Alaska Airlines Flight 261

Aircraft The aircraft involved in the accident was a McDonnell Douglas MD-83, serial number 53077, and registered with the tail number N963AS. The MD-83 was a longer-range version of the original MD-80 (itself an improved version of the DC-9), with higher weight allowances, increased fuel capacity, and more powerful Pratt & Whitney JT8D-219 engines. The aircraft had logged 26,584 flight hours and 14,315 cycles since it was delivered in 1992. Crew The pilots of Flight 261 were both highly experienced pilots. Captain Ted Thompson, 53, had accrued 17,750 flight hours, and had more than 4,000 hours experience as pilot-in-command in MD-80s. First Officer William "Bill" Tansky, 57, had accumulated 8,060 hours as first officer on the MD-80. Three Seattle-based flight attendants: Kristin Mills, Craig Pulanco, and Allison Shanks, were also on board, completing the five-person crew. Passengers The five crew members and 47 of the passengers on board the plane were bound for Seattle. Of the remaining passengers, 30 were traveling to San Francisco; three were bound for Eugene, Oregon; and three passengers were headed for Fairbanks, Alaska. Of the passengers, one was Mexican and one was British, with all others being U.S. citizens. At least 35 occupants of Flight 261 were connected in some manner with Alaska Airlines or its sister carrier, Horizon Air, including 12 people directly employed by the company. As is common practice among airlines, employees can sit in seats that would otherwise have been left empty. Employees can also grant the same privilege to their family members or friends. Bouquets of flowers started arriving at the company's headquarters in SeaTac, Washington, the day after the crash. Notable passengers • Jean Gandesbery, author of the book Seven Mile Lake: Scenes from a Minnesota Life, died alongside her husband, Robert. • Cynthia Oti, an investment broker and financial talk show host at San Francisco's KSFO-AM, was killed. • Tom Stockley, wine columnist for The Seattle Times, died alongside his wife, Margaret. • Morris Thompson, commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Alaska from 1973 to 1976, died alongside his wife, Thelma, and daughter, Sheryl. == Accident flight ==

Alaska Airlines Flight 261 departed from Puerto Vallarta's Licenciado Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport at 13:37 PST (21:37 UTC), and climbed to its intended cruising altitude of flight level 310 (). The plane was scheduled to land at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) less than 4 hours later. Sometime before 15:49 (23:49 UTC), the flight crew contacted the airline's dispatch and maintenance-control facilities in SeaTac, Washington, on a company radio frequency shared with operations and maintenance facilities at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), to discuss a jammed horizontal stabilizer and a possible diversion to LAX. The jammed stabilizer prevented the operation of the trim system, which would normally make slight adjustments to the flight control surfaces to keep the plane stable in flight. At their cruising altitude and speed, the position of the jammed stabilizer required the pilots to pull on their yokes with about of force to keep level. Neither the flight crew nor company maintenance could determine the cause of the jam. Repeated attempts to overcome the jam with the primary and alternate trim systems were unsuccessful. During this time, the flight crew considered, and rejected, any further attempts to correct the runaway trim. They descended to a lower altitude, and started to configure the aircraft for landing at LAX. and several aircraft in the vicinity had been alerted by ATC to maintain visual contact with the stricken jet. These aircraft immediately contacted the controller. One pilot radioed, "That plane has just started to do a big huge plunge." Another reported, "Yes sir, ah, I concur. He is, uh, definitely in a nose down, uh, position, descending quite rapidly." The aircraft was destroyed by the impact forces, and all occupants on board were killed by blunt-force impact trauma. ==Investigation==

