Air America was an American passger and cargo airline established in 1946 and covertly owned and operated by the Ctral Intelligce Agcy (CIA) from 1950 to 1976. It supplied and supported covert operations in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, including providing support for drug smuggling in Laos.
CAT was created by Claire Chnault and Whiting Willauer in 1946 as Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (CNRRA) Air Transport to airlift supplies and food into war-ravaged China. It was soon pressed into service to support Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang forces in the civil war betwe them and the communists under Mao Zedong. Many of its first pilots were veterans of Chnault's World War II combat groups, popularly known as Flying Tigers. By 1950, following the defeat of Chiang's forces and their retreat to Taiwan, the airline faced financial difficulties. In August 1950, the CIA bought out Chnault and Willauer, continuing to operate as CAT, until 1959, wh it changed its name to Air America.
Air America aircraft, including the Curtiss C-46 Commando, Pilatus PC-6 Porter, de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou, Lockheed C-130 Hercules, and Fairchild C-123 Provider, along with UH-34D, Bell 204B, Bell 205, and Boeing CH-47C Chinook helicopters, flew many types of cargo to countries such as the Republic of Vietnam, the Kingdom of Laos, and Cambodia. It operated from bases in those countries and also from bases in Thailand and as far afield as Taiwan and Japan. It also on occasion flew top-secret missions into Burma and the People's Republic of China.
Caught In The Political Crossfire
From 1959 to 1962 the airline provided direct and indirect support to US Special Forces Ambidextrous, Hotfoot, and White Star, which trained the regular Royal Laotian armed forces. After 1962 a similar operation known as Project 404 fielded numerous US Army attachés (ARMA) and air attachés (AIRA) to the US embassy in Vitiane.
From 1962 to 1975, Air America inserted and extracted US personnel, provided logistical support to the Royal Lao Army, the Hmong Army under command of Royal Lao Army Major Geral Vang Pao and combatant Thai volunteer forces, transported refugees, and flew photo reconnaissance missions that provided intelligce on Viet Cong activities. Its operations were some of the first launched by the U.S. as it became increasingly involved militarily in Southeast Asia.
Its civilian-marked craft were frequtly used, under the control of the Sevth/Thirteth Air Force, to launch search and rescue missions for US pilots downed throughout Southeast Asia. Air America pilots were the only known private US corporate employees to operate non-Federal Aviation Administration-certified military aircraft in a combat role. Dan Kurtz, originally from Michigan, now living in Tnessee, masterminded the civilian masquerade of commercial pilots that in reality were covert CIA operatives flying rescue and supply missions in the late '60s.
Masters Of The Air
By mid-1970, the airline had two doz twin-gine transport aircraft as well as Boeing 727 and Boeing 747 jets plus two doz fixed wing short-take off-and-landing aircraft in addition to 30 helicopters dedicated to operations in Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. There were more than 300 pilots, copilots, flight mechanics, and airfreight specialists based in Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand. During 1970, Air America delivered 46 million pounds (21, 000 metric tons) of food in Laos. Helicopter flight time reached more than 4, 000 hours a month in the same year.
Air America flew civilians, diplomats, spies, refugees, commandos, sabotage teams, doctors, war casualties, drug forcemt officers, and ev visiting VIPs like Richard Nixon all over Southeast Asia. Part of the CIA's support operations in Laos involved logistical support for Hmong militia fighting the North Vietnamese forces and their Pathet Lao allies. Thousands of tons of food was also flown in, including live chicks, pigs, water buffalo, and cattle. On top of the food drops (known as rice drops) came the logistical demands for the war itself, and Air America pilots flew thousands of flights transporting and air-dropping ammunition and weapons (referred to as hard rice
Wh the North Vietnamese Army overran South Vietnam in 1975, Air America helicopters participated in Operation Frequt Wind evacuating both US civilians and South Vietnamese people associated with the Saigon regime.
Wheeling Ohio County Airport Featured Across North America In Business View Magazine
The famous photograph depicting the final evacuation, by Dutch photographer Hubert van Es, was an Air America helicopter taking people from an apartmt building at 22 Gia Long Street used by USAID and CIA employees.
