British South American Airways

Originally named British Latin American Air Lines, it was renamed before services started in 1946.

BSAA operated mostly Avro aircraft: Yorks, Lancastrians and Tudors and flew to Bermuda, the West Indies, Mexico and the western coast of South America.

[4] In January 1947 the airline reached an agreement with British West Indian Airways which would become an associate.

BSAA would buy the majority of shares in BWIA and provide technical advice and general supervision.

[7] For navigation purposes, the Lancastrians and Yorks were using military Gee radar over Europe, and Rebecca on the other side of the Atlantic.

[8] On 30 January 1948, Avro Tudor Star Tiger, with a crew of six and 25 passengers bound for Bermuda, disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean.

[14] In December the Tudors replaced the Avro Lancastrian on routes to Havana, Cuba, and to the west coast of South America.

[16] By December 1948 the airline had transported over 1,000,000 gallons of petrol into Berlin from Wunstorf in over 700 flights, using mostly Tudor V tankers, each fitted with five tanks.

[19] By March 1949, with the loss of the Star Ariel unexplained, the permanent grounding of the Tudor IVs for passenger flying, and the lack of other long-range aircraft, the government proposed amalgamating the airline with BOAC.

On 2 August 1947, the Avro Lancastrian Star Dust disappeared on a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Santiago, Chile; fifty years later remains of the aircraft were found to have crashed into an Argentine mountain.

Soon after take-off, captain John McPhee radioed a standard departure message including an estimate at Kingston of 14:10.