Evergreen International Airlines - Incidents and Accidents

Incidents and Accidents

• March 18, 1989: Flight 17, a DC-9 was on a cargo flight from Kelly Air Force Base outside San Antonio to Tinker Air Force Base outside of Oklahoma City, with a stop at Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth. As the plane was departing, the cargo door on the plane opened; the pilot immediately requested emergency return to Carswell. As the plane was approaching on base leg, the cargo door fully opened, which caused the plane to yaw to the left and right, and then roll, until crashing near Saginaw in an inverted position. Both pilots on board were killed. The investigation found that when closing the cargo door, the copilot did not close it fully, but since the locked and latched indicators were applied incorrectly, the copilot thought the door was fully locked.
• Lee waves were believed responsible for the in-flight separation of the #2 engine on an Evergreen Boeing 747-100, registration: N473EV, near Anchorage, Alaska in 1993. The plane was since repaired, then flew until 2001. The plane involved was used in the movie Die Hard 2.