Early days Southern Air Transport (SAT) was initially a
sole proprietorship of F.C. "Doc" Moor, a pilot who had flown for a number of airlines, including
Pan Am. The initial period of activity lasted from February 1947 to January 1949, when Moor suspended operations to work for the Venezuelan carrier RANSA. Southern Air Transport was incorporated in Florida on 31 October 1949, Moor being president. SAT flew mostly cargo, but also some passenger traffic. SAT was an
irregular air carrier, a type of airline later known as a
supplemental air carrier.
CIA era -era Southern Air Transport
Boeing 727-100C at
Tan Son Nhut Air Base July 1969. Owner of registration number N5092 was
Air America at
London Gatwick Airport 1970. Note the eight-point compass motif. The CIA has a sixteen-point compass on its seal The CIA purchased the airline on 5 August 1960, for $260,000 to Doc Moor and $40,000 to Stanley G. Williams. The CIA purchased SAT after consulting the CAB, driven by a desire to have access to heavy-lift non-governmental aircraft for CIA operational purposes without incurring significant ongoing expense. During the time the CIA owned the carrier, the CAB knew as did appropriate Congressional committees. The CIA provided the carrier with funding, allowing it to acquire larger aircraft and expand. In the three years 1957–1959, annual revenue averaged $400,000, with the military accounting for zero revenue 1957 and 1958 and less than 25% of revenue in 1959. By contrast, in the first three full years of CIA ownership, 1961–1963, revenue averaged almost $5 million per year, with the military accounting for over 80% in each of those years and profitability much improved. The CIA apparently also influenced a CAB award to provide the carrier with authority to fly civilian charters to Asia to support the Vietnam war. In July 1962, Stanley G. Williams, previously treasurer, became president, with Moor becoming chairman. The airline had four
Douglas DC-6s, three
C-46s and a
C-45. Until his death in 1972, Doc Moor devoted much of his time to
hydroplane racing, becoming national champion many times in his
displacement class, sometimes delivering his boats to races using the airline. SAT was part of group of CIA "proprietary" carriers and related businesses, including
Air America,
Air Asia,
Civil Air Transport and
Intermountain Aviation, under the
Pacific Corporation parent company run by
George A. Doole Jr.. The airline held itself out to the public as just another charter carrier. A 1965 advertisement in
The Miami News used the tag line "You can't measure Southern Air's service" and noted its capabilities in shipping livestock, household goods and cars. However, SAT's logo was an eight-point compass — the CIA has a 16-point compass on its seal. Other connections were more obvious. The 1968 CAB annual report to Congress showed Air America as the holder of SAT's debt, and by that time, Air America was widely believed to be controlled by the CIA. As a nearby photo indicates, SAT flew a 727 for which Air America was the registered owner. In 1966, SAT ordered a
Boeing 727 (specifically for use on its military transport contract in Asia) and in 1968,
Lockheed L-100s, the civilian version of the
C-130 Hercules military cargo aircraft. In 1970 the CAB gave the airline authority to use the L-100s for outsized cargo worldwide. Although SAT was substantially bigger than before it was bought by the CIA, it remained small by contrast to the industry, whatever the size of the overall CIA proprietary aviation business. In 1969, SAT revenues were $11 million, whereas all US supplemental air carriers together were $361 million, against US scheduled carrier revenues of $8.8 billion. In 1969 the Atlantic fleet was six aircraft, operating out of Miami, San Juan and the Bahamas; the Pacific fleet was four aircraft, operating passenger and cargo flights for the military out of
Yokota, Japan and
Tainan, Taiwan. In January 1970, SAT was one of a consortium of airlines carrying relief to
Biafra with L-100s. The L-100s ranged widely, one trip in 1971 traveling over 100,000 miles in 310 flight hours using five separate crews to Europe, Greenland, the Solomon Islands, Australia and within the United States before returning to Miami.
