ValuJet Flight 592

ValuJet Airlines was founded in 1992 and was known for its aggressive cost-cutting measures. Many of the airline's planes were purchased in used condition from other airlines, and little training was provided to workers and contractors who were hired for maintenance and other services. ValuJet quickly developed a reputation for a lackluster safety record. In 1995, the United States military refused the airline's bid to fly its personnel due to safety concerns, and some officials at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) wanted the airline grounded. In 1986, an American Trans Air McDonnell Douglas DC-10 being serviced at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport was destroyed on the ground by a fire caused by chemical oxygen generators. On February 3, 1988, aboard American Airlines Flight 132, a fire began in the cargo hold of the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 while the plane was in flight, caused by hazardous materials (primarily hydrogen peroxide); in that case the crew landed the aircraft safely. After Flight 132, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended to the FAA that all class D cargo holds be fitted with smoke detectors and fire-suppression systems. The FAA declined to implement the recommendation. ==Aircraft and crew==

The aircraft, a DC-9-32 registered N904VJ, was the 496th DC-9 assembled at the Long Beach plant. It was 27 years old and had been previously flown by Delta Air Lines. Its first flight occurred on April 18, 1969, and it was delivered to Delta on May 27, 1969, as N1281L. The airframe flew for Delta until the end of 1992, when it was retired and sold back to McDonnell Douglas. McDonnell Douglas then sold the plane to ValuJet in 1993. In the flight deck were two experienced pilots, Captain Candi Kubeck (35) and First Officer Richard Hazen (52). Kubeck had accumulated 8,928 total flight hours throughout her career (including 2,116 hours on the DC-9) and Hazen had more than 11,800 total flight hours throughout his career, with 2,148 on the DC-9. ==Accident==

On the afternoon of May 11, 1996, Flight 592 left Gate G2 in Miami after a delay of one hour and four minutes because of electrical problems. Interruptions in the cockpit voice recorder occurred on two occasions, one of which was one minute and 12 seconds in length. All on board were killed in the crash. Recovery of the aircraft and victims was severely complicated by 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 was a deep-water marsh with a floor of solid limestone. The aircraft was destroyed on impact, with no large pieces of the fuselage remaining. Sawgrass, alligators and risk of bacterial infection from cuts plagued searchers involved in the recovery effort. ==Victims==

Notable passengers killed on the flight included: • San Diego Chargers running back Rodney Culver • Songwriter and musician Walter Hyatt • DelMarie Walker, 38, the prime suspect in a murder in Georgia Recovery of the passengers and crew took several weeks, and very few intact human remains were found given the sheer violence of the impact, immersion in swamp water and scavenging by wildlife. About 68 of the 110 victims were identified, in some cases from examining jawbones, and at least one individual from a single tooth. A piece of torn flesh was proven to belong to Hazen, but Kubeck's remains were never found. Because of the adverse conditions, performing toxicology tests on the human remains to determine their exposure to fumes and smoke from the in-flight fire was not possible. ==Investigation==

