TAO (Taxi Aereo Opita)

  1957 to June 1974

  Colombia

TYPE: Airline

IATA/ICAO CODES: Nil

HEADQUARTERS: Colombia

OTHER NAMES: TAO (Taxi Aereo Opita), Aerolineas TAO (name change)

SUBSEQUENT NAME: Nil

Taxi Aereo opita was founded in 1957 by Alberto Suarez Zambrano, Captain Gustavo Suarez Zambrano, Guillermo Díaz and Eduardo Falla. It started off as an air taxi operation between the cities of Neiva and Florencia, and small communities of the departments of Huila and Caqueta. It used light aircraft: a Ryan Navion and two Cessna 180s. Subsequently, a Noorduyn Norseman was purchased. Alberto Suarez, General Manager of the company, died in a plane crash shortly thereafter and was replaced by his brother, Captain Gustavo Suarez. With the acquisition of the first Douglas DC-3, services were extended to the cities of Puerto Asis, Puerto Leguizamo, San Vicente del Caguan, Cali and Pasto, offering non-scheduled passenger and cargo services.

In the early 1960's, civil aviation authorities granted TAO its the first scheduled route, from Neiva to Bogota. A Commando was purchased to fly the route in passenger configuration, and two others for cargo transportation. Company growth was slow, but steady. However the accident of Commando HK-520 in 1964 and of a DC-3 in 1965 brought TAO on the verge of bankruptcy.

By 1968, after a successful financial recovery plan, the company started purchasing Vickers Viscount turboprops. These were considered state-of-the-art aircraft at the time, and gave TAO an edge over competition, which was still using piston-engined aircraft on domestic routes. TAO's domestic route network expanded rapidly between the cities of Bogota, Neiva, Florencia, Cali, Bucaramanga, Cucuta and San Andres. To reflect its position on the scheduled airline market, the company changed its corporate image, and its name to Aerolineas TAO. The company was aspiring to venture into the international market by extending the network from San Andres to Miami, FL. By 1970, Aerolineas TAO was the third largest domestic airline in Colombia.

The early 1970's were plagued by incidents that proved costly for the company. In 1971, two of the Viscounts were involved in accidents, and an overloaded DC-3 crashed on takeoff in San Vicente del Caguan, killing almost all onboard. New investors brought fresh capital and a restructuration plan, which included the idea of replacing the Viscounts with jets.

However, in 1972, TAO's new General Manager suffered a bout of insanity while traveling onboard one of his airplanes, shooting the captain dead and injuring the two other flight crewmembers before being disarmed by the passengers. Later that year, four armed persons hijacked a Viscount and demanded that they be taken to Cuba. Finally, in 1974 one of the Viscounts suffered an in-flight structural failure which killed all onboard and led to the grounding of TAO's entire fleet. The company stopped operating, went bankrupt as it never managed to recover financially.

July 1964* to 1970

• Curtiss C-46A-10-CU Commando: HK-790, HK-792 (possibly leased from Aerocosta)
• Curtiss C-46A-35-CU Commando: HK-512