Alaska Airlines Flight 261: 5 Shocking Facts About The Tragedy Over The Pacific Ocean (2024)

Founded in 1932, Alaska Airlines is one of the oldest airlines in the US and the world. Since its inception, the airline has had very few fatal accidents involving scheduled flights, just nine. However, the loss of life aboard Flight 261 is the second highest ever in the airline's history.

According to the Aviation Safety Network, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 was scheduled to fly from Puerto Vallarta-Gustavo D. Ordaz Airport (PVR), Mexico, to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) on the 31st January 2000, disappeared from radar while en route, roughly 2.8 miles (4.5 km) north of Anacapa Island in California.

Photo: Bill Abbot | Flickr

The aircraft that crashed was aMcDonnell DouglasDC-9-83, popularly known as theMD-83. The type was a significant part of the airline's fleet at the time. The aircraft was registered N963AS and had its maiden flight in 1992. At the time of the accident, the aircraft had accumulated 26,584 flight hours over 14,315 flight cycles.

Aboard Flight 261 were five crew members and 83 passengers, none of whom survived the accident.

1 Cost cutting to blame

The accident was a direct result of the airline’s cost-cutting

During the 1970s to 1990s,Alaska Airlinestook advantage of the deregulation of the aviation industry. It aggressively expanded its routes and fleet, becoming one of North America's most profitable airlines.

However, the 1990s marked the downturn of Alaska Airlines' fortunes. Increased competition by low-cost carriers such as MarkAir and Southwest has severely affected profitability. The low-cost pricing strategy allowed MarkAir and Southwest to undercut Alaska Airlines ticket prices. The result was a loss of customers on several core routes.

In 1991, Alaska Airlines found itself in an unfamiliar position: it posted a loss of $121 million. Analysts concluded that the airline had to reduce costs and began slashing costs across the board, with no exceptions. Even safety-sensitive departments like maintenance saw funding cuts.

2 The point of failure

A worn nut was all it took to down the aircraft in a terrifying manner

Every major jetliner has a trimmable horizontal stabilizer, which controls the aircraft's pitch. The stabilizer's operation is relatively simple. It has three main components: a jackscrew, an acme nut, and the two electric motors that rotate the jackscrew based on pilot input.

The jackscrew is made of slightly tougher metal than the acme nut, which is intentional. The acme nut is the "wear point" of the stabilizer assembly. The nut is designed to wear out over time, as it is cheap and easy to replace. The assembly is meant to be greased enough that no metal-on-metal contact occurs.

However, if the jackscrew is not greased according to manufacturer specifications, the threads on the acme nut will wear out, resulting in the stabilizer failing. McDonnell Douglas rated the nut for 30,000 flight hours before it needed replacing.

The manufacturer required the nut to be greased every 500 hours to prevent advanced wear and ensure the safe operation of the stabilizer. The entire process is estimated to take four hours for a qualified technician.

3 Lack of redundancy

Aircraft are overengineered and have redundancies built into critical systems to prevent failures.

The MD-83 has a track record for being one of the safest aircraft, considering few crashes and hundreds of thousands of hours the fleet has flown worldwide. Aircraft are overengineered on purpose. The Boeing 777, for example, can handle154% of its design load before failing.

Photo: NTSB

Similarly, systems across aircraft are built with fail-safes and have a backup system in case of failure. However, theNational Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)found that the MD-83's tail assembly designhad no fail-safe mechanismto prevent what would happen if the acme nut lost its thread.

In addition, it was discovered that the dual-thread design of the nut doesn't provide redundancy in terms of wear. The design of the jackscrew assembly simply didn't account for the total failure of the acme nut.

4 Shoddy maintenance to blame

Maintenance intervals were increased to boost aircraft utilization.

Thecuts to the maintenance departmentmeant that the quality of maintenance at Alaska Airlines degraded significantly over the nine years that preceded the accident. Alaska Airlines extended many systems' inspection and maintenance periods to reduce aircraft downtime and increase utilization.

Photo: NTSB

McDonnell Douglas recommended that the jackscrew assembly inspection, called an "end play check," be conducted within 7,200 flight hours. Alaska Airlines extended the check from 26 to 30 months, roughly 9,550 hours. The maintenance interval was also increased from 500 to a whopping 2,250 hours. The lack of maintenance caused the acme nut to wear out 12 times faster.

In addition, the airline increased the interval between periodic C-checks from 13 to 15 months. These interval extensions were all approved by the FAA, which didn't check to see which systems the checks affected and how the extensions might undermine safety.

Furthermore, the department was severely understaffed, and the technicians were not appropriately trained. The mechanic who last lubricated the jackscrew did it in one hour, while the manufacturer says it should take four. The NTSB found that the mechanic "did not adequately perform the task." The investigation also found that maintenance on the assembly was missed multiple times.

Photo: NTSB

The airline also fabricated tools to measure the wear on the acme nut, which did not meet manufacturer requirements. If the correct tools were used, the increased wear would've been detected.

5 The pilots did everything possible

The flight crew handled the incident as best they could, making only one error.

The flight crew of Flight 261 consisted of Captain Ted Thompson and First Officer William Tansky, who had 17,750 and 8,140 hours of flight time, respectively. By all means, a highly experienced crew, both of whom had time in the military, Thompson in the USAF and Tanksy in the US Navy.

On the day of the accident, the aircraft climbed through 23,400 ft while the two threads tore from the nut, wrapping themselves around the jackscrew, which caused the tail to jam slightly nose-down. Per protocol, the crew disengaged the autopilot and troubleshot the issue as an inoperative or runaway stabilizer. No corrective action fixed the problem, and as per the emergency checklist, the pilots considered the stabilizer jammed. You can fly without stabilizer trim, which the flight crew did.

The flight crew decided to divert toLos Angeles International Airport (LAX)despite pressure from airline dispatchers to continue to San Francisco. After a discussion with Alaska Airlines maintenance, the crew tried to move the stabilizer and clear the jam.

The action resulted in the threads holding the jackscrew in place becoming dislodged and the aircraft pitching down steeply. The crew arrested the dive. However, the stabilizer was now being held in place by the mechanical stop, which was not designed to hold such heavy loads.

Shortly after, the stop gave way, and the runway tail pitched the aircraft nose down. The crew didn't give up and tried to fly the plane, even inverted, before it crashed into the water.