On January 31, 2000, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 was en route from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to Seattle, Washington, with a scheduled stopover at San Francisco, California. Things went badly wrong, even with the subtle hints of disaster lurking in the shadows from takeoff. The 83 passengers and 5 crew members aboard the MD-83 (N963AS) ultimately paid the price for simple oversights. This article will attempt to shed light on the underlying circumstances that led to the out-of-control accident. This will include the flight crew overlooking obvious signs of problems from takeoff to performing preventative maintenance, and finally diving deep into the findings of the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 investigation. Rising into the afternoon sky over Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on January 31, 2000, 5 crew members and 83 passengers settled in for the nearly four-hour flight to San Francisco . As the plane passed 7,500 feet, Captain Ted Thompson activated the autopilot as he had done many times before becoming a seasoned commercial airline pilot with 10,400 flight hours under his belt, alongside the first officer William Tansky who was no stranger to aviation himself. logging more than 8,047 hours under his belt. After 13 minutes of smooth flight, while approaching the cruising altitude of 31,000 feet, the autopilot disengaged, indicating to the flight crew that the stabilizer trim system was apparently not functioning properly and that the plane would have to be flown manually (by hand). for the rest of the flight. After interviewing several experienced airline pilots, they agreed that the crew probably thought it was nothing serious and had no reason to alert passengers and cause them unnecessary worry. The stabi...... middle of paper ...... lawsuits filed by surviving family members were settled out of court before going to trial. The construction of a memorial sundial was placed in Port Hueneme to cast a shadow on a memorial plaque at 4:22 p.m. each January 31 in remembrance of those who lost their lives due to the surveillance of others. Works CitedWallace, J. (2000, December 9). A hierarchy of human errors may have doomed Alaska Flight 261. Seattle Post-Intelligencer Para. 11Wikipedia encyclopedia. (January 31, 2000). Alaska Airlines Flight 261 website. Retrieved June 26, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261 Seattle Post Intelligencer. (January 30, 2001) Flight 261 website. Retrieved June 26, 2007 from http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/flight261/Aviation Weekly. (October 9, 2005) Alaska Airlines and FAA review MD-80 Jackscrew problems. Frances Fiorino