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Coordinates: 36°58′17″N 025°10′14″W / 36.97139°N 25.17056°W / 36.97139; -25.17056

Santa Maria Airport (IATA: SMA, ICAO: LPAZ) is an airport on Santa Maria Island, in the autonomous region of the Azores, Portugal, serving the the municipality of Vila do Porto, within the archipelago and to the continent. It has three runways, with the largest runway (at 3,048 m long) being the longest in the archipelago.

It was built in the context of the Second World War, by US troops in order to maintain supply lines to Europe, and inaugurated on July 26, 1945. A year later, on June 2, 1946, American forces transferred title/control to the Portuguese State. The forerunner of SATA Air Açores (Sociedade Açoriana de Transportes Aéreos) initiated services concurrently to São Miguel and Terceira from Santa Maria Airport on August 5, 1947, using a plane christened "Açor".

Transportes Aéreos Portugueses (TAP) began lay-over flights to this airport on December 7, 1962, and eventually inaugurating trans-atlantic service between Santa Maria-New York (April 26, 1969) and Santa Maria-Montreal (May 8, 1971).

For a while supersonic Concordes were routed to Santa Maria on layovers between Europe and North America.

Airlines and destinations

• SATA Air Acores (Ponta Delgada)
• SATA International (Lisbon)

Incidents

A chartered Boeing 707-300, Independent Air Flight 1851 from Bergamo, Italy in 1989 crashed on approach to Santa Maria Airport, when it struck the Pico Alto mountain. The aircraft was destroyed with the loss of all passengers and crew. The accident was the result of bad communication and failure to follow standard procedures by crew and air traffic control.

References

1. ^ Airport information for LPAZ at World Aero Data. Data current as of October 2006.. Source: DAFIF.
2. ^ Airport information for LPAZ at Great Circle Mapper. Source: DAFIF (effective Oct. 2006).

External links

• Accident history for SMA at Aviation Safety Network