Southern Air Transport (SAT) (1947-1998), based in Miami, Florida, was a cargo airline best known as a front company for the Central Intelligence Agency (1960-1973) and for its role in the Iran-Contra affair in the mid-1980s. Southern Air carried four loads of US weapons bound for Iran from the US to Israel, and on the return flights carried weapons destined for the Nicaraguan Contras from Portugal. The shooting down of an SAT flight in Nicaragua in October 1986 helped expose Iran-Contra.