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Trans International Airlines (TIA) was an Airline which offered charter service from and within the United States . It offered scheduled service operating as '''Transamerica Airlines''' in its last decade. TIA used the IATA Airline Designator : '''TV'''. HISTORY Future travel and entertainment mogul Kirk Kerkorian purchased Los Angeles Air Service, a small charter operator, in 1947 for $60,000. As tourism to Las Vegas, Nevada boomed, so did the fortunes of the airline. From a single Douglas DC-3 , it expanded rapidly, adding DC-6 s and Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation s, and became the first charter airline to operate Jet Aircraft with the introduction of the Douglas DC-8 on transpacific routes (later to add the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and Boeing 747 ). To better reflect its growing routes, the airline was renamed Trans International Airlines in 1960 . In 1962 the Studebaker Corporation purchased the airline quixotically, leaving Kerkorian as president. Financial circumstances forced them to sell TIA back to him in 1964 . Kerkorian took the company public in 1965 , then sold his interests in 1968 to insurance conglomerate Transamerica Corporation , profiting an estimated $85 million. He would reinvest proceeds from the sale in Las Vegas property, notably the International Hotel . Transamerica later purchased Universal Airlines and in December 1976 , Saturn Airways , and merged their operations into TIA. The airline remained focused on charter and cargo operations until the passage of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 , which gave it the opportunity to offer scheduled passenger service. In 1979 it was renamed Transamerica Airlines and on November 2 of that year commenced transatlantic passenger flights to Shannon and Amsterdam . During this time the airline operated a number of military charters. Most notable was the trunk route that connected Clark Air Base , Philippines and Andersen Air Force Base , Guam , to Travis Air Force Base , California during the late 1970s , which used stretch DC-8s. Transamerica was unable to run the airline profitably, however, and as it divested its non-core holdings in the 1980s , sought a buyer for the airline. Finding none, the airline was dissolved and ceased operations on September 30 , 1986 . INCIDENTS TIA was involved in a single fatal accident, involving a DC-8 cargo flight en route from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City to Washington Dulles International Airport . On September 8 , 1970 a foreign object became wedged between the right elevator and horizontal stabilizer. The pilot failed to use the pre-flight checklist and the problem was not detected, and the aircraft crashed upon takeoff with the loss of all 11 on board. REFERENCES
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