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.