Talk:Alaska Airlines Flight 261

Untitled
I moved the last part of the article from the Alaska Airlines article. WhisperToMe 22:25, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Don't know what the term "trim", "jackscrew" means, whoever knows, pls. put in a quick explanation at the beginning as to what it means. Whatthree16 07:09, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the terms "trim" and "jackscrew" (which are central to this incident) have been adequately explained in the article now. CConrad 18:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

In the flight path image, 16:49 or so is mislabeled...unless an airplane can beam itself to and fro. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.94.204.38 (talk) 03:33, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

National Geographics documentary criticism
The NGC documentary on flight 261 is much more critical about the part Alaska Airlines played in the crash than this article. It mentions verifiable facts about fraud with maintenance reports, poor maintenance standards and so on. It also mentions that Alaska Airlines was fined for irregularities and fraud with maintenance reports and that two maintenance supervisors were suspended.

It also mentions that the trim control screw was not replaced by Alaska Airlines when it was scheduled and that a maintenance manager blowed the whisle about Alaskan's maintenance practices.

We can add this to the article, and it can all be well-referenced. There are newspaper articles I'll find from the FBI raiding (with search warrants) Alaska Air maintenence offices in Oakland in an investigation related to the accident, as well as in the NTSB final report they talk about how Alaska was able to get waivers from the FAA to only lubricate the jackscrew after long intervals. Basically, Alaska would tell the FAA POI in Seattle ("principle operations investigator" I think) to approve whatever they wanted or else they would pull strings and have him re-posted to Alaska. When he refused to let them fly over the Bering Straight without liferafts, they DID have him reassigned to some horrible place. I'm not kidding; read the NTSB final report. Lipsticked Pig 23:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Alaska Airlines MD-80 maintenance program
Article says "This was 1800 flight hours beyond Boeing's recommended interval of 7200 flight hours." What has Boeing got to do with it? Should this read "McDonnell Douglas"? Icd 04:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Boeing inherited the type certificate for the MD-80 when they bought McDonnell Douglas. --mcpusc 05:29, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Fun facts we should add
After deciding to divert to LAX, the pilots engaged in a rediculous conversation with the Alaska Air dispatcher, who wanted them to continue on to SFO because he did not want them to disrupt "the flow" (schedule). The CVR transcript has the pilots' incredulous reaction to this.

Company maintenance over the radio was worse than useless (they are the ones who suggested using both the "suitcase handles" and "pickle switches" to unjam the trim whuch cause the inital dive), and then never provided any useful information or advice.

After decideding to divert to LAX, the pilots requested Alaska dispatcher there to calculate their landing weight (since they were pretty busy just flying the airplane); those personnel never radioed back that information (which they calculated wrong anyway).

Even with the extended lubrication maintenence interval, the jackscrew would have been fine if it had been properly serviced.

The aircrew were specifically commended by the NTSB for their decision to remain over water while they troubleshooted their problems (thus potentially saving lives on the ground).

Lipsticked Pig 23:32, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Judging by the photographs of the recovered jackscrew it hadn't been greased in years. Presumably the aerodynamic loads on the tailplane then stripped the threads due to the greatly increased wear, as you can see the stripped coil of the nut threads alongside the jackscrew threads. I would have thought that just operating the trim motors on the ground with the engines not running should have given an audible sign that something was wrong with the lubrication of the unit. It must have made a hell-of-a-screech in operation with all that metal-on-metal contact. The electrical load on the trim motors would have been higher than normal too, as they tried to cope with the additional friction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.251.107 (talk) 15:17, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The citation for the commendation of the crew by NTSB is broken. Can someone please update that citation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jophiel04 (talk • contribs) 10:04, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Revert by Fighting for Justice
um, not sure what I should say. You stated that "You can not unilaterally alter an article, like you did, without some sort of consensus. Are you an Alaska Airlines employee???" I think I can only respond, NO and NO, quite obviously.

