When the stabilizer moves upward, downforce on the tail decreases, and the nose pitches down; similarly, when the stabilizer moves downward, downforce increases, and the nose pitches up. Capt. He is a resident of Newport Beach, California. Alaska Airlines flight 261 But after Liotine left for the night, the next shift and the shift supervisors decided to run the test again before taking his measurement at face value. First, pressurized grease was to be injected into a special tube on the nut until it filled all the thread gaps between the nut and the jackscrew and started to bulge out the top. He was coming home from Mexico with his girlfriend, Nina Voronoff. Traveling with Colleen Whorley in Mexico, he e-mailed a friend poetic descriptions of their time together. This article is written without reference to and supersedes the original. I dont know, my adrenalines going, said Thompson. He moved to San Francisco last year. Four minutes later, a warning light illuminated to inform the crew that the autopilot was unable to move the stabilizer. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. pilot drunk January 22, 2016 Examined 9:54 Whats next for The NTSB report did not identify a probable cause of the crash. Profiles of Alaska Flight 261 victims Alaska Airlines Pilot Accused of Flying Drunk This may seem strange to make such a change in the cabin based on a superstitious belief. They heard a helicopter, but they were unable to fire the flare gun successfully and the helicopter left. For comparison, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles, it is illegal for adults to operate motor vehicles with blood alcohol concentrations of 0.08 percent or higher in the state of California; that percentage drops to 0.04 percent for those operating commercial vehicles. SkyWest 5154, you still got your eyes on him, sir?. A Newport Beach airline pilot has been arrested and charged with piloting an Alaska Airlines jet full of passengers while under the influence of alcohol, authorities said Thursday. PLANE CRASH, Alaska Airlines Flight 261, Pacific Mr. Sparks was a guard on his schools varsity basketball team, and is remembered as a champion of the underdog who stood up for less-popular classmates. Related: Has my pilot had too much to drink? Join the discussion of this article on Reddit! Luque had worked at Taste Catering in San Francisco since 1994. Uh, its a lot worse than it was? Tansky asked. But they would tend to be more short-lived or there are easy ways for pilots to counteract such failures, he said. Over time, this minute difference will cause the jackscrew to wear away the threads on the nut if metal-on-metal contact is allowed to occur. Cynthia Oti, 43, Oakland, Calif.She was an investment broker who hosted a nightly radio show on investing on KSFO in San Francisco. At Alaska Airlines, our roots trace back to the Great Depression and the resourcefulness of Mac McGee. After the June 2014 incident, Arntson retired from Alaska Airlines, and the Federal Aviation Administration revoked his pilots license, the US Attorneys Office said. Carol Karlsson, 42, Petaluma, Calif.Wife of Karl Karlsson, she was fun-loving and cheerful. WebAnswer (1 of 11): If the pilots of Alaska Airlines 261 had known exactly what was wrong, is there anyway they could have salvaged the situation? She edited the Floating Homes Association newsletter. A big, huge plunge, thank you, said the controller. Also killed was the airplanes owner, Karl Erickson, 55, and David Osborn, 60, both of Girdwood, and Paul Wiley, 37, of Superior, Arizona. If a pilot is discovered to have a BAC of 0.04 or more, the FAA can have the pilots license suspended for a year or place criminal charges, even if they havent taken off in an aircraft. Described by friends as a soft-spoken, caring person, Ms. Thompson is survived by two sisters. Ah, here we go, said Captain Thompson, uttering the last words captured on the cockpit voice recorder. The flight, eventually bound for Seattle, crashed off the California coast on Jan. 31, 2000. Rodney Pearson, 45, SeattleMr. The evidence indicates that he had flown with an alcohol level more than three times the legal limit, US Attorney Nicola T. Hanna said in a statement. The state medical examiner found the cause of Weimers death was injuries from the crash but also that alcohol intoxication may be viewed as a factor contributing to death., Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. Blake Clemetson, 7, SeattleBlake was Corianders younger sister, the daughter of Dr. David Clemetson and his first wife, Dr. Claire Barnett. It might be mechanical damage too. Barbara Hatleberg, 64, Eugene, Ore.The wife of Glenn Hatleburg, mother of three and grandmother of two, she was retired but used her skills at accounting and finance to volunteer in the office of her church. However, Alaska Airlines maintenance personnel often did it in as little as one hour not because they found a more efficient way, but because they didnt understand the proper procedure and skipped some of the steps. Alaska Airlines 261 Bryant was a travel agent who was excited when he received free tickets for a trip to Mexico. