 to 1974, as secretary, vice president and general counsel." Under Bastian the company expanded its revenues (from $9.8m in 1982 to $38.m in 1985) and had over 500 employees in 1986.
1982 fleet
As of 1982, the SAT fleet was as follows:
3 Curtiss C-46 Commando
2 Douglas DC-6
1 Douglas DC-8
1 Lockheed L-100-20 Hercules
2 Lockheed L-100-30 Hercules
Previous jet fleet
Southern Air Transport also operated the following jet aircraft types at various times during its existence:
Boeing 707-320C
Boeing 727-100C
Boeing 747-200F
Douglas DC-8 - including DC-8-21F, Super DC-8-71F and Super DC-8-73F freighter aircraft Lockheed JetStar
Iran–Contra affair
As part of Oliver North's activities to trade arms for hostages with Iran and to support the contra rebellion in Nicaragua, Southern Air carried four loads of US weapons bound for Iran from the US to Israel, and on the return flights carried weapons destined for the US-backed right-wing Contra rebels in Nicaragua from Portugal. On 5 October 1986, a Southern Air Transport C-123K, loaded with weapons, failed to return from a scheduled drop to the Contras in Nicaragua. In charge of the operation was Felix Rodriguez. He was the logistics officer for airlifts of weapons and supplies from the Ilopango air base, in El Salvador, to the jungle hide-outs of the Contras. Rodriguez did not notify the Defense Department or the CIA but rather attempted to get word about the missing C-123K to Donald Gregg, the National Security Advisor for Vice President George H. W. Bush. The shooting down of an SAT flight helped expose the Iran-Contra scandal. Logbooks retrieved from the wreckage linked SAT to a history of involvement with the CIA, cocaine and the Medellin drug cartel. The logs documented several SAT flights to Barranquilla, during October 1985.
In the same time period Wanda Palacios told the FBI that SAT was running drugs. She worked in the early 1980s for Colombia’s Medellin Cartel and had direct knowledge of the cartel’s dealings with the CIA and the Contras. She brought her testimony to US Senator John Kerry. Wanda Palacios had witnessed in 1983-1985 in Barranquilla, the arrival of SAT planes loaded with weapons for the cartel, which would then send them to the Contras. The planes would return to the US loaded with cocaine. Palacio stated that Jorge Luis Ochoa Vásquez himself explained to her the guns-for-drugs deal with the CIA to supply the Contras.