Not that I'm happy about where I went with it. Too long, but what can you do? Its a complex series of events that doesn't lend itself well to summury. I'd like to keep all the quotes in because they are juicy, but I'll listen to CONSENSUS Lipsticked Pig 04:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The changes you made are far too many.  The article needs the information to be verified.  Whatever can not be verified is considered original research. The quotes have to be verbatim quotes and must not have any commentary to them.  Fighting for Justice 04:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

There was not a single citation throught the article before, I have now started to add them. There is not a single piece of original research in the article; it is all taken directly from the Aircraft Accident Report. All quotes are verbatim, including the specific punctuation used in the CVR transcript. The descriptions of the quotes are necessary for context, and if you read the transcripts, which I reference, you can see they are accurate. However seeing how you have been blocked before for revert wars, which I'm not interested in doing, I'm going to leave it for a while (until I need to procrastinate from work again).Lipsticked Pig 04:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * All right. I'm willing to see what you can add, but can you please keep the edits right down into one single edit, instead of one by one?  You can see a preview of what the article will ultimately look like as much as you like.  Then once you get the article to look like you want it to save it. Fighting for Justice 04:31, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

" but can you please keep the edits right down into one single edit, instead of one by one? You can see a preview of what the article will ultimately look like as much as you like.  Then once you get the article to look like you want it to save it." Thank you, that is actually very helpful to me; I can see now how annoying that must have been. Lipsticked Pig 04:33, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * ok. Thank You for understanding. Fighting for Justice 04:35, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Re-write of opening
OK, reverted the opening paragraphs to my last version. This seems to me pretty obvious; you can use the NTSB Executive Summary as a template for any aircraft accident and get all the pertinent details out, quickly and succinctly, by simply cut-n-pasting. The first paragraph is the accident description from the summary slightly abridged, and the second paragraph contains (a) non-technical summary of the accident cause(s), and (b), the probable cause verbatim from the final report. BOTH paragraphs are fully supported by the single citation given.

The rest of the article needs a serious re-write as well. There is not a single citation, anywhere, for any of the facts given in the article. Some statements as written are absolutely wrong. Under "Initial flight segment" it reads "After takeoff and initial climb, the airplane was set on autopilot for the first two hours of the flight and the aircrew did not detect any discrepancy with the stabilizer"; both statements are wrong, see page 2 and page 128 of the final report. I haven't looked at the later, more technical, paragraphs. Being that this article is unusual in that we can basically get all are facts from one source, the final report, it might lend itself to having footnotes with page numbers, and then we can give a citations FOR EVERY SINGLE FACT.

I propose the article get split onto three main sections; "Accident flight", "Investigation" and "Conclusions". This is similar to (any) accident report, and is the same type of narrative flow you'll see on (example) "Air Crash Investigation". This is not surprising, as such a structure lends itself well to a logical progression through the factual evidence. The article does not have to grow much larger to accomplish this.

The article desperately needs graphics, which should not be hard to do. One diagram of the jackscrew assembly is far better than any paragraph (though we should have both). I'll add them in as I go along.

I'll re-write the "Initial flight segment" next; please discuss any problems you see with me before just reverting. Unfortunately the CVR quotes I tried using do make the article too long, so I'll have to drop them. Lipsticked Pig 06:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Re-write of "Initial flight segment"
I re-wrote this just now; as I said before the were some factual inaccuracies which needed to be removed:

"the horizontal stabilizer functioned normally during the initial climb out of Puerto Vallarta." (it stopped working about 2/3 into the initial climb)

"After takeoff and initial climb, the airplane was set on autopilot for the first two hours of the flight" (autopilot was disengaged about 10 minutes into the flight, and the A/C was flown manually for the next 2 hours)

"and the aircrew did not detect any discrepancy with the stabilizer" (the final report states several things that would have alerted the flight crew to the out-of-trim situation, including an annuciator warning light, the extra force required on the controls to mantain the desired attitude, and the autopilot's adjustment to the elevators to compensate for the jam)

I think its really important to start the first sentence off with a time of takeoff. Currently, in the article we have relative references such as "Less than a minute after that decision, about ten minutes after the first dive...", but never any actual times. Start the flight description off with "13:37 PST" and now any reader can reference that and get a clearer timeline of events.