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. A former Alaska Airlines captain faces jail time for piloting a plane carrying passengers while under the influence of alcohol, over four years after the incident took place. Were flying were flying tell em what were doing.. Finally, the Safety Board also felt that there were lessons to be learned from the actions of the pilots. Pilots of nearby planes caught sight of flight 261 and radioed Los Angeles air traffic control. A ground-service agent for Horizon Air, she was outgoing and athletic, an avid volleyball player who hoped to become a personal trainer. A special inspection by the FAA after the accident found further evidence of a massively deficient safety culture at Alaska Airlines. And more than 21 years after the crash of flight 261, it is far from clear that the FAA is any less understaffed than it was when it let safety at Alaska Airlines fall to pieces at the cost of 88 lives. In 1996, Alaska Airlines applied to the FAA to extend the interval between its C-checks from 13 months to 15 months. Gabriela Chavez, 33, Puerto Vallarta, MexicoA homemaker, wife and mother of one, Ms. Chavez was flying to San Francisco to visit her sister. At that moment they effectively were dead. The seemingly simple task of greasing the jackscrew was not immune to this degradation of the maintenance environment. The turn of the millennium had just come and gone, and the future again seemed limitless. Jean Gandesbery, 66, Davis, Calif.An adjunct instructor of writing at the University of San Franciscos Sacramento campus, Ms. Gandesbery just had her childhood memoirs published by Minerva Press in a novel, Seven Mile Lake. She was married to Robert Gandesbery. But neither of the applicable checklists said anything about landing at the nearest available airport, and by the time they finished the checklists and leveled off at 31,000 feet, minimal effort was required to keep the plane flying level. Flight 261 was traveling from Puerto Vallarta to San Francisco on Jan. 31, 2000 when a mechanical malfunction inverted the jet and sent it downward off the Ventura County coast. ALASKA AIRLINES flight But when we slowed down lets slow it, lets get it down to two hundred knots and see what happens., Now Thompson and Tansky slowed down and deployed the flaps and slats, simulating a landing configuration, to make sure the plane would be controllable on final approach. Thorgrimson, a founding partner of a prominent Seattle-based law firm. I think the stab trim thing is broke, said Thompson. Its an outcome that has left many of them bitter to this day. Therefore the interval between jackscrew inspections was effectively increased from 26 to 30 months without the FAA spending a single minute looking into whether or not this was appropriate. The horrific crash killed all 88 people on board and raised troubling questions about one of Americas largest airlines. Okay, we had a big bang back there, said the flight attendant. Different speeds and phases of flight require the stabilizer to apply varying amounts of downforce on the tail in order to keep the plane level, and further adjustments must be made to ensure that the pilots dont have to continuously pull up or push down using the elevators in order to climb or descend. He was traveling with several college friends. The revelations were in a report by the National Transportation Safety Board, the Anchorage Daily News reported . Prosecutors said that Arnston was an alcoholic during at least a substantial portion" of his career, and concealed the fact from both the carrier and FAA. Many workers who greased jackscrews didnt apply additional grease to the screw itself after greasing the nut. The result was a chronic problem of Alaska Airlines MD-80s with poorly greased jackscrews. Push and roll! Thompson shouted, trying to coordinate with Tansky to roll the plane right-side-up. Colleen Whorley, 34, SeattleAn art director at Microsoft, Ms. Whorley honed her skills in photography. N963AS nearly made it anyway its next jackscrew inspection was scheduled for March 2000. As they struggled to regain control, Thompson radioed Los Angeles and said, Center, Alaska two six one, we are in a dive here, and Ive lost control, vertical pitch! An overspeed warning blared in the cockpit. All large airplanes have what is referred to as a trimmable horizontal stabilizer. WebAlaska Airlines Flight 261 was a flight from Licenciado Gustavo