Southern Air Transport

Defunct American cargo airline
the 1929 airline

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. 1 Lockheed L 100 20 Hercules
2 Lockheed L 100 30 Hercules

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. On March 10, 1999, the assets of Southern Air Transport were purchased by Southern Air, and the new carrier began operations in November 1999.