Nine Jets With Tail Glitch Grounded The Associated Press Feb 12 2000 8:58PM ET

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LOS ANGELES (AP) - Airlines temporarily grounded nine more jets Saturday under a government order to examine tail wings for a problem that may have caused an Alaska Airlines jet to crash two weeks ago.

Since Thursday, 21 planes have been found to have irregularities with tail wing jackscrews, the 2-foot-long rods that drive the stabilizers that keep planes level, the Federal Aviation Administration and airlines said.

The jackscrew recovered from the submerged wreckage of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 had damaged threads and metal shavings.

The National Transportation Safety Bureau has not determined whether jackscrew damage caused the Jan. 31 crash that killed all 88 people aboard, but after similar damage was found on other Alaska Airlines jets, the FAA ordered all airlines to inspect their MD-80s, MD-90s, Boeing 717s and DC-9s - about 1,200 planes in all.

In a statement Saturday, the FAA said 13 planes had been grounded for jackscrew problems, though some were back in service. Others were found to have metal shavings on the jackscrew or other irregularities, such as metallic residue in screw grease or a lack of lubricant.

``The significance of the findings will not be known until a detailed inspection of the parts can be made,'' the FAA said. ``These are initial reports and the FAA believes it is premature to draw any conclusions from them.''

Airlines said even more planes have been grounded than the 13 the FAA announced.

Alaska Airlines spokesman Jack Ware said his company had grounded eight aircraft, including four on Saturday. The FAA said Alaska Airlines had reported a total of four planes with problems.

Similarly, Northwest Airlines reported replacing the jackscrews of three aircraft, including two Saturday, but the FAA said that airline reported problems with only one of its aircraft.

FAA spokesman Eliot Brenner said the agency is looking specifically for slivers of metal along jackscrews while airline mechanics are reporting anything unusual they find.

The FAA has ordered that the inspections be completed by Monday and gave airlines until Wednesday to report their findings, Brenner said.

Most airlines said Saturday their companies had completed most of the required inspections and expected to have the job finished by Sunday morning. They said that because flights are light this weekend, they do not expect problems finding room for passengers.

Alaska Airlines said six of the eight planes it grounded had metallic dust or residue in and around jackscrews. That may be a sign of normal wear, the airline said, but it grounded the planes anyway and notified the FAA and NTSB.

Spokespeople for Northwest and Delta Air Lines also reported residue on their jackscrews.

Northwest had one of its three planes with problems back in the air by Saturday afternoon, airline spokesman Jon Austin said. Two Delta planes were back in service after their jackscrews were replaced, and two others should be back in service Sunday, Delta spokeswoman Peggy Estes said.

The other airlines that had planes with problems included AirTran, with two aircraft grounded, and American, Continental, TWA and Hawaiian Air, with one each. AirTran, which was formerly known as ValuJet, and TWA reported the problems with their planes Saturday, FAA spokesman Brenner said.

APO/Alaska-Airlines-Crash/

-- Jen Bunker (jen@bunkergroup.com), February 12, 2000