ValuJet Flight 592 - Accident

Accident

On the afternoon of May 11, 1996, Flight 592 pushed back from gate G2 in Miami after a delay of 1 hour and 4 minutes due to mechanical problems. There were 105 passengers, mainly from Florida and Georgia, on board, as well as a crew of two pilots and three flight attendants, bringing the total number of people on board to 110. At 2:04 pm, 10 minutes before the disaster, the DC-9 took off from runway 9L and began a normal climb.

At 2:10 pm, Captain Candi Kubeck and First Officer Richard Hazen heard a loud bang in their headphones, and noticed the plane was losing electrical power. Seconds later, a flight attendant entered the cockpit and advised the flight crew of a fire in the passenger cabin. 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 might 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.

Kubeck and Hazen immediately asked air traffic control for a return to Miami due to smoke in the cockpit and cabin, and were given instructions for a return to the airport. One minute later, Hazen requested the nearest available airport. Kubeck began to turn the plane left in preparation for the return to Miami, but lost control soon afterward; all the wiring and hydraulic cables melted.

Flight 592 disappeared from radar at 2:13:42 pm. The passengers and crew lost consciousness due to the toxic fumes, and the plane began to dive, picking up speed. It rolled onto its side and slammed to the ground nose-first in the Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area in the Everglades, a few miles west of Miami, at a speed in excess of 507 miles per hour (816 km/h). Kubeck, Hazen, the three flight attendants, and all 105 passengers aboard were killed instantly. Recovery of the aircraft and victims was made extremely difficult by the location of the crash. The nearest road of any kind was more than a quarter mile (400 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.