News & Current Events

Chilling Cockpit Audio Reveals Final Seconds Before Alaska Airlines Crash

Published on May 21, 2025

The moment an Alaska Airlines aircraft crashed into the Pacific Ocean was captured on terrifying cockpit audio.

Flying from Licenciado Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico, to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport in Washington, Alaska Airlines Flight 261 was planned to depart on January 31, 2000.

Although the plane left Mexico without incident, it never reached its destination because of technical issues that arose during the journey.

All 88 individuals on board—83 passengers, three cabin crew, and two pilots—were killed when the plane finally crashed into the Pacific Ocean.

Even now, twenty-five years after the terrible experience, it remains one of the deadliest aviation catastrophes in contemporary US history.

In light of this, cockpit audio has suddenly reappeared on social media, and the tragic event is still being discussed today.

According to AeroTime, Captain Ted Thompson, 53, and First Officer Bill Tansky, 57, were operating the flight in question. Between them, they had logged 12,000 hours of flight time in McDonnell Douglas MD-80s aircraft.

However, it was later discovered that a portion of the plane’s tail assembly collapsed because the jackscrew assembly was not properly lubricated, therefore their extensive experience was insufficient to save them.

They were ‘in a dive’, Captain Thompson was heard informing air traffic control in the rediscovered audio.

He went on to explain, “Not a dive yet but we’ve lost vertical control of our airplane.”

Thompson went on to say that they had successfully brought things under control, but First Officer Tanksy disagreed, saying that they don’t.

In an attempt to resolve the problem, Tanksy and Thompson went on to troubleshoot the aircraft.

After a period of silence, an air traffic control official asked to “keep an eye on [the Alaska Airlines flight]” while speaking to another pilot who was presumably operating an Aero Commander 690A at the time.

The pilot then reported that the Alaska Airlines aircraft “just started to do a big, huge plunge” to air traffic control.

Chilling cockpit voice recordings from Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which nosedived into the ocean, tragically claiming all 88 lives on board (2000) pic.twitter.com/vqZ1h7Th5l
— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) May 18, 2025

A second pilot confirmed what the other said and explained that Flight 261 was “definitely in a nose down position”.

The two aircraft observing the Alaska Airlines 737 nosedive reported that it had struck the water shortly after. Upon collision, the aircraft was destroyed.

The crash was later investigated by the Federal Aviation Agency.

In a statement, it said, “The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined 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.”

“The thread failure was caused by excessive wear resulting from Alaska Airline’s insufficient lubrication of the jackscrew assembly.”