JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: To the investigation of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which crashed two weeks ago off the coast of California. The plane's maintenance records shows that in 1997, inspectors found significant wear on parts of its horizontal stabilizer. CNN's Carl Rochelle joins us now with more. Carl, what did they find? and was it fixed?</s>CARL ROCHELLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jeanne, what they found -- the part. Let me take just a moment to show you exactly what we're talking about. This is a jackscrew assembly. This is the gimbal nut area. The where we are talking about is in this area. And when investigators first looked at that, they found that part was right on the limit. Any more wear and it would have to be replaced. The next day, that same part was examined, again, by different mechanics, and they found it to be well within tolerances, and they did not replace it. Now, they had in the maintenance records indicated the first day that it would be replaced in that heavy maintenance check. It was not replaced. And to the safety board's knowledge, there have been no more inspections of that particular part since that time. Now, this is more complicate because this particular company does have a federal investigation going against it in California for questions about maintenance records, and whether they were actually changed or modified or something like that. So they are looking at it very carefully. I should point out that the safety board says that they are still studying the significance of this information, continuing to look at it, not willing to say exactly how it goes, and what standpoint it is right now. I would also point out that the jackscrew assembly that was pulled out of the water from flight 261 did have metal filings around it that were determined to have come from the gimbal nut assembly. And when they found the gimbal nut a couple of days later, the thread was stripped out of the inside, meaning they had pulled loose in the process of that. And that is where they are going in this. That is what they are looking about. A lot of questions about it, Jeanne.</s>MESERVE: Carl Rochelle, thanks so much.
Alaska Airlines Flight 261: Significant Wear Found on Parts of Horizontal Stabilizer in '97