Some employes at St. Lucia Airways, a tiny Caribbean-based airline, called them "special flights" because they took priority, disrupted scheduled cargo runs and were handled by select crews who kept the details to themselves.
Some employes heard only rumors about the flights. One crew had gone to Iran. Another had just returned from Israel. But it wasn't until the U.S. sales of arms to Iran became public that they began to piece it together: the airline had some kind of role in the secret shipments. But many did not realize the full extent of the airline's participation in secret U.S. operations.
Since 1985, St. Lucia Airways has been flying classified missions to strategically important regions of the world, according to present and former employes, U.S. military officials and a review of flight records in St. Lucia, Turkey and Belgium.