Transition from CIA In September 1971, a former CIA officer went public about Air America, accusing SAT of being a CIA front that existed for the purpose of providing the CIA with a way to send personnel and munitions to fight a Latin American clandestine war. Moor and Williams denied it. At the time the Asian fleet was two 727s and the Atlantic fleet was two DC-6s and three L-100s. In April 1972, the CIA decided it had no further need of SAT. It shut down Pacific operations pending a decision on what to do with the company. The CIA consulted with the CAB: sale to another airline required undesirable lengthy public hearings. The CAB preferred SAT not be liquidated so as to retain a potentially useful airline. Sale to management seemed like a quiet alternative. A sale was agreed in February 1973, but anticipated quick CAB approval was derailed by fierce opposition from competitors complaining of past and current competition from a government-owned airline, which reached a crescendo when the still CIA-owned SAT was awarded a contract to fly for an Air Force domestic cargo network known as
Logair. A "congressional source" said SAT got greedy. Had it not sought the Air Force contract the sale might have happened. That the CIA owned SAT was no longer a secret and received wide coverage. Reports came out of past SAT missions to global hotspots in Africa and the Caribbean. The CIA decided to kill SAT, but as an alternative, management agreed to turn in the carrier's certification (making the SAT a so-called
uncertificated carrier, no longer a
common carrier), which meant foregoing the Air Force contract, but also removed SAT from CAB jurisdiction. The airline was sold to Williams on 31 December 1973 for less than book equity, 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. • Military: •
Logair: Air Force domestic freight program, $30 million •
Quicktrans: US Navy program similar to Logair, $20 million •
Military Airlift Command: international charters on behalf of the US military, $10 million • Gulf War: additional military business supporting the war, $12 million • Commercial: •
Burlington Air Express: flying on behalf of this overnight air express company, $20 million •
Japan Air Lines: SAT flew cargo on behalf of this carrier, $18 million • Relief agencies: On behalf of
Lutheran World Federation,
Red Cross,
AmeriCares & the
United Nations, $10 million • Other commercial clients
1986–1999 Miami 1992
Miami 1992
Travis AFB 1993
Manchester Airport 1994 SAT operated out of
Kenya during the
Rwandan Civil War using L-100 Hercules aircraft. They also recruited and tried to recruit Canadian service members and some members of Relief Air Transport, the Canadian airline operating C-46s in Kenya, into their group. SAT operated out of
Asmara, Ethiopia, (now Eritrea), during the
Ethiopian famine of the late '80s. It hauled thousands of tons of relief supplies in the middle of a hot war under contracts for the UN,
Caritas Internationalis, Lutheran World Federation, and the
International Committee of the Red Cross, saving thousands of lives. SAT was also heavily involved in famine and disaster relief efforts in other areas of Africa. SAT supported the airlift into southern
Sudan from the late '80s into the middle '90s. At one time, SAT Hercules aircraft were the sole food supply for the refugee camps in the
Juba, Sudan area, during the north–south war. Again, SAT provided food for the helpless and saved countless thousands of lives. SAT's extensive operations included both offshore and domestic operations and SAT aircraft touched down on all seven continents and in well over a hundred countries. SAT aircraft were based in
Papua New Guinea, the U.K, and very commonly in various African countries, as well as other offshore locations, with crews rotating in and out as demand required. The crews were recruited from both ex-military and civilian-trained personnel. SAT consistently performed challenging tasks on a wide variety of contracts, many in disturbed areas such as
Somalia, both prior to and after the
Battle of Mogadishu. SAT Hercules aircraft also operated in
Angola,
Mozambique,
Djibouti,
Senegal, and the
DRC. SAT's crew training was maintained to high standards. The aircraft were consistently well-maintained, often under the most difficult of circumstances. Prior to the military cutback during the Clinton administration, SAT supported the U.S. Air Force's
Logair cargo system, as well as the U.S. Navy's
Quicktrans system, operating much more efficiently than the military could using their own airlift. SAT also flew extensively in Europe and west Asia in support of both the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy, basing out of
Ramstein Air Base near Landstuhl, Germany, and
RAF Mildenhall in East Anglia, U.K. SAT carried cargo of all possible description, from hauling newspapers from the U.K. to Ireland at night in winter across the Irish sea, to carrying breeding horses to Brazil. Additionally, SAT was entrusted with King
Tutankhamun's treasure. One notable 747 mission involved hauling a load of lions from
Amsterdam to
Johannesburg, South Africa, the lions being on loan from the Amsterdam Zoo to the Johannesburg Zoo. SAT
Lockheed L-100 Hercules,
Boeing 707s,
Douglas DC-8s and
Boeing 747s served many commercial carriers carrying outsize cargo and hazardous materials. It also performed routine U.S. Embassy supply missions throughout Latin America, covering all of Central and South America, as well as Mexico. One of SAT's most notable accomplishments was a three-year contract supporting
Chevron's drilling operations in the central highlands of Papua New Guinea, operating from a base at
Nadzab airport near Lae. Chevron was totally dependent on SAT L-100s, as no roads reached the massive oil recovery operation near
Lake Kutubu. Papua New Guinea provides some of the world's most challenging flying conditions, due both to the rapidly changing tropical monsoons that sweep the island nation, and the rugged terrain of the country. During the
Desert Shield and
Desert Storm operations, SAT's accomplishments became widely known. Both the company and the participating crew members received performance awards as members of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet from a grateful U.S. Air Force.
Relocation to Columbus In 1995, Edmund James, president of James and Donohew Development Services, negotiated with SAT and announced that it was locating to
Rickenbacker International Airport in
Columbus, Ohio. Much of the
Hong Kong-to-Rickenbacker cargo was for
Leslie Wexner's
The Limited Inc., Governor
George Voinovich stated: "I am extremely pleased to welcome Southern Air Transport to Ohio, as it will be the first airline to have its world headquarters located at Rickenbacker Airport. This will help Columbus tremendously in becoming a world-class inland port."
Bankruptcy In late 1998 it tried to merge with other aviation companies, but it filed for
bankruptcy on October 1 in
Columbus, Ohio - the same day that the CIA Inspector General released a report detailing allegations of Southern Air Transport's involvement in
drug trafficking in connection with US-backed and funded right-wing Contras in Nicaragua. On March 10, 1999, the assets of Southern Air Transport were purchased by
Southern Air, and the new carrier began operations in November 1999. ==Fleet==