ValuJet Flight 592

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ValuJet Flight 592 was a flight that crashed on May 11, 1996 en route from Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida, United States, to William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. The crash was a large factor in undermining the credibility of the low-cost carrier ValuJet Airlines, now known as AirTran Airways.

[edit] Accident

The 27-year-old DC-9 aircraft used on this route ^[1] was previously owned by Delta Air Lines ^[2]. Flight 592 took off after a delay of 1 hour and 4 minutes at 2:04 pm and began a normal climb. However, at 2:10 p.m. the flight crew noted an electrical problem. Seconds later, a flight attendant entered the cockpit and advised the flight crew of the fire. Passengers' shouts of "fire, fire, fire" were recorded on the plane's cockpit voice recorder when the cockpit door was opened. Though the ValuJet flight attendant manual stated that the cockpit door should not be opened when smoke or other harmful gases may be present in the cabin, the intercom was disabled, and there was no other way to inform the pilots of what was happening. By this time, the plane's interior was completely on fire.

The crew immediately asked air traffic control for a return to Miami due to smoke in the cockpit and cabin. Captain Candi Kubeck and First Officer Richard Hazen were given instructions for a return to the airport. One minute later, the First Officer requested the nearest available airport.

Flight 592 disappeared from radar at 2:14 p.m. It crashed in Browns Farm Wildlife Management area in the Everglades, a few miles west of Miami, at speeds in excess of 500 miles per hour (800 km/h) Kubeck, Hazen, the three flight attendants, and all 105 passengers aboard were killed. Recovery of the aircraft and victims was made extremely difficult due to the location of the crash. The nearest road of any kind was more than ¹⁄₄ mi (402.34 m) away from the crash scene, and the location of the crash itself was a deep-water swamp with a bedrock base. The DC-9 shattered on impact with the bedrock, leaving very few large portions of the plane intact. Sawgrass, alligators, and risk of bacterial infection from cuts plagued searchers involved in the recovery effort.

[edit] Victims

Notable passengers killed on the flight included:^[3]

• San Diego Chargers running back Rodney Culver
• Songwriter and musician Walter Hyatt
• Del-Marie Walker, murderer^{[4] [5]}
• Former Miami Hurricanes football offensive lineman Robert Woodus^{[citation needed]}

COPS happened to be taping with the Miami-Dade Police Department when the accident occurred. As a result, one of the episodes aired in the 1996-97 season features some of the first 9-1-1 calls and the initial investigations into the accident.

Residences of passengers:^[3]

Residence	Passengers	Crew	Total
Bahamas	2	0	2
United Kingdom	2	0	2
United States	99	5	104
Unspecified	2	0	2
Total	105	5	110

[edit] Investigation

Greg Feith, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), found out about the crash through televisions in his house. He said in an interview that he wondered how he would investigate the incident since, through the aerial views on television, he saw no visible wreckage.^[6]

The NTSB investigation eventually determined that the fire that downed Flight 592 began in a cargo compartment below the passenger cabin. The cargo compartment's fire suppression amounted to a no-air recycling environment, so a standard fire would have simply run out of air and burned itself out.

The NTSB determined that just before takeoff, expired chemical oxygen generators were placed in the cargo compartment in five boxes marked COMAT (company-owned material) by ValuJet's maintenance contractor, SabreTech, in contravention of FAA regulations forbidding the transport of hazardous materials in aircraft cargo holds. Failure to cover the firing pins for the generators with the prescribed plastic caps made an accidental activation much more likely. It is also possible that the cylindrical, tennis ball can-sized generators were loaded onboard in the mistaken belief that they were just canisters. SabreTech employees indicated on the cargo manifest that the "canisters" were empty, when in fact they were not.

Chemical oxygen generators, when activated, produce oxygen. As a byproduct of the exothermic chemical reaction, they also produce a great quantity of heat. These two together were sufficient not only to start an accidental fire, but also produce the extra oxygen needed to keep the fire burning, made much worse by the presence of combustible aircraft wheels in the hold. NTSB investigators theorized that when the plane experienced a slight jolt while taxiing on the runway, an oxygen canister activated, producing oxygen and heat. Laboratory testing showed that canisters of the same type could heat nearby materials up to 500 °F (260 °C), enough to ignite a smouldering fire. The oxygen from the generators fed the resulting fire in the cargo hold. A pop and jolt heard on the cockpit voice recording and correlated with a brief and dramatic spike in the altimeter reading in the flight data recording were attributed to the sudden cabin pressure change caused by a semi-inflated aircraft wheel in the cargo hold exploding in the fire. (Two main tires and wheels and a nose tire and wheel were also included in the COMAT).

In 1986, an American Trans Air DC-10 was destroyed by a fire at O'Hare Airport, caused by an improperly stored oxygen generator.

In 1988, American Airlines Flight 132 (a McDonnell-Douglas MD-80, the successor airplane to the DC-9) had a similar accident. A cargo hold fire caused by hazardous materials started, but the crew landed the aircraft safely. After this incident, the NTSB recommended to the FAA that all class D cargo holds have smoke detectors and/or fire suppression systems.^[7]

Smoke detectors in the cargo holds can alert the flight crew of a fire long before the problem becomes apparent in the cabin, and a fire suppression system buys valuable time to land the plane safely. In February 1998, the FAA issued revised standards requiring all Class D cargo holds be converted to Class C or E by early 2001.^[8]

[edit] Culpability

The NTSB placed fault for ValuJet Flight 592 on three parties: SabreTech, for illegally transporting dangerous materials aboard a commercial aircraft, improperly labeling them, and not providing safety equipment to ship them; ValuJet, for not properly supervising SabreTech; and the FAA, for not properly supervising ValuJet and not requiring active fire suppression equipment in this cargo compartment.

