TAN Honduras

TAN Honduras
Lockheed L-188 Electra of the TAN, 1971
IATA code :	TX
ICAO code :	TAN
Call sign :	TAN
Founding:	1947
Operation stopped:	1991
Merged with:	SAHSA to SAHSA
Seat:	Tegucigalpa
Home airport :	Tegucigalpa Airport
IATA prefix code :	208
Fleet size:	2
Aims:
TAN Honduras merged with SAHSA to form SAHSA in 1991 . The information in italics relates to the last status before the takeover.

TAN Honduras , also TAN Airlines officially Transportes Aéreos Nacionales SA was from 1947 to 1991 existing Honduran airline with headquarters in Tegucigalpa . It went into November 1991 in the also Honduran SAHSA .

history

TAN Honduras was founded in August 1947 by two Americans and a local farm owner. Initially, two Curtiss C-46 Commando and a Douglas B-18 Bolo were operated. On charter flights to Cuba and Miami , meat and wood were transported north, medicine and food southwards. The US Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) then granted approval for scheduled flights in 1950. After settling long-standing differences with the CAB about prohibited flights from the USA to third countries via Honduras, the CAB even granted 5th freedom rights for freight traffic between the USA and Belize in April 1980 .

A Douglas DC-6 was purchased in 1964 for the longer international routes, but it was irreparably damaged in June 1966 and replaced by another copy.

Boeing 737-200 in the common TAN-SAHSA livery, 1990

Between 1965 and 1969 five larger and more powerful Douglas DC-7s were bought second-hand, one of them only as a spare parts donor. From 1969, then three four-engine came turboprop aircraft of the type Lockheed L-188 Electra fleet.

Pan American World Airways has long been involved in the Honduran SAHSA . On January 21, 1970 she finally gave up her remaining stake in SAHSA and sold this 38% to TAN Honduras. The connection with the internationally experienced TAN also helped SAHSA to expand and modernize its fleet, which at that time only consisted of aircraft types with piston engines, with the Lockheed L-188 Electra and soon also the Boeing 737-200 .

In 1990 and 1991, a joint external appearance was sometimes carried out as TAN-SAHSA for marketing purposes . Despite partially coordinated flight schedules, both remained officially separate companies.

On November 1, 1991, the two Honduran companies SAHSA and TAN Honduras were merged, with SAHSA becoming the common name.

Destinations

After initially most of the flights departed from Tegucigalpa, a second base was set up in San Pedro Sula , from which direct flights to Managua (Nicaragua), El Salvador and Guatemala were opened. The route to Managua was extended to Guayaquil and Lima in 1954 .

In 1956 numerous destinations were already served abroad. These included Los Angeles, Miami and Mexico City in North America, Guayaquil, San Salvador, Managua, Belize and Havana in Central America, Lima, Montevideo, Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires in South America.

Lockheed L-188 Electra cargo plane operated by TAN, Miami 1989

Boeing 737-200 of the TAN, 1989

Before the flight schedule was coordinated with the subsidiary SAHSA, the route network had shrunk significantly in the 1974 summer flight schedule. Of the three domestic airports Tegucigalpa, La Ceiba and San Pedro Sula, only Belize, Mexico City and Miami were served.

fleet

Fleet at the end of operations

When it merged with SAHSA, TAN Honduras was still using the following aircraft:

• 1 × Boeing 737-200
• 1 × Lockheed L-188 Electra

Previously deployed aircraft

TAN Honduras also used the following types of aircraft:

• Boeing 727-100
• Boeing 727-200
• Curtiss C-46 Commando
• Douglas DC-6
• Douglas DC-7
• Lockheed L-188 Electra

Incidents

TAN's Boeing 727-200 N88705 crashed in October 1989 , July 1989

From its foundation in 1947 to the merger with SAHSA in 1991, TAN Honduras suffered five total write-offs of aircraft. 138 people were killed in 4 of them. Example:

• On October 21, 1989, a Boeing 727-224 of TAN Honduras, leased by Continental Airlines ( aircraft registration number N88705 ) was flown nine kilometers south of it into the Cerro de Hula mountain on the approach to Tegucigalpa-Toncontin airport . Of the 146 occupants, 131 were killed in this CFIT ( controlled flight into terrain ) (see also TAN flight 414 ) .

See also

• Former Airlines List (America)

literature

• REG Davies: Airlines of Latin America since 1919. Putnam Aeronautical Books, London 1997, ISBN 0-85177-889-5 .

Web links

Commons : Transportes Aéreos Nacionales  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Davies, p. 107.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Davies, p. 108.
3. ↑ rzjets: TAN Honduras (English), accessed on May 2, 2020.
4. ^ Davies, p. 97.
5. ↑ airline timetable images: TAN, 1956 (English), accessed on May 2, 2020.
6. ↑ airline timetable images: TAN, 1974 (English), accessed on May 2, 2020.
7. ↑ Ulrich Klee, Frank Bucher et al .: jp airline-fleets international 1990 . Zurich Airport 1990, p. 203.
8. ^ Ulrich Klee, Frank Bucher et al .: jp airline-fleets international . Zurich Airport 1971–1991.
9. ↑ Accident Statistics TAN Honduras - Transportes Aéreos Nacionales , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on May 1, 2020.
10. ↑ accident report B 727-200 N88705 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on 2 March of 2019.