Tag Archives: MD-80

I’m no fan of air travel, despite growing up as an Air Force brat watching the blinking lights on the wingtip of a C-54 Skymaster, going somewhere or the other at night. In fact, I have a phobia about MD-80s, the spindle-shaped jets with the narrow wings, a T-tail, and engines attached to the rear of the fuselage. Whenever I see one passing over the rancho, I remember the one that crashed in the Pacific not so long ago. So when I saw one heading west this afternoon, I Googled the crash: Alaska Airlines, Flight 261, Jan. 31, 2000, it was. The horizontal stabilizer on the T-tail became stuck and the plane was uncontrollable. It finally flipped upside down at about 24,000 feet and dove into the ocean off Los Angeles at 700 mph. All 88 aboard died, of course. Turned out to be a little maintenance problem: a lack of sufficient lubication. Nothing like that has happened since. But I’m convinced. You won’t catch me on an MD-80.