In 1997, a federal grand jury charged SabreTech with mishandling hazardous materials, failing to train its employees on proper handling of hazardous materials, conspiracy and making false statements. SabreTech's maintenance supervisor, Daniel Gonzalez, and two mechanics who worked on the plane, Eugene Florence and Mauro Valenzuela, were charged with conspiracy and making false statements. Two years later, having been found guilty on the mishandling hazardous materials and improper training charges, SabreTech was fined $2 million and ordered to pay $9 million in restitution. Gonzalez and Florence were acquitted on all charges, while Valenzuela failed to appear and is currently missing.^[9] In December 2008, the EPA announced a web site to search for "environmental fugitives," highlighting Mauro Valenzuela as a specific target.^[10]

In 2001, United States 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the SabreTech guilty verdict in part. In so doing, the panel concluded that federal law at the time of the crash could not support a conviction for mishandling hazardous materials and that the government did not prove that SabreTech formed an intent to cause harm. The panel did, however, uphold the conviction for improper training, and on remand, the District Court sentenced SabreTech to a $500,000 fine, three years' probation and no restitution.

Just before the federal trial, a Florida grand jury indicted SabreTech on 110 counts of manslaughter and 110 counts of third-degree murder; one for each person who died in the crash. SabreTech settled the state charges by agreeing to plead no contest to a state charge of mishandling hazardous waste and donating $500,000 to an aviation safety group and a Miami-Dade County charity.

SabreTech was the first American aviation company to be criminally prosecuted for its role in an American airline crash. The company, a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Sabreliner Corporation, went out of business in 1999.

ValuJet was grounded by the FAA on June 16, 1996. It was allowed to resume flying again on September 30, but never recovered from the crash. In 1997, it merged with AirTran Airways. The ValuJet name was so tarnished by this time that it decided to take the AirTran name.

Many families of the Flight 592 victims were outraged that ValuJet was not prosecuted, given ValuJet's poor safety record. ValuJet had a higher accident rate than the 10 largest airlines, leading the FAA to take the unprecedented step of barring it from buying more planes or adding more cities without permission.^{[citation needed]} The agency had seriously considered grounding the airline. The victims' families also point to statements made by ValuJet officials immediately after the crash that appeared to indicate ValuJet knew the generators were on the plane, and in fact had ordered them returned to Atlanta rather than properly disposed.^[11]

[edit] Legacy

In 2001 the Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama dedicated Smith Drive in honor of Jay Smith, a passenger on the flight.^[12]

A National Geographic Seconds From Disaster episode covered the crash.

[edit] Everglades memorial

Memorial

A memorial to the victims located in the Everglades was dedicated in 1999 on the third anniversary of the accident. The memorial, consisting of 110 concrete pillars, is located just north of Tamiami Trail about 11 miles west of Krome Avenue in Miami-Dade County and points to the location of the actual crash site eight miles to the north.

Within days of the crash of Flight 592, the song "Deep Down In the Everglades" was written by Rod MacDonald and performed in a small workshop at the Florida Folk Festival. The MC, Dale Crider, invited MacDonald to sing it with him that evening on the main stage. The song was released on MacDonald’s 1999 CD “Into the Blue” (Gadfly Records/US, Brambus Records/Switzerland).

[edit] See also

• List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
• Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 - Another airliner crash in the Florida Everglades

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Photo of the plane after being retired by Delta and bought by Valujet
• Photo of the plane while in service with Valujet
• Passenger list and gallery
• ValuJet Flight 592 Memorial
• Flight 592 special report (CNN)
• NTSB brief report
• NTSB full report (PDF)
• Audio transcript of the Air Traffic Control conversations
• Death in the Everglades, TIME
• Valujet: The Crash of Flight 592, CNN
• Valujet 592's Last Flight," The New York Times
• Contractor Found Guilty in Trial on ValuJet Crash
• The Lessons of Valujet 592, William Langewiesche (from The Atlantic, March 1998).
• Flight From Reality: The ValuJet Cover-Up - Michael Fumento

Coordinates: 25°54′47″N 80°34′41″W / 25.91306°N 80.57806°W / 25.91306; -80.57806

v • d • e ← 1995 Aviation accidents and incidents in 1996 1997→ Air Africa crash (January 6) — Birgenair Flight 301 (February 6) — Faucett Flight 251 (February 29) — 1996 Croatia USAF CT-43 crash (April 3) — ValuJet Flight 592 (May 11) — Eastwind Airlines Flight 517 (June 9) — Delta Air Lines Flight 1288 (July 6) — TWA Flight 800 (July 17) — Spair Airlines Flight PAR-3601 (August 19) — Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801 (August 29) — Aeroperú Flight 603 (October 2) — TAM Transportes Aéreos Regionais Flight 402 (October 31) — Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision (Saudi Arabian 763 and Air Kazakhstan 1907) (November 12) — Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 (November 23) — 1996 New Hampshire Learjet crash (December 24) Bold indicates accidents resulting at least 50 deaths Orange color indicates the deadliest accident in 1996