I think it is important include the divert "debate" that occured between the pilots and dispatcher; so did the NTSB as 2 of the official findings in the final report were about this.

Lemme know what you think! Lipsticked Pig 19:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Re-write of "The first dive and recovery"
I wasn't happy with the statement that jam was freed because "...the shearing of threads in the stabilizer's gimbal nut." I'll need to look again, but I think there was some uncertainty to that; the threads might have been sheared off completely already (before the first dive), and the thread debris, stuck in the nut, was causing the jam.(< I was wrong, that is why the jam was freed Lipsticked Pig 17:10, 26 April 2007 (UTC)) I think it is useful to include the actual vertical length of the dive, as well as its duration. The flight crew's request for a block altitude, and to not overfly populated areas is indicative of the trouble they were in, and useful to include. I removed the reference to maintenance in the decision not to retry the trim system; basically, like before the dive, maintanence on the ground was useless, and basically told the pilots, "uh, I don't know, do what you think is best." In fact, the pilots requested that a instructor pilot if available come on the radio to help, but that request (like several other requests for assistance from the flight crew) got dropped by Alaska. Lipsticked Pig 01:08, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Problems with "Second dive" section
"Less than a minute after that decision, about ten minutes after the first dive, an "extremely loud bumping sound" was recorded on the cockpit voice recorder and the aircraft entered a second and final dive. The sound recorded was the impact loading of the stabilizer with the tip fairing brackets. This impact was caused by the low cycle fatigue fracture of the stabilizer jackscrew's torque tube and lower mechanical stop." <---This is inaccurate and is mixing up from the report the descriptions of 2 events (a) the impact of the stabilizer with the tip fairing brackets (b) the failure of those brackets and the initiation of the final dive (see the final report pages 134-135).

"The threads on the gimbal nut (known as an acme nut) wore smooth to the point of being unable to hold the stabilizer in a set position and thus the stabilizer could move on its own under the aerodynamic loads." <---This had already happened long before the second dive, and shouldn't be in this section.

"This impact was caused by the low cycle fatigue fracture of the stabilizer jackscrew's torque tube and lower mechanical stop." <--This, while factually accurate, needs to have further explanation, wikilinked terms, or better yet written in non-technical english, as do all the later sections.

" The last radio contact with the aircraft occurred while the plane was passing 17,000 feet at a low speed of 119 knots." <---placing this at the end of the paragraph is deceptive; that radio communicatioon occured before all the events listed previously in the section

Lipsticked Pig 01:08, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Further work on this article
I'm done re-writing the "Accident flight" section, and am fairly happy how it turned out. However I'm not in the aviation industry, and when reading these accident reports I get confused just like anyone else. It's probable that I've made some factual errors/assumptions that need to be corrected. Please if you have read the accident report and see some errors, fix them. Also, I made plenty of judgement calls about what should/should not be included, your opinion might be quite different.

The Analysis section needs to be completely re-written as well. I think these are the greatest problems with it right now are: 1. The complete lack of citations for all the content 2. The incredibly technical nature of the content; an encyclopedic article needs to summarize these in plain english. I'd have to call these sections as readable as the actual accident report, which is not a good thing. 3. The lack of graphics, many of which are available through the 4. Can somebody fix this image of a maitenance check in the investigation section??? NTSB

Lipsticked Pig 08:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The crash photograph...can anyone find it?
A woman on the coast took a photo of ASA 261 right before impact. I've seen the photo, grainy but dramatic, the plane is inverted and nose-down. She didn't even realize she had captured the aircraft until the film was developed sometime later. I can't find it anywhere, and thought I was remembering it wrong, but in the NTSB witness statement report they mention her and the photo, so it does exist. Can anyone find a usuable version of it? Lipsticked Pig 17:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Analysis section re-write and further work needed
Inadequate lubrication and end play checks section should explain why insufficient lubrication was applied to the jackscrew assembly during maintenance, and why when lack of lubrication caused excessive wear, that wear was not detected through the "end play" checks.