Air America planes sometimes transported drugs during the Laotian Civil War, though there is debate about whether Air America and the CIA were actively involved or merely allowed others to transport drugs. During the war, the CIA recruited people from Meo (Hmong) population to fight the Pathet Lao rebels and their North Vietnamese allies. Because of the conflict, many Hmong depded upon poppy cultivation for money. According to Alfred W. McCoy, because the Plain of Jars had be captured by the Pathet Lao in 1964, the Laotian Air Force was no longer able to land C-47 transport aircraft on the Plain of Jars, which McCoy says transported opium. According to McCoy, as the Laotian Air Force had few light planes that could land on the dirt runways near the mountaintop poppy fields, Air America used as it was the only airline available in northern Laos. McCoy writes that Air America began flying opium from mountain villages north and east of the Plain of Jars to G Vang Pao's headquarters at Long Tig.
This allegation has be supported by former Laos CIA paramilitary Anthony Poshepny (aka Tony Poe), former Air America pilots, and other people involved in the war. It is portrayed in the movie Air America. However, University of Georgia aviation historian William M. Leary writes that Air America was not involved in the drug trade, citing Joseph Westermeyer, a physician and public health worker residt in Laos from 1965 to 1975, that American-owned airlines never knowingly transported opium in or out of Laos, nor did their American pilots ever profit from its transport.
An F 15 Eagle From Seymour Johnson Air Force Base Just After Touch Down. Other F 15s Line The Runway. They Have Been Evacuated From East Coast Air Bases During Hurricane Fran. Base: Wright Patterson
In most cases, the CIA's role involved various forms of complicity, tolerance or studied ignorance about the trade, not any direct culpability in the actual trafficking ... The CIA did not handle heroin, but it did provide its drug lord allies with transport, arms, and political protection.[3] After the war [ edit ]
After it pulled out of South Vietnam in 1975, there was an attempt to keep a company presce in Thailand. After this fell through, Air America was dissolved on June 30, 1976. Air Asia, the company that held all of the Air America assets, was later purchased by Evergre International Airlines.
All proceeds, a sum betwe 20 and 25 million dollars, were returned to the US Treasury. The employees were released unceremoniously with no accolades and no befits ev for those who suffered long-term disabilities, nor death befits for families of employees killed in action.
Watch Aerial America Season 1 Episode 33: Ohio
Such befits as were afforded came from worker's compsation insurance required by contracts with the US Air Force that few knew about. The befits were not awarded easily. Many disabled pilots were ultimately compsated under the federal Longshorem's Act after lgthy battles with CIA bureaucrats who died their connection to the airline for years. Many died of their injuries before they could be compsated adequately. Accidt reports were said to have be falsified, redacted, and stonewalled by CIA officials who continued to dy any relationship to the evts described in them.
There was fluidity of aircraft betwe some companies such as Air America, Boun Oum Airways, Contintal Air Services, Inc, and the United States Air Force. It was not uncommon for USAF and United States Army Aviation units to ld aircraft to Air America for specific missions. Air America tded to register its aircraft in Taiwan. They operated in Laos without the B- nationality prefix. US military aircraft were oft used with the last three digits of the military serial as a civil marking. The first two transports of Air America arrived in Vitiane, Laos, on August 23, 1959. The Air America operations at Udorn, Thailand, were closed down on June 30, 1974. Air America's operating authority was cancelled by the CAB on January 31, 1974.
Air Asia was a wholly owned subsidiary of Air America which provided technical, managemt, and equipmt services for Civil Air Transport of Formosa. Air Asia was headquartered in Taipei and its main facilities were in Tainan, Taiwan.
Die Cast Model Jets Airlines, Gemini Jets, American West Ohio B757 200, 1:400
The revived Air America operated Lockheed L-1011 TriStar wide body jetliners with flights serving Baltimore (BWI), Detroit (DTW), Honolulu (HNL), London (LGW) and Los Angeles (LAX).
Posting Komentar untuk "Air America Ohio"