At the end of a 15-month investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the fire had developed in a cargo compartment below the passenger cabin. This violated Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations forbidding the transport of hazardous materials in passenger-aircraft cargo holds. Failure to cover the generators' firing pins with the prescribed plastic caps made accidental activation much more likely. The investigation revealed that rather than covering the pins, maintenance personnel simply cut the cords attached to the pins or applied duct tape around the cans, and consumer-grade adhesive tape was also used to secure the ends. SabreTech employees indicated on the cargo manifest that the "oxy canisters", which were loosely packed in boxes that were each sealed with tape and bubble wrap, were "empty." ValuJet workers then loaded the boxes in the cargo hold in the mistaken belief that the devices were simply empty canisters that would be safe and legal to transport on a passenger aircraft. Chemical oxygen generators, when activated, produce oxygen for passengers if the plane suffers a decompression. However, they also produce a great quantity of heat because of the exothermic nature of the chemical reaction involved. Therefore, not only could the heat and generated oxygen start a fire, but the oxygen could also keep the fire burning. Investigators determined that one of the oxygen generators was likely triggered when the plane experienced a slight jolt while taxiing. As the aircraft taxied and took off, the generator began releasing heat that caused other canisters to activate. Each activation created more heat, which rapidly caused all of the generators to activate. The intense heat ignited a fire in the other materials in the cargo hold. The fire was worsened by the presence of two main aircraft tires, one of them mounted on a main wheel, and a nose tire and wheel that were also included in the list of materials shipped as COMAT. Laboratory testing showed that canisters of the same type could heat nearby materials up to . The oxygen from the generators fed the resulting fire in the cargo hold without any need for outside air, defeating the cargo hold's airtight design. 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 one of the wheels in the cargo hold exploding from the heat. Culpability The NTSB report placed responsibility for the accident on three parties: • SabreTech, for improperly packaging and storing hazardous materials • ValuJet, for not supervising SabreTech • The FAA, for not mandating smoke-detection and fire-suppression systems in cargo holds as recommended in 1988 after a similar incident with American Airlines Flight 132 In 1997, a federal grand jury indicted SabreTech for mishandling hazardous materials, failing to train its employees in 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 Ociel Valenzuela-Reyes, 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 was indicted in absentia for contempt of court. A warrant was issued for Valenzuela's arrest in 2000, and he remains a fugitive as of 2026. In 2010, he was specifically highlighted in the EPA's announcement of a website to search for "environmental fugitives." The FBI has offered a $10,000 reward for information on his whereabouts. In May 2001, SabreTech agreed to pay $2.25 million in fines to the FAA (later reduced to $1.75 million), but did not admit wrongdoing. Just before the federal trial, a Florida grand jury indicted SabreTech on 110 counts of manslaughter and another 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 materials and make a $500,000 donation to promote aviation safety. Many families of Flight 592's victims were outraged that ValuJet was not prosecuted, given the airline's poor safety record. ValuJet's accident rate was not only 14 times higher than that of legacy airlines, but one of the highest in the low-fare sector as well. In the aftermath of the crash, an internal FAA memo surfaced questioning whether ValuJet should have been allowed to stay in the air. The victims' families also point to statements made by ValuJet's officials immediately after the crash that led many to believe that ValuJet knew that the generators were on the plane and had ordered them returned to Atlanta rather than properly disposed in Miami. Name change to AirTran In 1997, the company acquired AirTran Airways. Although ValuJet was the nominal survivor, the merged airline took the AirTran name. ValuJet executives believed that a new name was important to regain the trust of the flying public. AirTran made little mention of its past as ValuJet. For example, it did not make any major announcements on the crash's 10th anniversary. In 2011, AirTran was purchased by Southwest Airlines. ==Legacy==

On the third anniversary of the accident in 1999, a memorial to the victims was dedicated in the Everglades. The memorial, consisting of 110 concrete pillars, is located just north of the Tamiami Trail highway, about 12 miles west of Krome Avenue in Miami-Dade County. It points to the location of the crash site 12 miles to the north-northeast. Students from the American Institute of Architecture Students designed the memorial, and local contractors, masons and labor unions built it for free. In a June 4, 2013, Miami Herald article, a local resident stated that while slogging through the sawgrass several months earlier, he had found a partially melted gold pendant in the same area. It is believed to have been a possession of a victim of either the ValuJet crash or the 1972 crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401, which had occurred about from the ValuJet crash site. ==In popular culture==

Three National Geographic shows, Why Planes Crash ("Fire in the Sky"), Seconds from Disaster ("Florida Swamp Air Crash") and Mayday ("Fire in the Hold"), covered the crash. It was also featured in the last episode of the four-part Travel Channel series Probable Cause: Air Crash Investigations and in an episode of Cops being filmed in the Miami area at the time. The series premiere of CSI: Miami also referenced elements of the crash such as the Everglades search. ==See also==