Alaska Airlines filed court documents Monday admitting liability for the January 2000 crash of its Flight 261, an accident that was caused by inadequate lubrication of a tail-wing assembly. Eighty-eight passengers and crew members died when the plane fell into the Pacific off the coast of California.
Seattle-based Alaska Airlines made the filings in U.S. District Court in San Francisco as part of a wrongful death civil suit brought by relatives of individuals who died in the accident. The Boeing Co., a co-defendant in the suit, also filed documents Monday stating it will not contest liability.
The concessions by the two companies remove liability as an issue in the suit, which is scheduled to go to trial June 17. The sole remaining task for the jury in the case will be to determine the amount of compensatory damages to be paid to the families of the dead.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board concluded last December that Flight 261 crashed because the threads on a nut in the planes horizontal stabilizer wore out, causing the assembly to fail and pilots to lose control of the plane. The board blamed Alaska Air for failing to adequately grease the stabilizer and the Federal Aviation Administration for being too lenient with its oversight of the carriers maintenance practices.
The board also said the lack of a fail-safe mechanism in the design of the horizontal stabilizer contributed to the crash.
An Alaska Air spokesman told Lube Report yesterday that the airline accepted responsibility for the accident all along. However, the airline had tried to blame the crash on a variety of other factors outside its control, including the greases that Boeing recommended for the stabilizer. The safety board cleared the greases of any role in the accident.
The Associated Press yesterday quoted a Boeing spokesman as saying the manufacturer agreed not to contest liability so that the case would not drag on. The MD-83 jet used for Flight 261 was built by McDonnell Douglas, which merged with Boeing in 1997.
The plaintiffs in the civil suit are relatives of 16 of the dead. Families of more than 70 other victims also sued but have reached out-of-court settlements for undisclosed amounts.