On January 21, 2000, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashed into the Pacific Ocean on its way from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to San Francisco and Seattle. The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 suffered a catastrophic loss of pitch control following an in-flight failure of the horizontal stabilizer trim system jackscrew assembly’s trapezoidal nut threads. All 88 people on board perished. It was later determined that the thread failure was caused by excessive wear resulting from insufficient lubrication of the jackscrew assembly.
There will be a memorial at Soundview Terrace Park today in Seattle.
The attorneys at Krutch Lindell Bingham Jones, P.S., are proud to have stood by the families of victims of the tragedy. Attorneys Thomas Bingham and Jeffrey Jones were part of Krutch Lindell’s aviation accident legal team that handled the case.
