On January 31, 2000, the American aviation sector, and indeed the world, was shocked by the fateful crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 into the Pacific Ocean as it attempted to land in Los Angeles. This was after the MD-80 jet carrying 83 passengers developed mechanical issues shortly after take-off from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. What the pilots flying the plane soon realized was that their aircraft had a jammed jackscrew, and they could no longer control the plane’s pitch. Despite repeated attempts to troubleshoot the problem, the pilots could not get the jackscrew to respond as required. Within no time, the airplane began going into an uncontrolled nosedive, which the experienced pilots managed to wriggle out of. All this while, the pilots contacted the Alaska Airlines ground maintenance crew in the hope of getting assistance, but none was forthcoming. Eventually, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 plunged into the Pacific Ocean outside of California in a crash that claimed all 88 souls on board. A subsequent federal investigation found the airline to have been responsible for flouting federal safety regulations ranging from extending service cycles for their planes, falsifying service records, as well as disregarding expert recommendations regarding aircraft maintenance. Alaska Airlines was eventually fined, two supervisors suspended by the FAA, and far-reaching safety recommendations imposed on the airline.
Maintenance Program Development
According to the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), organizations that engage in the business of air transport are required to adhere to specified operational and safety regulations strictly. This is a way of ensuring and assuring the safety of passengers, crew, and even cargo while in transit. The most recent guideline provided by the FAA is Order 8000.369C, which came into effect on June 24, 2020. Found within the FAA regulation is the Safety Management System (SMS), which outlines the expectations placed upon FAA organizations, which include airlines, to formulate policies and structures that are aimed at streamlining safety and maintenance procedures within those organizations (FAA, 2020).
In the case of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, and the findings of the investigations that followed the crash, it is evident that certain tenets of the SMS were either improperly designed or deliberately flouted and disregarded at the point of implementation. One factor that needed to be applied as a way of improving the organization’s maintenance culture was the Safety Policy. A safety policy is a document that outlines an organization’s commitment to ensure that the aircraft it operates are maintained to required standards (FAA, 2020). More than merely submitting policies for approval by the FAA, the management of Alaska Airlines needed to educate their staff on the importance of adhering to the safety policy. They also needed to let them know what their roles and responsibilities were in the process (Pümpel, 2016). It is, however, unfortunate that instead of Alaska Airlines management leading by example, they chose to cut corners and pressured maintenance staff to keep planes flying longer than recommended while disregarding expert advice from mechanics.
Another factor within the SMS that would have been applied in the case of Alaska Airlines is the Safety Risk Management (SRM). What this entails is that FAA organizations are required to put in place mechanisms that aid in the monitoring of systems and rapid identification of hazards to reduce risk to life (FAA, 2020). Such a mechanism must enable an organization to, firstly, effectively analyze aircraft systems so that operators may understand their designs, performance, as well as environment. Additionally, an organization’s SRM mechanism must aid the identification of hazards and analyze the potential effects associate with such risks (Mobbs, 2017). What investigations into the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 revealed was that the organization’s SRM was repeatedly neglected and modified to suit profit maximization goals. Service schedules were overextended, and records falsified to hide maintenance work that had been overlooked.
Safety Promotion is another component of the Safety Management System that could have been applied to the Alaska Airlines case. Airlines and other FAA organizations have the responsibility of ensuring that personnel in all departments possess the necessary competencies that enable them to effectively implement the organization’s SMS (FAA, 2020). Continuous training of staff, as well as instilling in them a culture of accountability and ethics, is what results in coordinated and informed responses to hazardous situations (Ge & Liu, 2019).
What was evident in the Alaska Airlines case was that ground maintenance personnel were not adequately trained on the operations and design of the MD-80 aircraft and, as such, could not sufficiently respond to the queries by the distressed Flight 261 pilots. Aside from not possessing necessary skills, there was an apparent lack of desire or urgency in dealing with the situation as it developed mid-air. As the pilots on Flight 261 fought to control the plane, there was no effort on the side of the ground maintenance crew to contact them with helpful information. One would conclude that there was a poor organizational culture with no one concerning themselves with ensuring the safety of the crew and passengers on Flight 261.