Alaska Airlines

Is Alaska Airlines safe?

Yes. Alaska has not had a fatal accident on a mainline flight since January 2000, and since then it has grown several times over and absorbed Hawaiian. We score it 84, level with Delta and ahead of Southwest. The door plug blowout of January 2024 put Alaska in the headlines, but investigators placed that failure at Boeing's factory.

Flight 261 and what changed

The crash that still defines Alaska's record happened on 31 January 2000. Flight 261 from Puerto Vallarta to San Francisco lost pitch control over the Pacific when the threads of the nut on the MD-83's stabiliser jackscrew wore away. The aircraft dived into the sea off Anacapa Island and all 88 people on board died.

The NTSB's finding was hard on the airline. It said Alaska had not lubricated the jackscrew properly, and that Alaska's longer lubrication and inspection intervals, approved by the FAA, let the wear go undetected. The investigation led to changes in maintenance programmes across the industry. Alaska has not had a fatal mainline accident in the 26 years since, and no mainline aircraft has been written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary.

The door plug blowout

On 5 January 2024, flight 1282 had just left Portland when a panel covering an unused exit on the left side of the 737 MAX 9 blew out at about 14,800 feet. The aircraft was two months old. Seats next to the hole were empty, and only eight people had minor injuries. The crew made a quick descent and landed back at Portland.

The NTSB's final report in June 2025 found that Boeing workers had taken out the four bolts holding the plug during repairs at the factory and not put them back, and that the FAA's oversight of Boeing's quality system was weak. Alaska was not faulted, and its pilots and cabin crew carried out the emergency procedures as trained. The FAA grounded all MAX 9s with plugs for about three weeks.

Other incidents since 2023

• August 2023: the left main landing gear of a 737-800 collapsed after landing at Santa Ana, California, after a fatigue crack in a gear pin. Everyone left by stairs without injuries.
• October 2023: an off-duty Alaska pilot riding in the cockpit jump seat of Horizon flight 2059 tried to pull the engine fire handles. The crew stopped him and diverted to Portland. He was sentenced in 2025 to probation and community service.
• September 2024: at Nashville, controllers cleared an Alaska 737 to take off while a Southwest jet was crossing the same runway. The Alaska crew rejected the take-off.
• December 2024: a 737 MAX 9 flying from Seattle to Phoenix hit severe turbulence near Las Vegas. Two flight attendants who were in the rear galley and not yet strapped in were seriously hurt; the seatbelt sign was already on.
• 2025: two IT failures, in July and October, forced Alaska to ask the FAA to stop all its departures for hours. Alaska says safety was never at risk, and it brought in outside experts to review its systems.

In May 2026, the FAA proposed a $165,000 fine for letting passengers who appeared intoxicated board 11 flights between February 2024 and February 2025. Alaska says it has since retrained flight attendants and agents.

Horizon, SkyWest and Hawaiian

Alaska's shorter routes are flown by two regional airlines, both with 76-seat Embraer E175s: Horizon Air, owned by Alaska Air Group, and SkyWest under contract. Their flights carry AS numbers. We mention them here but do not count their events against the mainline score. The Horizon fatality in our data was the theft of an empty Q400 by a ground agent at Seattle in August 2018, who died when he crashed it on Ketron Island.

Alaska Air Group bought Hawaiian Airlines in September 2024. Since October 2025, the FAA has treated the two as one airline under Alaska's certificate, and since April 2026 Hawaiian flights carry AS flight numbers. See Hawaiian Airlines for its record and fleet.

A young 737 fleet

The Alaska-branded fleet is almost all Boeing 737: 80 MAX 9s averaging 2.8 years and 14 MAX 8s at under a year, 79 737-900ERs at 9.9 years and 59 737-800s at 17.7, according to the 10-K. Only 11 737-700s, at 25.7 years, are old. Including Hawaiian's widebodies, the mainline average was 10.6 years at the end of 2025, younger than Delta, United or American.

Flying Alaska within Alaska

Routes to Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka, Cordova and other towns in the state are some of the most demanding scheduled flying in the US: short runways between mountains and water, fog, wind and long winters. Alaska was an early user of satellite-guided approaches for these airports. Expect more diversions and cancellations in bad weather on these routes, and treat them as a safety feature.

How we scored it

The accident record (90) and FAA oversight (88) carry the score. Serious incidents (74) and the operating environment (76) pull it down: the door plug, the jump seat attack and the proposed fine on one side, and the Alaskan airports on the other.