Extension of maintenance intervals and FAA oversight should discuss how Alaska was able to get FAA approval for the extended maintenance intervals, and how FAA oversight of Alaska was inadequate.

Other issues is self-explanatory

This article needs YOU to fill those out! You can find pretty much all the information you need in the final report under section 2, "Analysis" and section 3.1 "Findings"

Lipsticked Pig 03:25, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

'We can also add an article about the events before the crash like why was Alaska progressively extending maintenance intervals and maybe an mention more about the whistleblower in there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aznriceboi (talk • contribs) 04:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Legacy (Aftermath) section
Re-worded some things so I could cite references, added info about the lawsuits (and false paternity allegations). Dropped the stuff about "flight number 261 being retired", etc. It seems common in these air crash articles, but what's the point? The fact that Flight XXX is now Flight XXY isn't really "notable" If you feel strongly about it, please reference it before putting it back in. If Alaska is in the process of retiring its MD-80 fleet (as previously was written), I would like it back in there, but that too was unreferenced, and I see that it came from the Alaska Airlines wikipedia article. I don't know about you, but I don't trust wikipedia as a source :) Another thing you might want to add (you can reference it from Snopes.com) is the internet rumor that the plane stayed aloft just long enough for someone to finish reciting aloud the lord's prayer. I find that rumor ironic, since for the cost of those damn prayer cards Alaska used to put in your lunchbox, they could have instead adequately lubricated the jackscrew.

The 3 year investigation by the FBI into Alaska maintenance (prompted by the allegations of a whistleblower) should be in this section; some points to emphasize would be that the investigation started long before the crash (i.e., was independed and not necessarily related), and that no charges were filed (but I would directly quote the U.S. Attorney's comments at the conclusion of the Grand Jury, whose comments could be interpreted either way). You can reference a Seattle PI article that is available from the external links.

Also, I'd like to say that the photo of the memorial sundial is quite beautiful, and am very thankful for the person who took and uploaded it. In an objective, NPOV encyclopedia, a special photo like that is a way to convey more than just "facts". Lipsticked Pig 18:13, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Photo of N963AS
I've put in several requests for use of a photo of the actual aircraft (checkout jetphotos.net) to place at top of the infobox. Hopefully one photographer will grant permission...if you have a good one please put in it the article. Lipsticked Pig 04:46, 29 April 2007 (UTC) I found a couple of photos of N963AS on Airliners.net Pig heres the link

[] and a picture of a routine check [] just try to add these on

419 Scam section
I've added a section (moved to within "Aftermath") that tells of how advanced fee fraud ("419") scammers are citing this incident in their scam emails. This is notable and valuable information for people who may be researching this incident due to the fact that they received a scam email mentioning it. Added citation to article detailing scam.
 * I am greatly amused by a 419 scam e-mail I just got referencing this crash and pointing to the wiki page as information on it. 83.46.62.208 (talk) 23:19, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Crash Infobox
I removed the redundant wikilinks for the airports, etc., in the infobox (they are in the lead directly to the left of the infobox, see MOS:LINK) and the national flags (distracting and useless; let's assume that people reading the English Wikipedia know of United States and Mexico). Lipsticked Pig (talk) 10:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Thompson and Tansky
Removed references to them by name in accident flight section. These guys, who are heroes, are mentioned in the aftermath section. If this were an article in Reader's Digest, or ae script for Air Emergency, sure you mention them right off the bat. Along with prose like "...it was a sunny day as Alaska Air 261 departed the airport..." and "..little did the passengers know what awaited them..." This isn't Reader's Digest though, and an article like this should be presented in a removed and clinical way. Referring to them as the "flight crew" is the way to convey the facts about a crash in a professional tone. Lipsticked Pig (talk) 10:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * In any sort of record of a historical event, you mention the names of the leading players. In this case, those people are the captain and co-captain. It's part of the who, what, where, why and how. An encyclopedia shouldn't be removed and clinical; it's a style of writing that readers dislike and that dehumanizes things. Ultimately, the actions of these two men help determine the fate of AA Flight 261, and any report of the event should say that, just as Valley Forge speaks of George Washington.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Did the co-pilot really only have 80 hours of flight time before being made a first officer at AK? Seems improbable.  Particularly if he "flew for the U.S. Navy for 23 years."

