ValuJet Flight 592
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Valujet Flight 592 was a flight that flew from Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida to Hartsfield International Airport (now known as Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport) in Atlanta, Georgia. It is best known for the crash that destroyed the credibility of the low-cost carrier ValuJet.
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Accident
On May 11, 1996, the DC-9 aircraft on this route, N904VJ, began a normal climb, then asked air traffic control for a return to Miami and reported smoke in the cockpit and cabin. The pilots were given instructions for a return to the airport, but the plane disappeared from radar and was found to have crashed in uninhabited territory inside the Florida Everglades. All 110 passengers and crew died in the crash.
Recovery of the aircraft and victims was extremely difficult due to the location of the crash. The nearest road of any kind was more than a quarter of a mile (400 m) away from the crash scene, and the location of the crash itself could have been summarized as a deep-water swamp with a bedrock base. The DC-9 shattered on impact with the bedrock; very few large portions of the airplane remained. Sawgrass, alligators, and risk of bacterial infection from cuts plagued searchers involved in the recovery effort.
Investigation
The NTSB investigation eventually determined that the source of the fire that downed flight 592 was a cargo compartment below the passenger portion of the plane. 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 circumstances of this fire were unique, however. It was determined that the fire was caused by the firing of expired chemical oxygen generators placed in the cargo compartment in a box marked 'Airplane parts' by ValuJet's maintenance contractor, SabreTech. The generators should not have been shipped in this manner in the first place, since they were hazardous materials. Making the matter worse was the fact that the firing pins for the oxygen canisters were not properly protected with plastic sleeves to prevent an unintended firing of the canister.
Chemical oxygen generators, when fired, produce oxygen. As a byproduct of the chemical reaction, they also produce a great quantity of heat. These two pieces together were sufficient to not only start an accidental fire, but also produce the oxygen to keep the fire burning at an extremely high temperature. A pop and jolt traced in the air traffic control tape was attributed to an aircraft tire (shipped with the oxygen generators) exploding in the high temperature fire.
Culpability
The NTSB placed fault for ValuJet Flight 592 in three places: on ValuJet, for not being aware of what its contractor (SabreTech) was doing; on SabreTech, for illegally transporting dangerous materials aboard a commercial aircraft, improperly labeling them, and not providing safety equipment to ship them; and on the FAA for not requiring active fire suppression equipment in this cargo compartment. SabreTech was convicted of criminal charges, the first time this had happened to an aviation company in connection with an airplane crash in America. The bad publicity quickly drove SabreTech out of business entirely.
The disaster hurt the credibility of the ValuJet airline so much that the company was forced to merge with Airways Corporation and the ValuJet brand no longer exists.
See Also
External links
- I Travel, You Travel (Flight 592) (http://www.ityt.com/airtran/592.php)
- ValuJet Flight 592 Memorial (http://www.flight592.com)
- Flight 592 special report (CNN) (http://www.cnn.com/US/valujet.592/)
- NTSB report (http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/brief.asp?ev_id=20001208X05743&key=1)