Florida history: Remembering the Everglades ValuJet plane crash

Find some wood and knock on it. Florida has gone 25 years without a major fatal commercial air crash. But it’s hard not to remember ValuJet.

On May 11, 1996, Atlanta-bound ValuJet Flight 592, a fire blazing in its hold, nose-dived into the Everglades, killing 110 passengers and crew. It remains the deadliest plane crash in Florida history.

The cause of the Valujet crash

Investigators quickly determined the direct cause. But there was a larger conclusion that the people died because they selected an airline offering lower prices by cutting corners in an industry that, since deregulation, had made that the norm.

ValuJet contracted out critical aspects such as cargo. The outside company’s employees saw volatile chemical oxygen generators, yanked out of another plane because they had passed their expiration date, and presumed they were empty. That’s what they marked on the manifest.

The canisters were loaded onto Flight 592. Moments after takeoff, investigators believe, the canisters activated in the cargo, sparking or feeding a horrific fire that brought down the plane. The National Transportation Safety Board ruled that the crash reflected failures “up and down the line” – complacency, rushing and a bottom-line mentality in the airline industry and the Federal Aviation Administration.

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Read the report:The NTSB Aircraft Accident Report on Valujet Airlines Flight 592

How the tragedy changed air safety regulations

It made no fewer than 33 recommendations; the FAA adopted 29. Since then, accidental air deaths have dropped dramatically. But critics say too many airlines, especially with fuel and other costs continuing to rise, still focus more on revenue than safety, and the government is stretched too thin to keep them honest.

In the ensuing decade, the numbers say the skies are safer. Four planes crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, killing 227, but those were not accidents. A plane accidentally crashed in New York two months later, killing 251. Even factoring that in, that’s 10 fatal incidents in 25 years, with 488 deaths. By comparison, Florida motor crashes in 2019 alone killed 3,210.

In 1997, a year after the crash, ValuJet bought Florida-based AirTran Airways and took its name. It later was acquired by Southwest. SabreTech, the maintenance firm that investigators say loaded the oxygen canisters on Flight 592, initially was charged with 110 counts of murder (later dropped). The company was convicted on 11 federal charges of failing to train employees in handling hazardous materials that were on the jet, and on a state charge of failure to handle hazardous waste properly. But it was acquitted of the 14 most serious counts, including conspiracy, false statements and placing an incendiary device on a plane.

Two of three employees who were federally charged were cleared; a third, who became a fugitive, was never tried. An appeals court later overturned all but one of the federal charges. The firm was ordered to pay $500,000 in 2001, but by then it was out of business.

A monument later was erected at a spot along Tamiami Trail, where authorities had operated a command post for search and rescue efforts. The monument, designed by University of Miami architecture students with the input of relatives, displays 110 stone obelisks forming an arrow that points to where the plane slammed into the Everglades. The arrow’s tip has a marker bearing the names of the victims.

Florida Time is a weekly column about Florida history by Eliot Kleinberg, a former staff writer for three decades at The Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach, and the author of 10 books about Florida (www.ekfla.com).