San Francisco Chronicle, "Airline likely to be blamed in crash; Safety board expected to rule on Alaska flight"

          Nearly three years after a San Francisco-bound Alaska Airlines jet plunged into the Pacific, killing all 88 people aboard, the National Transportation Safety Board is expected to rule today that inadequate lubrication in a key tail part caused the disaster.
          The four-member safety board, meeting in Washington, D.C., is likely to conclude that Alaska Airlines Flight 261 went out of control and dived upside-down into the ocean off Santa Barbara because a 2-foot-long alloy steel structure called a jackscrew didn't have enough grease on it, sources close to the investigation said Monday. The jackscrew helps control the up-and-down movement in the twin-jet MD-80's tail horizontal stabilizer.
          Flight 261 took off from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Jan. 31, 2000, bound for San Francisco and Seattle. As the plane flew over Southern California, the crew reported that the stabilizer had jammed. Ten minutes later, it crashed into the ocean.