Wreckage recovery and analysis : The spiral "wire" wrapped around the threaded portion is the remnant of the internal screw thread stripped from the acme nut. The USS Cleveland (LPD-7) assisted in recovery operations. for transport from the on February 3, 2000. Using side-scan sonar, remotely operated vehicles, and a commercial fishing trawler, workers recovered about 85% of the fuselage (including the tail section) and a majority of the wing components. In addition, both engines, as well as the flight data recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder, were retrieved. All wreckage recovered from the crash site was unloaded at the Seabees' Naval Construction Battalion Center Port Hueneme, California, for examination and documentation by NTSB investigators. Both the horizontal stabilizer trim system jackscrew (also referred to as "acme screw") and the corresponding acme nut, through which the jackscrew turns, were found. The jackscrew was constructed from case-hardened steel and is long and in diameter. The acme nut was constructed from a softer copper alloy containing aluminum, nickel, and bronze. As the jackscrew rotates, it moves up or down through the (fixed) acme nut, and this linear motion moves the horizontal stabilizer for the trim system. Upon subsequent examination, the jackscrew was found to have metallic filaments wrapped around it, which were later determined to be the remains of the acme nut thread. that was used to conduct an underwater search for the airplane's flight data recorders. . Later analysis determined that approximately 90% of the thread in the acme nut had already worn away before the flight, and that it ultimately stripped while the aircraft was en route to San Francisco. Once the threads failed, the horizontal stabilizer assembly was exposed to aerodynamic forces beyond its design limits, resulting in its complete failure. Based on the interval since the last inspection of the jackscrew assembly, the NTSB concluded that the acme nut threads had worn at a rate of 0.012 inches (0.30 mm) per 1,000 flight hours—significantly higher than the expected rate of 0.001 inches (0.025 mm) per 1,000 flight hours. During the investigation, the NTSB examined several possible causes for this excessive wear, including Alaska Airlines’ substitution—approved by the manufacturer, McDonnell Douglas—of AeroShell 33 grease in place of the previously specified Mobilgrease 28. However, the use of AeroShell 33 was ultimately determined not to have contributed to the accident.. Ultimately, the lack of lubrication of the acme-nut thread and the resultant excessive wear were determined to be the direct causes of the accident. Both of these circumstances resulted from Alaska Airlines' attempts to cut costs. Inadequate lubrication and end-play checks The investigation sought to examine why scheduled maintenance had failed to adequately lubricate the jackscrew assembly. In interviews with the Alaska Airlines mechanic who last performed the lubrication at SFO, the task was shown to take about one hour, whereas the aircraft manufacturer estimated the task should take four hours. This and other evidence suggested to the NTSB that "the SFO mechanic who was responsible for lubricating the jackscrew assembly in September 1999 did not adequately perform the task." Laboratory tests indicated that the excessive wear of the jackscrew assembly could not have accumulated in just the four-month period between the September 1999 maintenance and the accident flight. Therefore, the NTSB concluded, "more than just the last lubrication was missed or inadequately performed." John Liotine In 1998, an Alaska Airlines mechanic named John Liotine, who worked in the Alaska Airlines maintenance center in Oakland, California, told the FAA that supervisors were approving records of maintenance that they were not allowed to approve or that indicated work had been completed when, in fact, it had not. Liotine began working with federal investigators by secretly audio recording his supervisors. On December 22, 1998, federal authorities raided an Alaska Airlines property and seized maintenance records. In August 1999, Alaska Airlines put Liotine on paid leave, and in 2000, Liotine filed a libel suit against the airline. The crash of AS261 became a part of the federal investigation against Alaska Airlines, because, in 1997, Liotine had recommended that the jackscrew and gimbal nut of the accident aircraft be replaced, but had been overruled by another supervisor. In December 2001, federal prosecutors stated that they were not going to file criminal charges against Alaska Airlines. Around that time, Alaska Airlines agreed to settle the libel suit by paying about $500,000; as part of the settlement, Liotine resigned. ==Conclusions==

Chairman Jim Hall, along with members Dr. Vern Ellingstad (left), and Dr. Bernard Loeb (right) with the Cockpit Voice Recorder and Flight Data Recorder of Flight 261 In addition to the probable cause, the NTSB found these contributing factors: • Alaska Airlines extended its lubrication interval for its McDonnell Douglas MD-80 horizontal stabilizer components based on McDonnell Douglas's recommendation, and the FAA approved the extended schedule. This increased the likelihood that a missed or inadequate lubrication would result in the near complete deterioration of the jackscrew-assembly acme-nut threads. The extended lubrication interval was a direct cause of the excessive wear and contributed to the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 accident. • Alaska Airlines extended the end-play check interval and the FAA approved the change. This allowed the acme-nut threads to deteriorate to the point of failure without the opportunity for detection. • The absence on the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 of a fail-safe mechanism to prevent the catastrophic effects of total acme nut loss. of the tail section of a Northwest Airlines MD-83 During the course of the investigation, and later in its final report, the NTSB issued 24 safety recommendations, covering maintenance, regulatory oversight, and aircraft design issues. More than half of these were directly related to jackscrew lubrication and end-play measurement. Also included was a recommendation that pilots were to be instructed that in the event of a flight-control system malfunction, they should not attempt corrective procedures beyond those specified in the checklist procedures, and in particular, in the event of a horizontal stabilizer trim-control system malfunction, the primary and alternate trim motors should not be activated, and if unable to correct the problem through the checklists, they should land at the nearest suitable airport. In NTSB board member John J. Goglia's statement for the final report, with which the other three board members concurred, he wrote: ==Aftermath==

