Without Warning
The Maintenance Shortcut That Killed 88 | Alaska Flight 261
25:40
A bronze nut inside the tail of an MD-83 was designed to wear out. Nobody had measured it in two and a half years.
On January 31, 2000, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 fell into the Pacific off Anacapa Island. Eighty eight people died. The part that failed was doing exactly what it was built to do.
The tail surface of an MD-80 pivots on a steel screw threaded through a bronze nut. Steel is hard,…