Redirected - Error?
Why does Linda Knight redirect here? Jasynnash2 (talk) 16:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

EMAIL SCAM
I got this email today. It was from address

Good day. I am Barrister. Michael Wood, lawyer to late Mr.Morris Thompson who lost his life in plane crash involving Alaska Airline's Flight 261, which crashed on January 31st.2000,including his wife and only daughter. Mr. Morris Thompson aged 61 hailed from Fairbanks, Alaska in United States of America. http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/ Before the demise of my client, he disclosed to me his account status,which amounted to $10.5million (Ten million five hundred thousand American dollars). He also handed over to me some vital copies of documents regarding this fund In London. I was at the last burial rights on February,5th,2000 to pay my final respect,there I made thorough inquiries about his relatives but all in vain. Just two weeks ago, I received a routine notification from the finance house concerning this fund or they  will have it confiscated and as an unclaimed fund.

MY REQUEST; I want you to stand in as the next of kin to late Mr. Morris Thompson. Be informed that upon successful transfer of this money into your account,you shall have 35% of it as your share,15% as the lawyers share and the rest sent back to the lawyer for distribution to any charity organization as requested by my late client. Please include the following in your reply and you can contact me on my mails;

address or

address

(1.)Your Name in full. (2.)A reliable phone and Fax number (3.)Occupation (4)contact address in full. (5)Age.

Yours sincerely,

Barrister Michael Wood

Ontheriver (talk) 21:01, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

me too:

Dear friend, My Name is Mr. Smith Frederick, a senior Auditor and Heading-computing department here in our bank. On my routine inspection I discovered a dormant domiciliary account with a balance of ?35 million (THIRTY FIVE MILLION POUNDS ONLY). I have only written to seek your assistance in transferring this fund. The owner of the fund was a foreigner, late Mr. Thomas Stockley. An American Citizen who unfortunately lost his life in the plane crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which crashed on January 31 2000. I am proposing to make this transfer to a designated bank account of your choice. You can view this link for more details about the plane crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261#Passengers Note that this transaction is confidential and risk free. As soon as you receive this mail you should contact me by return mail. In the event you are not interested, I sincerely ask that you disregard this email and tell no one about it. I am very careful on truncating my banking career should you  mention this to someone else. I hope you can be trusted in this regard. Please note that all necessary arrangement for the smooth release of these funds to you has been finalized. We will discuss much in details when I do receive your response. Your share will be 30% of the total transfer sum after the transfer has been successfully concluded. Please in your response include your telephone and fax numbers for a better communication between us. You can reach me on the email below: Let me know if you can handle it. Best Regards, Mr Smith Frederick My contact details: Email: ***** yahoo.com.cn --200.83.2.4 (talk) 16:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)--200.83.2.4 (talk) 16:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

FYI: I've removed the email addresses above for two reasons (no, I don't edit others' comments lightly):


 * In one case, it was a faked address, which means that in reality it probably belongs to someone innocent. No sense further increasing spam volume for them.
 * In the other cases, they are the addresses used by the spammers, and by posting them here, we're simply increasing their coverage.

