Alaska Air crash probe looks at Boeing

SEATTLE (Reuters) -- Federal investigators are testing a safety mechanism that may have failed and caused an Alaska Airlines jet to crash off the California coast last January, which could shift blame to airplane maker Boeing Co. , the Seattle Times reported in its Sunday edition.

A small control piece called an "end stop" may have broken off the doomed jet's horizontal stabilizer apparatus, causing the pilots to lose control of the plane, the paper reported, citing documents from the National Transportation Safety Board's crash probe, which are still classified.

Previously the NTSB has focused on Alaska's maintenance of the narrowbody MD-80, which plunged into the sea on its way from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to San Francisco and then to Seattle, killing all 88 people on board.

Boeing has argued that the end stop fell off on impact, but Seattle-based Alaska, the nation's tenth-largest airline and a subsidiary of Alaska Air Group, Inc. , has argued that Boeing's tests were invalid, the Times reported.

Neither Alaska nor Boeing would comment for the Times article, noting public hearings slated for December will make public all available information.

The MD-80 is a workhorse of the commercial air fleet built by McDonnell Douglas, which Boeing acquired in 1997. More than 1,000 remain in service.

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MD-80: Specifications

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