Alaska Airlines Flight 261: Confidential Settlements for 18 Families in $300 Million-Plus Litigation

On January 31, 2000, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crashed into the Pacific Ocean off the Southern California coast, killing all 88 passengers and crew members. The MD-83 jet was bound from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to San Francisco and Seattle when its horizontal stabilizer locked in a nose-down position and the crew lost control. There were no survivors.

Federal investigators later determined that a worn and improperly lubricated jackscrew assembly caused the stabilizer failure. The National Transportation Safety Board cited 'widespread systemic deficiencies' in Alaska Airlines' maintenance program and also found that the FAA had failed to adequately oversee those operations. Boeing, which had acquired McDonnell Douglas in 1997, faced separate scrutiny over the jackscrew design on the MD-83 aircraft.

The 88 wrongful-death claims were consolidated into a federal multidistrict proceeding in the Northern District of California, docketed as MDL-00-1343. Federal Judge Charles Legge appointed Jamie Lebovitz, a Cleveland attorney with the firm then known as Nurenberg, Plevin, Heller and McCarthy (now Nurenberg, Paris, Heller and McCarthy), to the Plaintiff's Steering Committee, making him one of a small group of lead attorneys responsible for advancing the litigation on behalf of all victim families. Lebovitz personally represented 18 of those families.

Lebovitz argued that Boeing bore significant responsibility for the crash, contending that 'Boeing set up Alaska for the failure' by building a design flaw into the aircraft's stabilizer control system. When Boeing's law firm sought to withdraw from the litigation and the defense moved for a continuance, Lebovitz publicly opposed the request, calling it 'a disingenuous attempt to delay the inevitable.' His position reflected a broader litigation strategy of pressing both defendants toward accountability rather than accepting early resolution.

Settlements in the MDL were reached case by case over roughly three and a half years. By mid-2003, 87 of the 88 wrongful-death suits had resolved through confidential agreements. Individual settlement amounts were not disclosed. According to people familiar with the litigation, the total payout across all cases topped $300 million, entirely covered by insurance. The terms of Lebovitz's 18 individual settlements remain confidential, consistent with the rest of the litigation.