Daz Ordaz International Airport in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico, to SeattleTacoma International Airport in Seattle, Washington, United States, with an intermediate stop at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California. The night shift subsequently performed the test five more times and measured a wear depth of approximately 0.84mm on each attempt. Performing maintenance less frequently saved on labor costs and kept the planes in the air longer, thus increasing revenue. Finally, the stabilizer was to be moved repeatedly between full nose up and full nose down so that the nut could spread the grease evenly over the entire jackscrew. WebOn Flight 261, the nut portion of the jackscrew (located on the horizontal stabilizer) screwed itself off the jackscew. We did both the pickle switches and the suitcase handles, he told the maintenance technician, and it ran away full nose trim down., And now were in a pinch, Thompson continued, so were holding, uh, were worse than we were.. However, the pilots were clearly under pressure to continue on to San Francisco, and maintenance technicians and dispatchers on the ground did not appreciate the direness of the situation. Ryan, who owned a commercial printing business, Copy Cat in Redmond, was an Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam. With the stabilizer angled 3.1 degrees toward nose down, more than the design maximum of 2.5 degrees, flight 261 immediately entered a high-speed dive, hurtling downward at more than 6,000 feet per minute. At least upside down, were flying!. She was a food-and-beverage agent for Alaskas sister airline, Horizon Air. He is survived by his wife, Earlene Shaw, who works at the state Senate cafeteria. The co-pilot also recalled Arntson saying "I bet it's for me.". It was on board Alaska Airlines flight 261 from Puerto Vallarta to San Francisco on the 31st of January 2000 that this sequence of events that had been years in the making finally came to its terrifying conclusion. On every level, it was a tragedy that did not need to happen and to this day, it serves as a grim example of the depths to which an airline may fall when oversight becomes too thinly stretched. The last minutes of those on board the doomed MD-83 would have been sheer hell, as the plane went inverted, corkscrewed, pirouetted, and spun like a top during its final dive. Arntson was selected for random drug and alcohol testing by Alaska Airlines at at John Wayne Airport after landing. Having decided not to touch the trim system anymore, the crew now performed some final tests of the airplanes low speed handling. Erickson was a student pilot. If done correctly, the process took about four hours. Market data provided by Factset. Alaska Flight 261 The investigation uncovered a daunting list of operational problems and regulatory mistakes that led to the crash. Most importantly, the National Transportation Safety Board excoriated Alaska Airlines decision to increase the intervals between jackscrew lubrications and wear inspections, and the FAAs approval of these intervals, which it considered to be a direct cause of the accident. According to the plea agreement, both breathalyzer tests performed on Arnston were well above the federal limit of 0.04 percent for pilots, indicating blood alcohol concentrations of 0.134 and 0.142 percent, over three times the legal limit. Alaska Airlines pilot arrested for allegedly flying planes drunk The pilots decided that Los Angeles looked better. He was remembered for being a friendly neighbor and loving owner of two golden retrievers, Casey and Emma, and he loved to play the clarinet. School counselors said she and her friend, Rachel Janosik, were funny, enjoyable, mature young women. Very dangerous': Alaska Airlines pilot headed One of six children born to Jovanna Luque of Olympia, Mr. Luque is the second child she has lost. Russel Ing, 28, SeattleA visual-arts graduate who worked in graphic design for Kinkos in Woodinville, Mr. Ing won awards for his photography. Profiles of Alaska Flight 261 victims He once owned the reknowned Blue Moon Tavern in the University District and the J & M Cafe in Pioneer Square. Alaska Airlines 261 Flight (2012 film The pilots pulled back as hard as they could on their control columns and deployed the flaps to try and slow down, but their efforts were utterly hopeless. / CBS News. View on timesmachine. However, the plane ran into a streak of at least two or three grease applications that were not done correctly, including one in September 1999 by a notorious San Francisco-based mechanic who was later found to have applied virtually no grease to any of the jackscrews he worked on. Very dangerous': Alaska Airlines pilot headed The lead mechanic that day was John Liotine, a rare Alaska