After the crash, Alaska Airlines management stated that they hoped to handle the aftermath in a manner similar to that conducted by Swissair after the Swissair Flight 111 accident. They wished to avoid mistakes made by Trans World Airlines in the aftermath of the TWA Flight 800 accident, such as failure to provide timely information to and treat with compassion families of the victims. Steve Miletich of The Seattle Times wrote that the western portion of Washington "had never before experienced such a loss from a plane crash". The airline retired the last of its MD-80s in 2008, converting to using exclusively Boeing 737s. Liability Both Boeing (who had acquired McDonnell Douglas through a merger in 1997) and Alaska Airlines eventually accepted liability for the crash, and all but one of the lawsuits brought by surviving family members were settled out of court before going to trial. While the financial terms of settlements were not officially disclosed, The Seattle Times reported the total amount to be in excess of US$300 million, covered entirely by insurance. According to other sources, the individual settlements were "anywhere from a couple million dollars up to $20 million", purportedly "among the largest ever in an air disaster". Candy Hatcher of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote: "Many lost faith in Alaska Airlines, a homegrown company that had taken pride in its safety record and billed itself as a family airline." The Ted Thompson/Bill Tansky Scholarship Fund was named in memory of the two pilots. The victims' families approved the construction of a memorial sundial, designed by Santa Barbara artist James "Bud" Bottoms, which was placed at Port Hueneme on the California coast near where the crash occurred. The names of each of the victims are engraved on individual bronze plates mounted on the perimeter of the dial. The sundial casts a shadow on a memorial plaque at 16:22 each January 31. Many residents of Seattle had been deeply affected by the disaster. As part of a memorial vigil in 2000, a column of light was beamed from the top of the Space Needle. Students and faculty at the John Hay Elementary School in Queen Anne, Seattle, held a memorial for four Hay students who were killed in the crash. In April 2001, John Hay Elementary dedicated the "John Hay Pathway Garden" as a permanent memorial to the students and their families killed on Flight 261. The City of Seattle public park Soundview Terrace was renovated in honor of the four Pearson and six Clemetson family members who were killed on board Flight 261 from the same Seattle neighborhood of Queen Anne. The park's playground was named "Rachel's Playground" in memory of six-year-old Rachel Pearson, Attempted fraud Two victims were falsely named in paternity suits as the fathers of children in Guatemala in an attempt to gain insurance and settlement money. Subsequent DNA testing proved these claims to be false. The crash has appeared in various advance-fee fraud ("419") email scams, in which a scammer uses the name of someone who died in the crash to lure unsuspecting victims into sending money to the scammer by claiming the crash victim left huge amounts of unclaimed funds in a foreign bank account. The names of Morris Thompson and Ronald and Joyce Lake were used in schemes unrelated to them. ==In popular culture==

• In the Canadian TV series Mayday (called Air Emergency and Air Disasters in the U.S. and Air Crash Investigation in the UK and elsewhere around the world), the flight was featured in the season 1 (2003) episode "Cutting Corners". The dramatization was broadcast in the United States with the title "Fatal Error". The flight was also included in a Mayday season 6 (2007) Science of Disaster special titled "Fatal Flaw", which was called "Fatal Fix" in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Asia. The crash was covered again (with an entirely new cast) in season 22, episode 5 of Mayday, titled "Pacific Plunge". • The film drama Flight (2012) featured an airplane crash of an aircraft resembling an MD-83, which flies inverted and ultimately crash lands, though the film's version recorded just six fatalities (four passengers, two crew) of the 102 persons aboard. In the film, NTSB investigators determine the probable cause of this crash to be the fatigue of a jackscrew due to excess wear and poor maintenance. The final seconds of the CVR of Flight 261 indicates the plane stabilized and was flying inverted shortly before the crash, an event depicted in the film. Screenwriter John Gatins later explained that the film's featured crash was "loosely inspired" by the events of Flight 261. • The song "The Commander Thinks Aloud" by Seattle rock band The Long Winters was written in part, as reaction to the crash of Flight 261. ==Maps==