Alaska Airlines Offers to Settle Claims for January Crash

Alaska Airlines said for the first time Wednesday that it wants to settle a lawsuit stemming from the Jan. 31 crash off Point Mugu that killed all 88 aboard.

“We would like to settle for 100% of the claims,” the carrier’s attorney, Mark Dombroff, told a federal judge in a court hearing filled with nearly four dozen lawyers representing Alaska, victims and the jet’s manufacturers.

Flight 261 crashed into the ocean en route to San Francisco from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Attorneys for the victims’ families said it was premature to talk settlement.

Under international passenger treaties, Alaska is liable for $140,000 for each victim, but can be liable for millions more if it is proved that the carrier did not take reasonable measures to prevent the crash.

Alaska already paid the $140,000 to each of the families, said company spokesman Jack Evans.

“What we told the court today was we were willing to pay 100% of compensatory damages to the families as those damages are determined by the court. There’s no dollar limit specified, and that’s something for the court to determine,” Evans said.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys said they will demonstrate that the carrier is liable for much more, a process that could take years.

“We will prove that,” said New York attorney Francis Fleming.

So far, about five dozen victims are represented in the suit that also names Boeing Co. and McDonnell-Douglas Corp., the jet’s manufacturers that merged in 1997. They are accused of negligently designing and manufacturing the aircraft.

Another plaintiff’s attorney, Frank M. Pitre of Burlingame, said Alaska’s offer was a “media show.”

Boeing attorney Keith Gerrard said the manufacturer is unwilling to settle the cases, which have been consolidated before U.S. District Judge Charles Legge. “Boeing is not accepting liability at this point,” he said.

In the meantime, a separate lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on behalf of the families of 10 victims. The new complaint alleges that the pilots failed to make a precautionary landing when control problems first occurred, and that the aircraft and parts manufacturers failed to adequately warn against “defective and unreasonably dangerous conditions.”

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the disaster and has not said what caused the crash. The investigation is focusing on mechanics’ decision not to replace a part that was wearing out in 1997.

The jackscrew assembly had been tested repeatedly by a maintenance crew in Oakland and found to be nearly worn out but was put back into service after a second crew retested it a few days later, according to airline records and federal officials.

Also, the pilots had reported problems with the Boeing MD-83’s horizontal stabilizer, a flap on the tail that is tilted by the jackscrew assembly to determine the pitch of the aircraft.

No trial date is set.