We are in vertical dive, Thompson says. Point Hueneme, Calif., Feb. 3, 2000 Working in support of the National Transportation Safety Board, Navy personnel from the Navy's Deep Submergence Unit (DSU), based at the Naval Air Station North Island, have recovered both popularly-named "black boxes" from Alaska Airline Flight 261. When Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashed off the coast of California, . *1620:49 CAM [sounds similar to compressor stalls begin and continue to end of recording]1620:49 CAM [sound similar to engine spool down]1620:54 CAM-1 speedbrakes.1620:55.1 CAM-2 got it.1620:56.2 CAM-1 ah here we go.1620:57.1 [end of recording]. I expect him to figure all that # ---1601:53 CAM-2 right.1601:53 CAM-1 ---he's got it on the screen---1601:54 CAM-2 that's why I was thinking that an instructor would really uh---1601:58 CAM-1 yea.1601:58 CAM-2 ---cut through the crap there.1601:59 CAM-2 they not available?1602:00 CAM-1 well they just don't talk to each other.1602:02 CAM-2 oh.1602:02 CAM-1 I mean I * ---1602:04 CAM-2 * they've always told us they were available you know---1602:06 CAM-1 yea yea.1602:07 CAM-2 ---anytime you have a problem.1602:09 CAM-2 if they get one down there.1602:12.6 RDO-1 Los Angeles one sixty one do you read me better now?1602:29 CAM-1 I got the track goin over there.1602:31 LAX-OPS go ahead two six one.1602:33.6 RDO-1 two sixty one, I I know you're busy on us uh, but we're discussing it up here could you give us the winds at San Francisco if you could just pull em up on your screen?1602:57 CAM-2 I thought they.1603:00 LAX-OPS ok ahhh San Francisco, ok we've got uh winds are one seventy at six knots.1603:15.6 RDO-1 ok thank you that's what I needed. Witnesses saw Alaska airliner nosedive. Copyright The crew made references to being inverted that are consistent with the witness statements to that effect. David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994. The transcript shows the captain uttering a mild vulgarity, then saying a moment later, ''It got worse.''. Capt. *1620:44 CAM-? Accident; Date: January 31, 2000 () Summary: Loss of control caused by Jackscrew failure due to improper maintenance. The cockpit voice recorder from the downed Alaska Airlines Flight 261 is held by the robotic arm of the remotely piloted vehicle SCORPIO on the deck of the MV Kellie Chouest off the coast of Ventura County, Calif., on Feb. 2, 2000. Transcript Tells of Alaska Airlines Pilots' Efforts Before Crash, https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/14/us/transcript-tells-of-alaska-airlines-pilots-efforts-before-crash.html. The MV Kellie Chouest is a Military Sealift Command Submarine Support Ship. The cockpit voice recorder, more commonly called a black box, was located and brought aboard the ship following an 84-minute search by SCORPIO, a tethered unmanned work vehicle from the Navy's Deep Submergence Unit Unmanned Vehicle Detachment. In fact, as late as four minutes before the fatal dive, the pilots were requesting clearance to make an emergency landing at Los Angeles International airport. The plane then leveled off. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com. um we'll see you at the gate.1613:20 CAM-2 did it happen went in reverse? The thread failure was caused by excessive wear resulting from Alaska Airlines. The crew could manually control the airplane with the control wheels in their hands. A lot of people met Jesus that day through my mom." CARL ROCHELLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The cockpit voice recorder found Wednesday is in Washington and is already yielding valuable information. On January 31, 2000, about 1621 Pacific standard time, Alaska Airlines, Inc.,flight 261, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83, N963AS, crashed into the Pacific Ocean about2.7 miles north of Anacapa Island, California. Voice unidentifiedMZT Radio transmission from Mazetlan CenterLAX CTR1 Radio transmission from the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center sector 30 controllerLAX CTR2 Radio transmission from the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center sector 25 controllerLAX-MX Radio transmission from Alaska Airlines Maintenance facility in Los AngelesLAX-OPS Radio transmission from Alaska Airlines Operations facility in Los AngelesSEA-DIS Radio transmission from Alaska Airlines Dispatch facility in SeattleSEA-MX Radio transmission from Alaska Airlines maintenance facility in Seattle-1 First voice-2 Second voiceATIS Radio transmission from Los Angeles airport Automated Terminal Information SystemCAWS Mechanical voice or sound source from the Central Aural Warning System, as heard on the Cockpit Area Microphone channel. His determined words, 19 seconds before hitting the water off Los Angeles, were captured on the cockpit voice recorder. Snapshots of whats happening in the Defense Department. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Dec. 13, 2000 -- A transcript of the cockpit voice recorder of doomed Alaska Airlines Flight261 shows that the pilots struggled to get the plane upright before it crashed into the Pacific Ocean last January. From Alaska Airlines Flight 261. All rights reserved. T wenty years ago this month I sat quietly in the NTSB's Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) Laboratory listening to the final 31 minutes of Alaska Airlines flight 261, a McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) MD-83 airplane that had crashed off the coast of Ventura, California. -- 4:20:16 -- Thompson: OK, now let's kick rudder, left rudder, left rudder. Ethiopian Airlines 302. . duh.1606:47 CAM-2 so our actually our landing speed will be one forty eight plus some additive right?1607:06 CAM-1 lets guess lets guess one twelve.1607:10 CAM-2 ok.1607:10 CAM-1 one forty six plus I get a minus two, worst case twenty four knots fifty sixty seventy *.1607:33 LAX-OPS Alaska two sixty one from operations can you give