Airlines employee who still took safety seriously. The US aviation industry has nevertheless managed to go a long time without another major crash, but as for whether something like Alaska 261 could happen again well, never say never. Allen Friedmann, 48, Round Lake Beach, Ill.A marathon runner remembered for being a good neighbor in his Chicago suburb, Mr. Friedmann is survived by his wife, a daughter, 16, and a son, 5. A case worker at the Northwest AIDS Foundation, he joined with his partner in a commitment ceremony two years ago at First Baptist Church in Seattle with one of their dogs as the ring-bearer. How long does it take for a potato to cook at 350? Thompson continued to think about ways to unjam the stabilizer. Federal regulations limit alcohol levels to 0.04 for airplane crew members. Larry Baldridge Jr., 34, Novato, Calif.A businessman with a knack for the Internet, he was working to set up venture-capital business with Michael Schwab, the son of legendary brokerage leader Charles Schwab. But in the end, Alaska all but got away with it. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. A former Alaska Airlines captain faces jail time for piloting a plane carrying passengers while under the influence of alcohol, over four years after the incident took place. It began life as a regional airline in Alaska, and by the time deregulation arrived in the late 1970s, it only had one destination in the lower 48 states. Among major US airlines, Alaska has charted perhaps the most unusual course across its long and fascinating history. Meghann Hall, 19, EnumclawA graduate of Enumclaw High School, she had considered a career in sports medicine or coaching. Naomi Laigo, 53, Fairfield, Calif.A devoted mother of three sons who was a nurse at a clinic in San Leandro, Calif., she grew roses in her spare time. It got worse, okay. Violent vibrations shook the airplane. Alaska Airlines had hung him out to dry, and to add insult to injury, his blowing the whistle failed to prevent the crash of flight 261. She was also accompanied by her longtime companion, Charles Russell. In September of 1997, maintenance workers in Oakland performed the aforementioned test on N963AS and found a wear depth of exactly one millimeter. No survivors Erickson indicated that he and the pilot had been drinking alcoholic beverages, investigator Brice Banning wrote. Friends described her as a culture bearer who mastered all she attempted. What he liked best in life was family, said his longtime medical assistant. Fuck me, he said. Still, the pilots did not give up; Thompson thought it might be possible to roll out right-side-up using the rudder. WebAnswer (1 of 11): If the pilots of Alaska Airlines 261 had known exactly what was wrong, is there anyway they could have salvaged the situation? Toxicology results showed that Weimers blood-alcohol was 0.238. By this point the amount of force he needed to apply to the control column to keep the nose level was pushing him to the limit of his physical ability. How much does Alaskan airline pilot make? Not according to that its not, said Tansky. The pilots, 53-year-old Captain Ted Thompson and 57-year-old First Officer Bill Tansky, could not have known that they were about to play out the final chapter in a sordid story that had been building toward its conclusion for years. Alaska Airlines flight AS261 crashed on January 31, 2000, about 1621 Pacific standard time, Alaska Airlines, Inc., flight AS261, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83, N963AS : it crashed into the Pacific Ocean about 2.7 miles north of Anacapa Island, California.. Kristin Mills, 26, Las VegasShe lived in Las Vegas with her husband of three years, Dave, but kept a home in Seattle so she could work at her dream job as a flight attendant with Alaska Airlines. The FAAs special inspection report noted that the position of Director of Maintenance had gone unfilled since 1998; the Director of Operations position was empty; the Director of Safety was also the Director of Quality Control and the Director of Training and didnt report to high-level management; there was no maintenance training curriculum; on-the-job training was completely unstructured; the procedures in use didnt match those outlined in the maintenance manual; planes had been released from C-checks with paperwork incomplete; perishable and consumable materials had expired; shift turnover paperwork was missing, unsigned, or incomplete; work cards were not filled out properly; and more the list went on and on. By nightfall, working with the help of flood lights from squid fishing boats, recovery workers managed to find just seven bodies. The Safety Board found that this unsafe inspection interval was only approved indirectly by the FAA. An accountant with MPL2.com in Bellevue, he