MD-83 Has Solid Safety Record, No Previous Fatalities

Monday’s crash of an Alaska Airlines MD-83 jetliner marred the record of one of the most widely used aircraft types in the world, a twin-engine jet that has established a solid safety history.

Alaska’s upkeep of its MD-80 series aircraft has been the subject of a probe by a federal grand jury in San Francisco, and the Federal Aviation Administration last year examined whether Alaska executives falsified records to cover up faulty maintenance of MD-80s.

Boeing Co.’s MD-80 series of mid-range jets comprises nearly half of Alaska’s fleet. Boeing and the former McDonnell Douglas Corp. made more than 2,270 of the MD-80, MD-90 and DC-9 models, all closely related in design and almost exclusively built in Long Beach. Only Boeing 737s are more widely used, according to Boeing data.

An Alaska spokesman said the aircraft that plunged suddenly into the Pacific on Monday was built in 1992 and had logged 26,584 hours of flight time. Mechanics performed a “service check” on the airplane Sunday, but airline officials declined to disclose the reason for it late Monday.

Mechanics completed a basic “A” check on the plane Jan. 11, and a more exhaustive “C” check Jan. 13, an Alaska spokesman said.

MD-80 Series a Mainstay

Boeing inherited the MD-80 and MD-90 series passenger aircraft models when it purchased McDonnell Douglas--which manufactured the MD-80 at its Long Beach plant. In November 1997, Boeing said it would phase out the aircraft.

Before it was acquired, McDonnell Douglas had come to rely heavily on the MD-80 series, which helped it return to profitability in the mid-1980s after more than a decade of financial losses.

The MD-83 model has been involved in 11 previous air and ground incidents, none of them fatal. The DC-9 has had a total of 145 incidents, 20 of which were fatal accidents. A DC-9 crashed into a Cerritos residential neighborhood in 1986, after a midair collision, killing 82 people. The MD-90 has been involved in one fatal accident, which killed 78 in Taiwan last year.

The grand jury probe into Alaska Airlines’ maintenance practices was launched after a leader of the union representing the airline’s mechanics reported alleged maintenance violations to federal authorities in 1998.

FBI agents and U.S. Transportation Department investigators seized maintenance records and computerized data from Alaska’s Oakland and Seattle repair facilities that December.

Alaska Airlines allowed more than 840 flights by two MD-80 jetliners “in an unairworthy condition,” according to FAA records made public last year. Neither aircraft was involved in an accident.

One Alaska Airlines incident that troubled some airline mechanics unfolded in 1998, when an MD-80 being transported out of the Oakland center began smoking even though it had been certified to fly. The plane was returned to the hangar.

No criminal charges have been filed against the airline. FAA officials, pursuing a separate administrative inquiry, have proposed a $44,000 fine against the company for violating maintenance procedures. The fine has been appealed.

A Solid Safety Record

The DC-9 and MD-80 series of jets have established a reputation for reliability and safety, according to pilots and aviation experts.

An American Airlines pilot who flies MD-80s described it Monday as “a very reliable airplane. The only mechanical problems I’ve ever had are small things, like seat backs not working correctly.”

Boeing spokesman Craig Martin said the MD-80 has a safety record three times better than the average for aircraft of that generation. Based on so-called hull losses per million departures, the average loss rate is about 1.4 planes per million departures, while the MD-80 series has a rate of 0.41.

But the plane has been involved in a number of high-profile accidents dominated by pilot error. On June 1, an American Airlines MD-82 crashed and ran off the runway in Little Rock, Ark., killing 11. Aviation experts told federal investigators that weather and control surface settings were possible causes. The crash is still being investigated. After the Little Rock crash, Boeing reported that only nine of the 1,167 MD-80 series planes delivered have been lost in accidents.

According to National Transportation Safety Board data, 73 incidents have been reported on various MD-80 series models since 1983. Two of those incidents involved fatalities. The MD-90 has been involved in three incidents, one with fatalities. The DC-9 model had 159 incidents through 1983, of which 20 involved fatalities.

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Times researcher Nona Yates contributed to this report.