Airline Pulls Ads Over 'Deaths' Headline

Angered by a "deaths and funerals" headline over an Alaska Airlines advertisement -- possibly a prank that got into print -- the regional carrier has pulled its advertising from The Seattle Times.

At least 20,000 newspapers out of a 500,000 Sunday press run were delivered with the headline run over an Alaska Airlines ad. Times officials said Monday they were trying to determine whether it was deliberately altered or whether a piece of type accidentally fell onto the page in production.

The newspaper apologized, but Alaska Airlines spokesman Greg Witter said the carrier will stop running ads in the state's largest circulation daily "until quality assurance is in place."

The error appeared two days after an Alaska Airlines baggage handler died when he was pinned between a baggage cart and a jetliner at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Alaska Airlines already were unhappy about news reports on investigations into the carrier's maintenance operations following the crash in which all 88 aboard died off the California coast Jan. 31.

"We feel the Times has created an environment where it's open season on Alaska Airlines, where someone in The Seattle Times family ... decided he can take potshots on us as well," Witter said.

The ad apparently was fouled up in the page makeup room Saturday night as the page was being prepared on deadline to go to press, said Frank Paiva, Times vice president of operations.

The presses were stopped as soon as the problem was noticed, Paiva said. But flawed copies were already out in circulation by that time.

"Our people are just sick about it," Paiva said.

An apology was issued by Seattle Times Co. president H. Mason Sizemore, who said the company was trying to figure out how the foul-up happened.