was traveling with the Ryan family and several friends. Were slowing here, and were gonna do a little troubleshooting, can you give me a block altitude between twenty and twenty five?. Consequences of Flying Drunk So what happens when a pilot is arrested for flying under the influence? Over the next couple minutes, the pilots found the plane to be reasonably stable at lower speeds. Glenn Hatleberg, 65, Eugene, Ore.The husband of Barbara Hatleberg, retired father of three grown children and grandfather of two small girls, Mr. Hatleberg was beloved at his Lutheran church in Eugene, where he served as an usher during services. Kick! he shouted. It was not designed to handle that kind of pressure, and over those ten minutes, it started to fracture. How should I dress my baby in 69 degrees? Epilogue. ALASKA AIRLINES flight The stabilizer on the MD-80 series rests on top of the tail, and like all airliners, it can move up and down to adjust the pitch angle at which the plane is stable. As such, it is critically important that the jackscrew be kept in good working order, primarily through the liberal application of grease at regular intervals. Representatives for Alaska Airlines not immediately return Fox News request for comment. January 22, 2016 Examined 9:54 Whats next for The problem was that with insufficient grease, the threads on the nut began to wear down at an accelerated rate. I think if its controllable, we ought to just try and land it, said Tansky. Although the exact identity of the Eskimo is unknown, some believe it to be the face of either Chester Seveck, a reindeer herder in Kotzebue, or Oliver Amouak, an Inupiat Eskimo. The basic design of the stabilizer is relatively simple. He was coming home with his wife, Carol. Indeed, the final, terrifying dive was the culmination not just of hours of failed troubleshooting, but of years upon years of negligent maintenance, blatant corruption, and lax federal oversight, a deadly combination that led to an unprecedented failure of the stabilizer trim jackscrew one of the scariest malfunctions any flight crew has ever faced. Stasinos was a longtime Seattle insurance agent and an active member of the Seattle-area Greek community. No survivors from Flight 261 have been found. As the NTSB investigation continued, so too did the criminal investigation and the saga of John Liotine. Mechanical stops attached to the jackscrew prevent the stabilizer from moving farther than 2.5 degrees upward or 12.5 degrees downward. Pilot As flight 261 climbed through 23,400 feet at approximately 13:49 that day, the badly worn threads started to tear away from the nut, wrapping themselves around the jackscrew and causing the stabilizer to jam. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Quality control fell by the wayside as workers performed tasks they didnt understand, while under pressure to get planes back in service as quickly as possible. Flight (2012 film Push push push, push the blue side up!, Okay, now lets kick rudder, left rudder, left rudder. For two hours, the crew of the ill-fated jet had struggled with a malfunctioning stabilizer, unaware that this critical flight control system had turned into a ticking time bomb counting down toward catastrophic failure. According to the official maintenance manual, greasing the jackscrew involved three main steps. Retired from a career at the U.S. Treasury, he collected miniature trains and loved to take his wife on rail trips. John Cuthbertso, 70, Danville, Calif.A smallish man with a Scottish brogue and gray beard who looked younger than his 70 years, he used to own a heating and air-conditioning company and drove a flashy car. Very dangerous': Alaska Airlines pilot headed I didnt want to call you guys, said the flight attendant, but that girl theyre like, you better go up there and tell them., I need you strapped in, dear, said Thompson, cause Im going to release the back pressure and see if I can get it back.. Her husband, Lee, 41, and children, 5-year-old Barbara and 11-year-old Daniel, stayed behind in Mexico. Alaska Airlines Flight 261 He will be sentenced this spring in US District Court in Santa Ana, California, according to the attorney. Federal regulations limit alcohol levels to 0.04 for airplane crew members. In 1987, Alaska Airlines greased the stabilizer jackscrews on its MD-80s every 500 flight hours, the value recommended by the manufacturer. By requesting any altitude between 20,000 and 25,000 feet, the crew of flight 261 could ensure that if they nosedived again, nearby planes wouldnt be in danger. William Knudson, 53, SacramentoCo-founder of Inland Business Systems in Sacramento, Mr. Knudson was known for his love of boating and restoring old cars with his partner, Bradley Long.
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