JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: Alaska Airlines has grounded just over half of its MD-80 jets after engineers realized an earlier round of inspections may have been faulty. They're checking a part in the tail called the jackscrew, implicated in a January crash that killed 88 people. CNN's Greg Lefevre joins us from Oakland, California, with more -- Greg.</s>GREG LEFEVRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Jeanne. Alaska Airlines just didn't trust the measurements on the play -- the amount of play in the jackscrew. At issue is a particular tool that measures the gap between the jackscrew itself and the nut that glides up and down. The jackscrew is critical to the flight of this plane because it controls the stability of the back end of the plane. How much the tail goes up and down. And so Alaska Airlines last night abruptly grounded up to 18 of its MD-80s, five of them were seen parked outside the Oakland airport maintenance facility here. Boeing, which now owns the MD-80 -- which now manufacturers the MD-80s, makes one of these measurement tools. Alaska made one of their own. And Alaska is not now sure that their tool measured it exactly. So they've gone back, measured the amount of play in the jackscrew on these planes and they hope to have them back in the air. Alaska admits that it has canceled about 19 flights last night. Probably another 30 flights will be canceled today. It does say that these inspections are going quickly. It expects to have the inspections finished within about another three hours and hopes to have most of those planes back in the air over the weekend to a minimal disruption of traffic. However, here at the airport in Oakland, things went normally today. Alaska did have about 14 hours lead time to put enough planes on the ground here to service the passengers here. Also, we understand that the other two major Bay Area airports, that traffic resumed as normal. The situation will be continued to be monitored. Alaska is very concerned about the stability of these jackscrews and wants to make sure that things go well. Greg Lefevre, CNN, reporting live from Oakland, California.
Alaska Airlines Corrals Planes to Re-Measure Specific Part