-Miskaton (talk) 17:01, 29 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I have just received the email. I'm going to suggest a 419 warning in the linked #Passengers section, not just near the bottom in the Aftermath section, which seems some people potential 419 victims may miss it. 66.114.93.6 (talk) 21:41, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Got this one Dear friend, My Name is Mr. James Smith, a senior Auditor and Heading-computing department here in our bank. On my routine inspection I discovered a dormant domiciliary account with a balance of Ј35 million (THIRTY FIVE MILLION POUNDS ONLY). I blah, blah ... response include your telephone and fax numbers for a better communication between us. You can reach me on the email below: Let me know if you can handle it. Best Regards, Mr James Smith My contact details: jsmith_20099@yahoo.com.cn

Please don´t put a more prominent warning. Whoever is stupid enough to answer to such nonsense deserves whatever happens to him afterwards. --88.66.48.94 (talk) 22:45, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

http://www.cockpitvoicerecordings.com
This website has been added to the external links section for this article and several other plane crash articles. It offers users an opportunity to download, for a fee, a copy of the CVR recording from the accident flight. Since CVR recordings are confidential and only rarely made public, I very much doubt that this website actually has real copies of these CVR recordings. I'm not eager to give the website operators any money in order to verify this, though. If anyone can confirm this website is fraudulent, it should be removed from this, and all of wikipedia's other plane crash articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.22.202.147 (talk) 23:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It doesn't work anymore, so the point is moot. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

A eulogy in Notable People
Would someone braver than I remove or shorten the two paragraphs about William Knudson and his partner, Brad. It is practially a biography. Everyone else has received a single line as to why they are noteworthy, but about them we get to read of warm hearts and their bed and breakfast business. I'd like to be sensitive, but this article shouldn't become a shrine.

87.114.120.152 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:13, 8 March 2010 (UTC).

unsourced
I reverted this misplaced and unreferenced edit (diff) and put it here if anyone wants to try and source it. "ADD: There is one problem with this STORY... near the time of this crash, there was a local news story of the mechanic who had previously inspected the Jack Screw. He made a report to his supervisor that the Jack Screw should be replaced. Supervisor rejected the mechanic recommendation. After the crash the mechanic was terminated." Lateg (talk) 23:16, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Stuff
See Talk:Alaska Airlines Flight 261/Stuff WhisperToMe (talk) 16:10, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Cockpit voice recording
I'm going to revert this back out of the article. It's questionable whether this material is appropriate for the article at all; before we even address that question, the fact that it cannot be included in its current form needs to be dealt with. A transcript shouldn't just be one large blurb of text, lacking correct capitalization, punctuation, etc. --Moralis (talk) 06:09, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Alright. Further research would indicate that this isn't even an accurate transcript. It looks like it's been sort of picked-and-chosen through, which sounds to me like original research, and since a source hasn't been provided it's hard to verify that. I still don't think that Wikipedia even needs a transcript of the cockpit voice recording from a downed airliner, as this information is readily available elsewhere, and mostly just serves to lengthen the article. Furthermore, this is a B-class article, and the material in question is not up to B-class standards (in fact, it's rife with spelling, grammar and punctuation errors, which I would happily correct if I were not looking to remove it completely).


 * No responses yet to my request for feedback, and the author of this material still hasn't responded to talk page messages. I'm going to wait another several hours to see if anybody else wants to weigh in. Then, if neither the author nor anyone else has entered into this conversation, I'm going to remove the material. Again. I would like to inform the record that I realize this is a good-faith editor, but it's a totally uncommunicative good-faith editor who's making a dubious addition to an otherwise well-rated article. --Moralis (talk) 17:07, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Not even a single mention of the whistleblower John Liotine?
According to what I read, he appears to have found an issue with the airplane component at fault but his assessment was dismissed. A source would be: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20011220&slug=alaska20 --76.69.142.123 (talk) 06:57, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The Mayday episode mentioned that guy. Yeah, he needs to be mentioned. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:37, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * please check the article WhisperToMe (talk) 20:12, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Attempt to fly the aircraft upside-down?
There's one sentence that seems to lack support: At one point, unable to raise the nose, they attempted to fly the aircraft "upside-down".