us your tail number?1607:38 RDO-1 uh two sixty one, it was ship number nine six three.1607:43 LAX-OPS copy that two uh your aircraft number is nine six three.1607:47 RDO-1 affirmative thank you.1607:51 LAX-MX-1 and two sixty one maintenance.1607:53 RDO-1 two sixty one go.1607:54 LAX-MX-1 yea are you guys with the uh, horizontal situation?1607:58 RDO-1 affirmative.1607:59 LAX-MX-1 yea did you try the suitcase handles and the pickle switches right?1608:03 RDO-1 yea we tried everything together, uh.1608:08 RDO-1 we've run just about everything if you've got any hidden circuit breakers we'd love to know about 'em.1608:14 LAX-MX-1 I'm off I'll look at the uh circuit breaker uh guide just as a double check and um yea I just wanted to know if you tried the pickle switches and the suitcase handles to see if it was movin in with any of the uh other switches other than the uh suitcase handles alone or nothing.1608:29.9 RDO-1 yea we tried just about every iteration.1608:32 LAX-MX-1 and alternate's inop too huh?1608:35.1 RDO-1 yup its just it appears to be jammed the uh the whole thing, it spikes out when we use the primary, we get AC load that tells me the motor's tryin to run but the brake won't move it. That's where we're intending to go. Here We GoWith just under four minutes left on the recording, aflight attendant comes to the cockpit to report a big bangback there. Thompson says he heard it too. Safety board member John Hammerschmidt, who will chair the hearing, said the aim was to collect information to assist in the investigation. two two five zero zulu. The Associated Press. JIM HALL, CHAIRMAN, NTSB: The crew had difficulty controlling the airplane's tendency to pitch nose down. As for the search and recovery operation, it will continue. NTSB officials also said it was too early to link the crash with an incident involving an American Airlines jet yesterday. Mr. Tansky replied: ''Yeah, it is. Much of the hearing will focus on the design and maintenance of the jackscrew mechanism that controls the stabilizer, used to control the plane's nose-up or nose-down attitude. EMILY FOWLER, FAMILY BABYSITTER: They bought me a ticket and then it turns out that I had a final, a Spanish final, so I wasn't able to go. The crew recovered from this condition in approximately one-and-one-half minutes. I just that's something that oughta be in the computers, if they want it that bad they you guys oughta be able to pick up the phone---1555:00 CAM-3 mmm hmm.1555:00 CAM-1 ---just drives me nuts. Site: Pacific Ocean near Anacapa Island, . "The Bright Shining Lie of Flight 261." The flight crew have also requested a diversion to Los Angeles airport. one two thousand scattered. 3: After recovery from this loss of vertical control, a flight attendant advised the crew that she had heard a loud noise in the rear of the aircraft. DAVIS: Emily and her mom are glad to have one another as they grieve for the lives lost on Flight 261. Investigators later uncove. . Lil boy twerkin wtf is yo daddy. "My daughter's an activist, and she would have been here for me," Sanchez said. Assigned to lead the "Systems Group" for the NTSB go-team, I needed to . altimeter three zero one seven. The cause of that final plunge was failure of the stabilizer jackscrew threads caused by inadequate lubrication and maintenance/inspection, according to the NTSB's report on the crash, thus rather than there being "no good explanation" for how the plane was able to stay up until then; a more accurate statement would be to say that "there is no good explanation why the plane suddenly dived into the sea 9 minutes later." The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was a loss of airplane pitch control resulting from the in-flight failure of the horizontal stabilizer trim system jackscrew assembly's acme nut threads. Sources: Realizing they cannot get the stabilizer out of a its full nose-down angle, Thompson tells Tansky, Were worse than we were., Thompson tries to calm passengers, saying I dontanticipate any big problems once we get a couple of sub-systemson the line.. advise on initial contact, you have information mike. This site contains various Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR or Black Box) transcripts of aviation accidents and incidents. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Note: Pages will open in a new browser window. He covers breaking news, crime, courts and aviation. "It was really tough there for a while.". uh but uh we can maintain altitude we think and our intention is to land at Los Angeles.1615:36 LAX-CTR2 Alaska two sixty one L A center roger um you're cleared to Los Angeles airport via present position direct uh Santa Monica, direct Los Angeles and uh, you want lower now or what do you want to do sir?1615:54 CAM-1 let me get let me have it.1615:56 RDO-1 center uh Alaska two sixty one. simultaneous ILS approaches in progress runway two four right and two five left or vector for visual approach will be provided. If you want to climb, it stabilizes it so it takes the pressure off of the control wheel and keeps it in that particular mode of flight. The 2 pilots, 3 cabin crewmembers, and 83 passengers on board were killed, and the airplane was destroyed by impact forces. Dec. 13, 2000. With just under four minutes left on the recording, a flight attendant comes to the cockpit to report "a big bang back there." ABCNEWS Lisa Stark, The Associated Press, and Reuters contributed to this report. English: This three-dimensional animated accident reconstruction shows the final pitch-over and initial portion of the dive for Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which crashed off of Port Hueneme, CA on January 31, 2000. - "Observation No. The two pilots trade instructions for working the controls but the effort is in vain as the plane takes a final dive from 18,000 feet. Captain Ted Thompson asked First Officer William Tansky after the plane had turned upside down.