Spantax

in 1966 in 1973 in 1986 Formative years Spanish Air Taxi Líneas Aéreas S.A. was founded on 6 October 1959 by ex-Iberia pilot Rodolfo Bay Wright and ex-Iberia flight attendant Marta Estades Sáez. The airline was based at Gran Canaria Airport in the Canary Islands, and began operations flying geologists and technicians who were searching for oil in the Sahara and Spanish West Africa. Initial destinations included El Farsia, El-Gaada, Itguy, Mardesiat, Tindouf, Dakhla, Lagouira and El Aaiún. In 1959 the fleet comprised three Airspeed Consuls, two Airspeed Oxfords, one Auster and a single Avro Anson. A Douglas DC-3 was added to the fleet in 1960. At the end of 1960, the airline purchased two DC-3s from Swissair and these were placed into service from May 1961 operating tourist flights within the Canary Islands, and were joined by a Piper Apache for short flights. The fleet was joined in 1962 by a Beechcraft Model 18 executive aircraft, and a Bristol 170 which was leased from Iberia. The Bristol was returned to Iberia the following year, and four Douglas DC-4s were acquired; the first in the Belgian Congo and the other three from Aviaco. The pressurised long range Douglas DC-7C entered service with the airline in April 1963, and Spantax would eventually go on to operate eight of the aircraft which served destinations in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe. Between June 1963 and September 1967 the airline also acquired an additional four DC-4s, and in May 1965 it obtained two Douglas DC-6s. After receiving approval from the Spanish authorities to operate passenger charter flights, the airline moved its headquarters from Gran Canaria to Palma de Mallorca. The Balearic base was chosen due to the role that Mallorca had taken in the development of tourism in Spain, allowing the airline to gain prestige in the European market. The last one was retired in the mid 1980s. Requiring an aircraft with intercontinental range, Spantax purchased two stretched Douglas DC-8-61CFs from Trans Caribbean Airways in February 1973, and would go on to operate an additional four of the type. Two DC-9-14s were acquired from Southern Airways in April 1974 in order to meet demand on charter flights on domestic and European routes. New flights from Palma de Mallorca to Turku, Kuopio, Tampere and Vaasa in Finland were begun with the 737s in 1984, and in the August 1984 the airline undertook charter flights to Venezuela with the DC-10s in conjunction with Iberia and VIASA. == Fleet ==

Spantax operated the following aircraft over the years: ==Accidents and incidents==

• On 7 December 1965, Douglas DC-3 EC-ARZ crashed on take-off from Los Rodeos Airport on a flight to Las Palmas. It was determined that the airplane went into a dive and crashed a few kilometers from the airfield, killing all 32 occupants, most of them Scandinavian tourists. • On 31 May 1967, a CV-990 that was supposed to land at Hamburg Airport mistook runways and landed at Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport, the private airport of the Hamburger Flugzeugbau plane manufacturing facility, instead. Despite the runway being only 1350 metres long, far too short for the CV-990, the pilots managed to land safely and all passengers remained unharmed. However, it was an embarrassing event for Spantax, especially since it was a demonstration flight with journalists and representatives of travel companies on board, and Spantax CEO and co-founder Rodolfo Bay Wright was flying the plane himself. • On 5 January 1970, a CV-990 crashed while taking off on a three-engine ferry flight to Zürich, Switzerland from Arlanda Airport in Stockholm after it had experienced problems with one of its engines. Five crew were killed. There were ten people on board. • On 30 September 1972, Douglas C-47B EC-AQE crashed on take-off from Madrid-Barajas Airport. The aircraft was being used for training duties and the student pilot over-rotated and stalled. One of the six people on board was killed. • December 3, 1972 — Spantax Flight 275 crashed at Los Rodeos Airport on the island of Tenerife while taking off on a flight to Munich in almost zero visibility, killing all seven crew and 148 passengers. The aircraft reached a height of and crashed past the runway. This was the worst crash in Spanish airline history at the time. • March 5, 1973 — Spantax Flight 400, a Convair 990, on a flight from Madrid to London collided with Iberia Flight 504, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 over Nantes, France. Flight 400 lost part of its left wing, but its pilots managed to land safely at Nantes Airport and saving 107 occupants onboard. However, Flight 504 crashed killing all 68 occupants on board. • On 20 February 1976, an epidemic of typhoid broke out on a flight from Helsinki, Finland to Las Palmas, Grand Canaria. One adult and one child died, and over two hundred of 253 passengers were hospitalized. Four flight crew members had typhoid infection which spread to passengers via egg salad served on board. • On April 4, 1978, while landing at Cologne Bonn Airport, the pilots of a Convair CV-990 forgot to pull out the landing gear and the aircraft with 146 people on board slipped over the runway, resulting in the right wing catching fire. Two fire-fighting vehicles from the airport fire service that happened to be in the immediate vicinity probably prevented casualties in this accident. All 146 people on board escaped unharmed. • In 1982, a Spantax DC-10, Spantax Flight 995, was preparing for takeoff at Malaga on a flight to New York when the pilot attempted to abort the takeoff. The fully-fueled airplane overshot the runway and hit the ILS equipment. The plane stopped 450 meters beyond the threshold of the runway and ignited. The cause of the aborted takeoff was a burst nose gear wheel. Fifty people died and 110 were injured. ==References==