Evergreen International goes bust

Tucson area's Evergreen aircraft center sold, Arizona Daily Star, June 6, 2011.

Legendary CIA Airline Now in Danger of Crashing, by Noah Shachtman. Danger Room, June 2, 2011.


Evergreen International Aviation appears to be going out of business, but leaves behind a storied history (most of which is probably classified).

The company was formed around the assets it purchased from Intermountain Aviation in 1975. Intermountain was a CIA proprietary airline that operated throughout the 1950’s and 60’s, but was sold-off as a result of the Church Committee.

Though not as famous as its sister Air America, Intermountain was the birthplace of the Fulton Skyhook surface-to-air recovery system. The first operational use of the Skyhook was with an Intermountain B-17 in 1962, during a successful operation to exploit an abandoned Soviet drift station in the Arctic Ocean known as Operation Coldfeet.

Intermountain is also played a role in supporting agency efforts to train and equip Tibetan guerillas in the 1950’s.