Final Words of Flight 261
CVR recordings can hold important clues to the cause of an accident. In the case of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, the conversations between the captain and his first officer pointed NTSB investigators to the plane's stabilizer. This is an excerpt taken from the official NTSB transcript of Flight 261, which crashed on January 31, 2000, off the coast of California. This excerpt contains an exchange between Captain Ted Thompson and First Officer William Tansky and the Los Angeles Route Traffic Control Center (LAX-CTR).

4:09:55 p.m.	Thompson: Center, Alaska two-sixty-one. We are, uh, in a dive here, and I've lost control, vertical pitch.
4:10:33	Thompson: Yea, we got it back under control here.
4:11:43	Tansky: Whatever we did is no good. Don't do that again...
4:11:44	Thompson: Yea, no, it went down. It went full nose down.
4:11:48	Tansky: Uh, it's a lot worse than it was?
4:11:50	Thompson: Yea. Yea. We're in much worse shape now.
4:14:12	Public address: Folks, we have had a flight-control problem up front here, we're working on it.
4:15:19	Flight 261 to LAX-CTR: L.A., Alaska two-sixty-one. We're with you, we're at twenty-two-five [22,500 feet]. We have a jammed stabilizer and we're maintaining altitude with difficulty...
4:15:36	LAX-CTR: Alaska two-sixty-one, L.A center. Roger, um, you're cleared to Los Angeles Airport via present position...
4:17:09	Flight attendant: Okay, we had like a big bang back there.
4:17:15	Thompson: I think the [stabilizer] trim is broke.
4:19:36	Extremely loud noise
4:19:43	Tansky: Mayday
4:19:54	Thompson: Okay, we are inverted, and now we gotta get it.
4:20:04	Thompson: Push, push, push...push the blue side up. Push...
4:20:14	Tansky: I'm pushing.
4:20:16	Thompson: Okay, now let's kick rudder. Left rudder, left rudder.
4:20:18	Tansky: I can't reach it.
4:20:20	Thompson: Okay. Right rudder, right rudder.
4:20:25	Thompson: Are we flying? We're flying, we're flying. Tell 'em what we're doing.
4:20:33	Tansky: Oh, yeah. Let me get...
4:20:38	Thompson: Gotta get it over again. At least upside down we're flying.
4:20:54	Thompson: Speedbrakes
4:20:55	Tansky: Got it.
4:20:56	Thompson: Ah, here we go.
4:20:57	End of recording