BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Alaska Airlines has a pretty good safety record, it has had two previous crashes resulting in fatalities, but none in recent years. CNN's Gary Tuchman now has a look at the airline's history.</s>GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is named after the state it exclusively served when it began operations in 1932, but these days, Alaska Airlines serves six western states, as well as cities in Mexico and Canada. The airline has grown dramatically since deregulation in 1979. It now has 88 aircraft, including 34 in the MD-80 series, which is the type of plane that has crashed.</s>JACK EVANS, ALASKA AIRLINES SPOKESMAN: Our hearts are with the passengers, with the friends and families of those passengers, and we're going to do everything we can for them. They are our number-one priority at Alaska Airlines.</s>TUCHMAN: The airline hadn't had a fatal accident since the 1970s. In 1971, all 111 people aboard an Alaska Airlines 727 were killed near Juneau, Alaska, when the plane crashed into a mountain slope. Five years later, one passenger was killed when a 727 overran a runway in Ketchikan, Alaska. Like other carriers, Alaska Airlines has had other problems. In April, 1998, a hydraulic problem forced an emergency landing in Seattle, in which the crew had to lower the landing gear by hand. The doors that were opened under the plane are what caused the sparks as the plane landed on the runway.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were just informed that there was a hydraulic problem, and that everything was under control, and we just had to kind of wait it out.</s>EVANS: The pilot noticed a loss of hydraulic pressure in the gauge, they shut down the right hydraulic pump in the engine.</s>TUCHMAN: More recently, the airline has been investigated for alleged maintenance problems by the Federal Aviation Administration, but the airline has always strongly defended its safety record. Gary Tuchman, CNN, Atlanta.
Alaska Airlines Flight 261: Airline's History Finds Two Previous Fatal Crashes, None in Recent Years