Alaska Airlines Flight 261

When a critical component fails at 31,000 feet, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 becomes a desperate battle against physics itself. Two veteran pilots attempt something never before tried in commercial aviation—flying their MD-83 inverted over the Pacific Ocean—in a last-ditch effort to save 88 lives. But this disaster didn't start with mechanical failure. It started three years earlier, when a mechanic's warning was ignored, a worn part was put back into service, and a whistleblower was silenced. Discover how a few dollars' worth of grease and corporate cost-cutting turned a routine flight into one of aviation's most heroic—and most preventable—tragedies.

SOURCES

1. Mayday: Air Disasters - Season 22, Episode 5, "Pacific Plunge"
2. National Transportation Safety Board Final Report NTSB/AAR-02/01
3. FOX 13 Seattle coverage by Tyler Slauson, "Remembering Alaska Airlines Flight 261: 25 years since tragic crash"
4. NTSB investigation transcripts and testimony records
5. Federal Aviation Administration Lessons Learned documentation

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Credits: Final Boarding Call is hosted by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas, researched and written by Alice Stern, produced and edited by Alice Stern and Zach Stemas.