Douglas MD-83 N963AS

Summary

On 1 February 2000 at about 00:20 local time, a Douglas MD-83 registered N963AS, operated by Alaska Airlines Inc, was involved in an accident near Port Hueneme, California, United States. 88 people were on board and 88 died. The aircraft was destroyed. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

1 February 2000 at 00:20

Classification

Accident

Location

Port Hueneme, California, United States

Nearest airport

Los Angeles Int'n'l Airport (LAX)

Coordinates

34.1101, -119.1106

Aircraft

Douglas MD-83

Registration

N963AS

Category

Airplane

Engines

2

Operator

Alaska Airlines Inc

Operating rule

Part 121: Air Carrier

Purpose of flight

Unknown

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Puerto Vallarta → San Francisco

Aircraft damage

Destroyed

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

DCA00MA023

88 people died.

A loss of airplane pitch control resulting from the in-flight failure of the horizontal stabilizer trim system jackscrew assembly's acme nut threads. The thread failure was caused by excessive wear resulting from Alaska Airlines' insufficient lubrication of the jackscrew assembly. Contributing to the accident were Alaska Airlines' extended lubrication interval and the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) approval of that extension, which increased the likelihood that a missed or inadequate lubrication would result in excessive wear of the acme nut threads, and Alaska Airlines' extended end play check interval and the FAA's approval of that extension, which allowed the excessive wear of the acme nut threads to progress to failure without the opportunity for detection. Also contributing to the accident was the absence on the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 of a fail-safe mechanism to prevent the catastrophic effects of total acme nut thread loss.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The Board's full report is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/publictn.htm. On January 31, 2000, about 1621 Pacific standard time, Alaska Airlines, Inc., flight 261, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83, N963AS, crashed into the Pacific Ocean about 2.7 miles north of Anacapa Island, California. The 2 pilots, 3 cabin crewmembers, and 83 passengers on board were killed, and the airplane was destroyed by impact forces. Flight 261 was operating as a scheduled international passenger flight under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121 from Lic Gustavo Diaz Ordaz International Airport, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to Seattle?Tacoma International Airport, Seattle, Washington, with an intermediate stop planned at San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the flight, which operated on an instrument flight rules flight plan.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.