Delta Air Transport acquired a 49 percent stake in DAT, and an increasing number of flights were operated on behalf of the Belgian national airline henceforth (also adopting the airline codes of Sabena), using a fleet of British Aerospace 146 aircraft, in favor of which other airliners were gradually phased out. DAT became a member of the European Regional Airlines Association in 1993. In 1996, Sabena bought the remaining KLM stake, thus DAT became a wholly owned Sabena subsidiary, moved its headquarters from Antwerp to Brussels and was re-branded as DAT Belgian Regional Airline, offering low-cost flights. Gradually, the livery of Sabena was
Sabena from Seaboard World Airlines, using them mainly on transatlantic routes. In the same period, there were experiments with helicopter passenger service using Sikorsky S-58 aircraft from Brussels to Antwerp, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and the Paris heliport at Issy-les-Moulineaux. 1960 saw the introduction of the Boeing 707-320 intercontinental jet for trans-Atlantic flights to New York. SABENA was mainland Europe's first airline to operate a jet across the Atlantic (BOAC had been flying jet transatlantic services using the de Havilland Comet 4 since 4 October 1958). One of Sabena's aircraft became the first Boeing 707 to crash while in commercial service when Flight