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The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, also alleges that company officials harassed and discriminated against the plaintiff, Mansour Fadaie, and denied him a promotion because he is Muslim and immigrated from Iran.
The lawsuit is the latest problem for Alaska Airlines, whose maintenance culture and practices were harshly criticized by the National Transportation Safety Board during its investigation into the January 2000 crash of Flight 261. The flight, from Puerto Vallarta to Seattle, crashed in the Pacific Ocean, killing all 88 people aboard.
The NTSB blamed Alaska's poor maintenance practices for a lack of grease and excessive wear that led to the eventual failure of the jet's jackscrew, a tail component that helps move the plane's stabilizer and sets the angle of flight.
According to the complaint, the Federal Aviation Administration contacted Alaska Airlines after the crash, seeking information on the tools used to maintain the jackscrew.
Some tools were manufactured in-house at the airline, the complaint said. The FAA told the airline to ensure that those tools all met manufacturers' specifications. In August 2000, the airline committed to inspect its tools, the complaint alleged.
Fadaie contends the airline never completed its checks of the tools. In November 2000, after Fadaie refused to sign statements asserting the airline had completed those inspections, the airline turned to another maintenance supervisor for his signature, the complaint alleged.
Fadaie brought up the tool inspections and other maintenance concerns with other executives, including then-chairman John Kelly, in December 2000, and for several months afterward, the complaint stated, but he was demoted in July 2002.
In October 2002 he filed a complaint to the FAA over Alaska's maintenance practices and the incomplete tool inspections. He was ultimately fired this past May.
The suit seeks unspecified damages for pay, lost benefits, medical expenses and emotional distress.
The lawsuit is one of several crash-related legal headaches remaining for the Seattle-based airline, which still faces a federal criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco over its maintenance practices. The family of one crash victim also is pressing a civil suit against the airline. Relatives of the other victims have settled their claims.
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