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Transporte Aéreo Rioplatense SACL was an
In 1981, the airline was contracted to conduct a series of flights to send arms to Iran, to assist in arming
Argentine
Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...
cargo airline
Cargo airlines (or air freight carriers, and derivatives of these names) are airlines mainly dedicated to the transport of air cargo, cargo by air. Some cargo airlines are divisions or subsidiaries of larger passenger airlines.
In 2018, airli ...
that operated in the 1970s and 1980s.
History
The airline was set up in December 1969 by Carlos F. Martinez Guerrero and several of his associates. Operations commenced in July 1970, however, the first aircraft, aCanadair CL-44
The Canadair CL-44 was a Canadian turboprop airliner and cargo aircraft based on the Bristol Britannia that was developed and produced by Canadair in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although innovative, only a small number of the aircraft were ...
freighter did not commence service with the airline until March 1971. Flights with the CL-44 commenced between Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...
and Houston
Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
, on which cattle were transported, and the airline quickly established itself operating worldwide ad hoc charters, leading to the addition of three more of the aircraft type. The airline had regular flights to Houston, Miami
Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
, and Basel
Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...
, Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
from September 1976.
The airline acquired its first Boeing 707
The Boeing 707 is an early American long-range Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype, the initial first flew on Decembe ...
freighter from Dan-Air
Dan-Air (legally ''Dan Air Services Limited'') was an airline based in the United Kingdom and a wholly owned subsidiary of London-based shipbroker, shipbroking firm Davies and Newman. It was started in 1953 with a single aircraft. Initially, i ...
in 1978, and a second one a year later. The arrival of the 707s led to the gradual retirement from service of the CL-44s.
1981 CL-44 crash
In 1981, the airline was contracted to conduct a series of flights to send arms to Iran, to assist in arming Nicaragua
Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...
n contras
In the history of Nicaragua, the Contras (Spanish: ''La contrarrevolución'', the counter-revolution) were the right-wing militias who waged anti-communist guerilla warfare (1979–1990) against the Marxist governments of the Sandinista Na ...
. Military equipment from Israel was shipped to Iran, in support of the latter during its war with Iraq. A total of 360 tons of arms were to be transported from Israel to Iran.
On 18 July 1981, one of the airline's CL-44s was returning to Cyprus after making the third delivery flight to Iran. It strayed into Soviet airspace
Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere. It is not the same as outer space which is t ...
in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic
The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, also referred to as the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, Azerbaijan SSR, Azerbaijani SSR, AzSSR, Soviet Azerbaijan or simply Azerbaijan, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent re ...
and the Soviet Air Force
The Soviet Air Forces (, VVS SSSR; literally "Military Air Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics"; initialism VVS, sometimes referred to as the "Red Air Force") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Sovie ...
sent a Sukhoi Su-15
The Sukhoi Su-15 (NATO reporting name: Flagon) is a twinjet supersonic interceptor aircraft developed by the Soviet Union. It entered service in 1965 and remained one of the front-line designs into the 1990s. The Su-15 was designed to replace t ...
to intercept it. The Su-15 hit the CL-44's tail and it crashed near the Soviet
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
–Turkish
Turkish may refer to:
* Something related to Turkey
** Turkish language
*** Turkish alphabet
** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
*** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey
*** Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire
* The w ...
border, killing all four of the occupants. The Soviet Union claimed that its Su-15 pilot deliberately downed the CL-44 by aerial ramming
Aerial ramming or air ramming is the ramming of one aircraft with another. It is a last-ditch tactic in air combat, sometimes used when all else has failed. Long before the invention of aircraft, ramming tactics in naval warfare and ground warfa ...
.
Transporte Aéreo Rioplatense continued to operate into the 1980s, but had ceased operations by 1989.
Fleet
*2Boeing 707-320C
The Boeing 707 is an early American long-range narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype, the initial first flew on December 20, 1957.
Pan Am be ...
(LV-MZE and LV-MSG)
*1 Canadair CL-44-6 (LV-PRX; later LV-JZB)
*2 Canadair CL-44-D4 (LV-PRM and LV-JZN)
See also
* List of defunct airlines of ArgentinaReferences
{{DEFAULTSORT:Transporte Aereo Rioplatense Defunct airlines of Argentina Airlines established in 1969 Airlines disestablished in 1989 Defunct cargo airlines Military of Argentina Iran–Contra affair Arms trafficking Argentine companies established in 1969 1989 disestablishments in Argentina