St. Lucia Airways Limited was a privately owned company founded in 1975. General and tourist flights were operated mainly to

Martinique Martinique ( ; or ; Kalinago language, Kalinago: or ) is an island in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the eastern Caribbean Sea. It was previously known as Iguanacaera which translates to iguana island in Carib language, Kariʼn ...

and

Barbados Barbados, officially the Republic of Barbados, is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American ...

, but also extended throughout the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. There was also a shuttle service between the two St. Lucia airports of Vigie and Hewannora. A

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 ...

was acquired in 1982 for cargo charter work. Head office was listed as PO Box 253, Castries, St. Lucia, West Indies.

History

During the 1986 arms for hostages scandal,

U.S. Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for conducting expeditionary ...

Col.

Oliver North Oliver Laurence North (born October 7, 1943) is an American political commentator, television host, military historian, author, and retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. A veteran of the Vietnam War, North was a National Sec ...

arranged for shipments of

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

MIM-23 HAWK The Raytheon MIM-23 HAWK ("Homing All the Way Killer") is an American medium-range surface-to-air missile. It was designed to be a much more mobile counterpart to the MIM-14 Nike Hercules, trading off range and altitude capability for a much sm ...

antiaircraft missiles to

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. "The

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

's air branch suggested a proprietary which did

clandestine Clandestine may refer to: * Secrecy, the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups, perhaps while sharing it with other individuals * Clandestine operation, a secret intelligence or military activity Music and entertainmen ...

work for the agency - St. Lucia Airways." The CIA congressional relations man,

Clair George Clair Elroy George (August 3, 1930 – August 11, 2011) was a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) clandestine service who oversaw all global espionage activities for the agency in the mid-1980s. According to ''The New York Times'' ...

, was unavailable, so

Duane Clarridge Duane Ramsdell "Dewey" Clarridge (April 16, 1932 – April 9, 2016) was an American senior operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and supervisor for more than 30 years. Clarridge was the chief of the Latin American division ...

, the

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

division chief, checked with the acting Deputy Director of Operations, Ed Juchniewicz, who told North that, in addition to its proprietary work, St. Lucia operated as a commercial venture. So it was available to anyone for special charter operations. "North arranged for St. Lucia to provide two

s. They were able to carry HAWK antiaircraft missiles to

, where the HAWKs were transferred to Israeli planes for transit to

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. North was running the operation through a Swiss bank account, Lake Resources, Inc. (number 386-430-22-1 at Crédit Suisse). For coming up with an airline on short notice, North told

ice Adm. John Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 ° C, 32 ° F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally occur ...

Poindexter on their interoffice computer, 'Clarridge deserves a medal.'".

Fleet

In 1982 the firm operated three aircraft. * Britten-Norman BN-2A Islander, registration J6-LAS, formerly registered VQ-LAS * Boeing 707-323C, registration J6-SLF, formerly registered G-WIND. * Lockheed L-100-20 registration J6-SLO, formerly registered C-FPWN

References

External links

{{commons category, St. Lucia Airways Central Intelligence Agency front organizations Companies of Saint Lucia

History

Fleet

See also

References

External links