Alaska Airline Crash Flight 261 - Research Paper Example

The other passengers were heading to San Francisco. This paper seeks to discuss Alaska airline crash flight 261. Additionally, the legal issue will be discussed such as what the investigation revealed concerning the maintenance of the plane and whether the crash resulted from the pilot error. After the crash investigation was conducted in December 2002, it was noted by the National Transportation Safety Board that the plane lacked enough grease on the jackscrews. Insufficient lubrication of jackscrews lead the tread to be stripped that resulted to horizontal stabilizer of the plane to jam.

Due to this, the horizontal stabilizer was subjected to aerodynamic forces which the plane was unable to withstand leading to the plane crashing. Since the lubrication was insufficient then the rate of wear and tear occurred at a faster rate. At normal circumstance the tear rate should be 0.001 inch per 1,000 flight hours as compared with 0.012 which occurred. The rate of wear and tear was concluded to be faster based on the fact that Alaska Airlines changed the grease they were used to with the approval of the aircraft manufacturer.

The grease which the Airline was using previously was Aeroshell 33 but the previously approved grease was Mobile grease 28 (Song, 2000). Afterwards the use of Aeroshell 33 was concluded that it was not the one that caused the accident but insufficient lubrication was a major cause of the accident. An examination on the jackscrews that was conducted revealed that no lubrication was present when the accident happened which resulted to wear of the nut threads that later resulted to the accident (Hatcher, 2001).

The board was blamed since the maintenance was not conducted the way it was supposed to be done. Federal Aviation Administration failure to oversee all the business transactions and ensure that the plane was under good maintenance. The investigation that was concluded by the board