Alaska Airlines Flight 660
McDonnell Douglas MD-82 · Incident while standing
From Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA) to Harry Reid International Airport (LAS)
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA00IA062
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Incident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
McDonnell Douglas MD-82
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-82
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N934AS
- Operator
- Alaska Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA)To Harry Reid International Airport (LAS), Las Vegas, NV
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 121: Air Carrier
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Standing · engine(s) not operating
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Air cond/heating/pressurization › Contamination
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The MD-82 aircraft was parked at gate C-9 at night with the jetway still attached, and most of the passengers had boarded. The aircraft's APU was inoperative and electrical power was being supplied by an external ground power unit. Additionally, cabin air conditioning was being provided by an external ground source through the aircraft's right engine air conditioning system. Electrical ground power then failed resulting in the aircraft's cabin lights going out and the emergency floor track lights automatically illuminating. Smoke/fumes from the electrical ground power cart exhaust were pulled into the aircraft's cabin through the external ground source. Passengers and crew noted the smoke and then evacuated the aircraft via the forward, left cabin door (L-1) through the jetway and into the terminal without injury.
Probable cause
Contaminated air being ducted into the aircraft's cabin from the engine exhaust of a nearby ground power cart.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA00IA062
- Event ID
- 20001212X20913
- Case number
- SEA00IA062
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2000-04-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 15a4b6e4b3137130b809eaa796373d2895960555cf645402eb030b2a6b0dc531; retrieved 2026-09-18T16:41:53.969Z.