FAA tape: Pilots struggled to keep plane aloft, lost control

WASHINGTON - Pilots of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 believed they had regained control of their plane and were planning an emergency landing when the jet suddenly plunged upside-down into the Pacific Ocean, according to a Federal Aviation Administration audiotape released Wednesday.

''We have a jammed stabilizer and we're maintaining altitude with difficulty, uh, but, uh, we can maintain altitude, we think, and our intention is to land at Los Angeles,'' one of the pilots told air traffic controllers at 4:15 p.m. on Jan. 31.

Capt. Ted Thompson, 53, and First Officer William Tansky, 57, who were not identified on the tape, made plans to land, telling controllers they wanted to descend about 10,000 feet and change their configuration - set the wing flaps to slow down the plane.

The pilot also said he wanted to ''make sure I can control the jet, and I'd like to do that out here over the bay if I may.''

After receiving more instructions from air traffic controllers, the pilot made his last transmission at 4:17 p.m., saying ''Thank you'' after the plane was cleared to begin its maneuvers just north of Los Angeles.

At 4:19 p.m., a pilot in a nearby private jet reported the Alaska Airlines MD-83 ''has just started to do a big, huge plunge.''

A second pilot in the area said the plane ''definitely is in a nose-down, uh, position, descending quite rapidly.'' The observing pilots also describe the plane as ''inverted'' and ''definitely out of control.''

At 4:21 p.m., both pilots reported seeing the jet hit the water.

''He's, ah, down,'' one of them said.

All 88 people aboard the plane died.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators still are probing the crash. They have been closely examining the stabilizer jackscrew, a long, threaded piece of metal that turns to move through a stationary nut on the plane's tail.

The jackscrew from the crashed plane had a stripped nut, and the screw itself carried metal shards of the same material as the nut. There also were impact marks on the nut, and the board is trying to determine if the impact marks and stripping occurred before the plane crashed or was caused when it hit the water.

The Alaska Airlines flight was three hours into a four-hour trip from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to San Francisco when the crew first reported trouble with the stabilizer.

''We're in a vertical dive - not a dive yet - but, uh, we've lost vertical control of our airplane,'' the pilot said.

The plane descended below 26,000 feet, and several seconds later reported it was at 23,700 feet. The crew said they had pulled out of the rapid descent, then indicated more problems.

''Yeah, we've got it back under control there - no we don't (unintelligible),'' one of the pilots said.

Another 30 seconds later, at 4:11 p.m., the crew reported they had ''kinda stabilized'' and were going to ''do a little troubleshooting.''

Following the crash, the government ordered inspections of more than 1,100 planes in the MD-80, MD-90, DC-9 and Boeing 717 series. Airlines replaced jackscrew devices in the tail sections of 18 aircraft.

On the Net: Federal Aviation Administration: http://www.faa.gov/