Corporate Air Services HPF821 [SEP] point in time
Corporate Air Services HPF821
Corporate Air Services HPF821 was a transport aircraft delivering weapons via airdrop to the Nicaraguan Contras which was shot down over Nicaragua on 5 October 1986 by a surface-to-air missile. Two U.S. pilots Wallace "Buzz" Sawyer and William Cooper and a Nicaraguan Nationalists radio operator died when the Fairchild C-123 Provider was shot down by a Sandinista soldier using an SA-7 shoulder-launched missile, while Eugene Hasenfus, the U.S. "kicker" responsible for pushing the cargo out of the aircraft, survived by parachuting
-Contra affair showed that the U.S. had organized this and other flights, and had funded the cargo using illegal weapons sales to Iran.
Background.
HPF821 was operated by Corporate Air Services, a front for Southern Air Transport, the registered owner of the aircraft. Some of the pilots and crew involved with the Contra supply flights, including Eugene Hasenfus, had been involved in the CIA's aerial supply activities during the Vietnam War, using Air America, Southern Air Transport, and other CIA proprietary airlines. Two Cuban