Alaska Airlines Flight 61
Boeing 737-200 · Incident during takeoff
From Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA) to Juneau International Airport (JNU)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA07IA008
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Boeing 737-200
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- 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
- N740AS
- Operator
- Alaska Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Seattle–Tacoma International Airport (SEA), Seattle, WATo Juneau International Airport (JNU), Juneau, AK
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Flightcrew › Wrong runway, selected
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The captain of the Boeing 737 stated that there was a short delay at the gate because of a "cargo issue." The automatic terminal information service broadcast indicated that departures were using runway 34R, either with the full length or from the intersection at taxiway Q. The ground controller cleared the flight to taxi to runway 34R at taxiway Q. During the taxi, the first officer was busy talking with dispatch and completing the flight paperwork while the captain taxied the airplane and handled the ATC communications. The flight crew received the amended flight release as the airplane approached taxiway Q. The captain then switched to the local control frequency and heard the local controller (LC) issue the flight clearance to taxi into position and hold on runway 34C. The captain read back the clearance, including "runway 34 center." As the FO was completing the preflight activities, the LC cleared the flight for takeoff from runway 34C and indicated that there was traffic on short final. The captain again repeated the clearance for takeoff on runway "34 center." However, the captain lined up the airplane on the 34R centerline and transferred control to the FO. The airplane departed uneventfully. The LC noticed the airplane departing on runway 34C and did not order an abort because there were no potential traffic conflicts.
Probable cause
the flight crew's failure to cross-check and verify that the airplane was on the correct runway before takeoff. Contributing to the incident was the flight crew's self-induced pressure to heed the takeoff clearance during a period of increased workload.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA07IA008
- Event ID
- 20061103X01604
- Case number
- DCA07IA008
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: investigation status, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b9e82a3c20433c20d0845c5f12f195955c35ac43beb44a532071a63e2766fc4d; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:49:30.433Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N740AS; the operator shown is the name the NTSB's other records give its FAA operator code, ASAA.