WASHINGTON — Evergreen International Airlines, a major transporter of U.S. military cargo, should be fined $4.9 million for allowing its pilots to make more than 200 flights before completing training on how to use key equipment, the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday.
The equipment — a flight management system — is specialized computers that automate a wide variety of in-flight tasks, reducing the workload on the flight crew so that airliners can be flown without flight engineers or navigators.
Evergreen pilots flew 232 times between February and July 2009 on planes equipped with a new flight management system that was different enough from the prior system that it required special training for pilots, FAA said.
However, the Evergreen pilots made the trips before finishing a training course and weren’t given manuals on the new system, FAA said.
Evergreen’s headquarters is in McMinnville, Ore.
