Alaskan Airlines 261 Crash. Whose fault?
On this day, January 31, in 2000, the Alaskan Airlines Flight 261 crashed en route from Jalisco, Mexico to Seattle, Washington with a small layover in San Francisco.
On January 31, at around midday or in the afternoon, the flight, containing 83 passengers and 5 five staff, took off from Jalisco and flew alongside the Pacific Ocean towards Seattle’s airport for international flights. During its flight, what was described as “a loss of airplane pitch control” was experienced. What this meant was that due to low maintanence standards of the Jackscrews on the aircraft meant for holding heavy objects together. As a result, the plane could not be supported and the engine was not able to work properly either.
The main problem affected by the low maintenance was the horizontal stabilizer that kept the plane balanced and of course, stable. Earlier in the flight, the pilots made communication with the Seattle airport concerning the problem and tried to keep flying and reroute to Los Angeles International. However, the pilot and captain went to the jammed stabilizer and successfully unjammed it as the plane began to plunge into a nose-dive straight down and saved the plane.
This was not all, a few moments later, the jackscrew, unable to hold the weight of its part of the aircraft, fell loose and, the pilots, unable to control the plane, dove straight down in the Pacific Ocean. All 88 people on board were killed.
After the incident, many investigations were released into Alaska Airlines and their maintenance issues. Many families planned to sue although only one went to court. Personally, I would have tried to ask Alaska Airlines flights to stay grounded for a while if I were the Aviation Board. Since then, maintenance standards across most airports in the US have been improved as a result for any incoming or outgoing aircraft.
I think that personally, this was a terrible mistake on the efforts of Alaskan Airlines. Knowing that laws are different and require mandatory replacing of parts after a certain distance is traveled now, it feels better. But this was most certainly avoidable right from the start.