This implies that the pilots deliberately tried to invert the plane, or at least keep it inverted after an unintended roll. Certainly the aircraft was inverted. But there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the inversion was deliberate. The CVR transcript (which is the only reference cited by this sentence) seems consistent with the notion that the inversion was unintended and that the pilots were trying to right the aircraft.

So unless anyone knows of any citable source saying that the inversion was deliberate, I think this sentence should be changed. Especially because it can be confused with the movie Flight, where, in a similar situation, the pilots do deliberately attempt to invert the aircraft. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xamnidar (talk • contribs) 20:27, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Final Attempt to free the Stabilizer.
So what would have happened if the Stabilizer did not point down after the pilots tried one final time to release it? Could they have landed safely at LAX? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.88.19.103 (talk) 22:29, 18 July 2016 (UTC)


 * The jack screw was stripped completely from the nuts, and was detached. This essentially disconnected the front of the horizontal stabilizer and allowed it to pitch up (or down) to it's stops. Since the jack screw mechanical connection was completely broken, there was absolutely nothing that could have been done - no matter how many times they tried to run the trim motors.  It was doomed.  98.194.39.86 (talk) 11:59, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Inverted Flight
There is an enduring myth about this accident, repeated in this article, that the pilots managed to arrest their descent by flying the plane upside down in its final moments. I say it is a myth because, according to the flight data as reported by the NTSB, it did not happen. The aircraft's descent during it's final plunge, as shown on pages 10C-47 and 10C-48 of the FDR Tabular Data, remained fairly steady at about 250ft per second, except for a few brief seconds at about 12,400ft (which is certainly not "just before impact" as the article says currently). The pilots did manage to hold the plane in a somewhat stable inverted attitude, but they did not achieve "almost level flight". The MD-83 is not a fighter jet; its wings will not produce sufficient lift to keep the plane level while in an inverted position, and the manufacturer of the plane has confirmed this.

