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Boeing Recommends Airlines Inspect Planes in MD-80 Series

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BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: After last week's crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, Boeing is asking all airlines to voluntarily inspect planes belonging to that MD-80 series. Of specific interest is the jackscrew that controls the plane's horizontal stabilizer.

Carl Rochelle watching the story, live now from Washington with more on this -- Carl.

CARL ROCHELLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bill, they were burning the midnight oil in Seattle yesterday evening as Boeing workers were trying to get out this inspection request. It's a recommendation that the airlines who operate that whole series, which goes from the DC-9, the MD-80, on up to the new Boeing 717, which is still that same, basic model.

Here's what they want: They want them to check the horizontal trim -- stabilizer trim, jackscrew and nut for wear, test the trim- indicating system and shut-off controls, inspect the lubrication of the jackscrew assembly, check the general condition of the mechanical stops of the trim assembly, and check the general condition of the jackscrew assembly.

We were just showing you what the jackscrew works like. It is a threaded screw much like a garage door opener jackscrew. As it turns, it causes the horizontal stabilizer to go up and down. The horizontal stabilizer is what controls the up and down pitch of the nose of the airplane, and it is also used to stabilize the aircraft in fright so the crews can get it into configuration and sort of hold it there the way it is.

What is driving this is a recovery early yesterday by salvage workers off the California coast in the Pacific, the site of the crash, of a two-foot long section of a jackscrew. This is the jackscrew that they found, and if you look carefully at it, you can see metal wrapped around it. That indicates that it may have pulled out, snatched out of something, or something may have wrapped around it, jamming. That could be the problem. That is what investigators are looking at very carefully as they try to determine the cause of the crash of the Alaska Airlines plane.

But FAA officials tell me that the action by Boeing is considered prudent, the airlines moving forward on doing this. American Airlines says they hope to be done in about a week; Delta Airlines working on theirs, hoping to be done in a week or so; Alaska Airlines already working on theirs.

There are roughly 2,000 of this particular aircraft worldwide in the fleet, 1,100, 1,200 operating domestically in the United States. They are checking all these aircraft, and the report from each of them so far indicate that they haven't found any problems in working on these airplanes.

I'm Carl Rochelle, CNN, reporting live from Washington.

HEMMER: All right, Carl, thank you.

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