The crash killed all twenty-four crew members and destroyed the aircraft. It added that the E-3 began a “slow left-hand climbing turn, struck a hilly wooded area less than one mile off the departure end of the runway and broke apart.” “The result was an immediate, unconfined, catastrophic failure of the number two engine as well as compressor stalls in the number one engine,” the report stated. The Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft’s two left-wing engines ingested several Canada geese, according to the official report released January 11.

Pacific Air Forces released accident investigation board findings that confirmed earlier speculation that a flock of geese caused the crash of an E-3B Sentry in Alaska on September 22, 1995.