I've added a citation needed tag, but I'm hesitant to just remove the line from the article without discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Waterfire (talk • contribs) 00:35, 25 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Page 9 of the accident report points out that at 1619:42 the plane was -70 pitch, and rolling through -76. By 1619:45, fully inverted they were able to reduce the dive to -28, and to a further -9 degrees pitch just 10 seconds later. On the FDR data, it appears they held ~ 0 to -10 pitch for almost 30 seconds (1619:56 - 1620:30) down to 7-8000 feet, before losing it in the final dive (Pg 129 report notes uncontrolled and steep) which lasted about 20 seconds.
 * From this I'd say the characterization is technically correct; the article phrasing says "inverting of the aircraft managed to arrest the dive" which is the case, but I agree "almost level flight just be for impact" is incorrect per the accident report, I'll go ahead and remove it. Separately while the plane might not be designed for continuous inverted flight, its certainly capable of maneuvering while inverted (old "Advanced aircraft maneuvering program" videos from American Airlines are pretty jaw dropping.) Strangerpete (talk) 02:06, 25 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I'd still consider "managed to arrest the dive" to be incorrect. To arrest the dive would necessarily mean arresting the descent, regardless of the pitch attitude of the plane. They barely even seem to have had directional control, as can be seen by the magnetic heading information on Pages 10C-43 to 10C-45 of the FDR data. Waterfire (talk) 03:03, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, the article seems to say that pilots inverted the aircraft intentionally, which is again not supported by the accident report.Waterfire (talk) 03:06, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Waterfire I'm rereading now, going to take me a bit to absorb; but I'm inclined to agree they did not arrest the dive, Page 6, Fig 2 radar graph clearly shows a final dive with no significant recovery.
 * As to them intentionally inverting, from Page 8-9 its clear they did not initiate the roll, but while at -76 the captain said "push and roll", after which the plane continued to -180, so it appears he committed to the roll, confirming verbally after, "ok, we are inverted...and now we gotta get it", at which they made attempts to flip over. So the article phrasing seems to be an exaggeration, the truth lying somewhere between. Suggestions on a way to rephrase this? Strangerpete (talk) 17:23, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * @Strangerpete Given the speed at which the flight became inverted (see the FDR animation included in the article), I very much doubt that inverting it could have been at all intentional. It seems the plane turned over because of the aerodynamic forces induced by the pitch down. The plane was already pretty much inverted by the time the captain said "push and roll," which leads me to believe that, at that point, he was trying to turn the plane back upright. Pushing and rolling is a part of the technique of recovering from an aircraft upset (see UPRT), and it's certainly consistent with the pilots continuing their attempts to regain control.
 * I do think the NTSB report and flight data agree that the pilots were trying to recover control by flying inverted, at least for part of the final plunge. The intentional part was keeping the plane inverted so as to try and push the nose back to the horizon, not inverting the plane in the first place. Waterfire (talk) 00:18, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Waterfire I believe we are in agreement, though I think we are starting to cross WP:NOR in trying to interpret the report; its clear it is an UPRT maneuver, but I don't see the report specifically saying that. I just made an edit that included mention of it, but focuses on the CVR quotes instead, though my wording definitely could use review.
 * I think the claim originates from a 2013 Yahoo Movies article that conflates the statement "at least upside down we're flyin" with meaning the pilots put the plane in that position. Though it isn't clear why he would use that phrasing if he didn't think things were going better upside down than upright.
 * Thinking that the source on them being post-humorously awarded might explain better, I found that the Seattle Post Intelligencer -"Pilots honored for heroism during crisis" is 404, and has been marked as that on archive.org since 2012; I couldn't readily find a copy online. There are also no other apparent citations in the article for this fact. Strangerpete (talk) 02:51, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Photograph of Bill Tansky
It seems to be difficult to find an image of William "Bill" Tansky, the co-pilot, online. I found one on Newspapers.com:
 * - Clipping showing Tansky's portrait, clipping of full article

I do not know if the image is a PD US Military image or not, but if it is, it may be included in this article. WhisperToMe (talk) 04:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Crash location inconsistency
In the section "Second dive and crash", the crash location is given as "A few seconds before 16:22 (00:22 UTC), Flight 261 hit the Pacific Ocean at high speed, about 14 mi (23 km; 12 nmi) offshore, between the coastal city of Port Hueneme, California, and Anacapa Island." but the total distance between the shore at Port Hueneme and the closest of the Anacapa Islands is only 12 miles, or about 19 km. Looking at the maps in the article, I would guess that the actual distance from land was 14 kilometers, not miles. That fits nicely with the location shown in the two maps. So possibly a case of "lost in conversion", with the correct number, but wrong distance unit, was used. 94.254.62.88 (talk) 21:58, 18 July 2023 (UTC)


 * That was added in 2018 here as 14 miles. The NTSB report says "The main wreckage was found at 34° 03.5' north latitude and 119° 20.8' west longitude." Which looks like about 9.5 miles off shore according to Google maps. IDK where that person got 14 mi and it's not cited, so I've removed it. --Dual Freq (talk) 22:30, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

"Flight status"
This article remarks that Alaska Airlines has retired the flight number used for this accident flight. This is actually common practice in the airline industry perhaps out of respect those who lost their lives on the flights in question or, just as likely, in recognition that people might not want to fly on the same numbered flight as one that met an unfortunate end. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:801:300:7520:C805:B94C:AF26:4712 (talk) 20:49, 31 December 2023 (UTC)