Rodney Culver & Walter Hyatt
On May 11, 1996, a ValuJet flight
departed from Miami International Airport, bound for Atlanta. The flight, 592, took
off at 2:04PM and sought to abort flight almost immediately. The flight crew radioed at 2:10PM. Captain
Candi Kubeck, a veteran Eastern Airlines pilot, requested to return to Miami
due to smoke in the cockpit and cabin. Smoke entered the cockpit when the flight
crew opened the door to report fire, on the failure of the intercom
system. Given permission to return,
Flight 592 turned and disappeared from radarscopes at 2:14PM. The
27-year-old DC-9 crashed in the Everglades’ Browns Farm Wildlife Management area,
killing all five members of the flight crew and 105 passengers aboard.
Two
witnesses fishing from a boat in the Everglades when flight 592 crashed stated
that they saw a low-flying airplane in a steep right bank. According to these
witnesses, as the right bank angle increased, the nose of the airplane dropped
and continued downward. The airplane struck the ground in a nearly vertical
attitude. The witnesses described a great explosion, vibration, and a huge
cloud of water and smoke. One of them observed, ‘the landing gear was up, all
the airplane’s parts appeared to be intact, and that aside from the engine
smoke, no signs of fire were visible.’ Two other witnesses who were sightseeing
in a private airplane [piloted by Daniel Muelhaup] in the area at the time of the
accident provided similar accounts of the accident. These two witnesses and the
witnesses in the boat, who approached the accident site, described seeing only
part of an engine, paper, and other debris scattered around the impact area.
One of the witnesses remarked that the airplane seemed to have disappeared upon
crashing into the Everglades.
On board
were San Diego Chargers running back Rodney Culver and his wife, Karen (Their
children had not accompanied them on the trip). Culver had grown up in Detroit
and played college ball at Notre Dame where he started at running back for
vaunted Irish head coach Lou Holtz, and played for the national title against
Colorado. Rodney Culver was the first black captain of a team at Notre Dame, a
devoted Christian, and a hard-working and earnest man who completed his degree
in seven semesters. He was drafted by the Colts in 1992, and was cut at the end
of the 1993 season after seeing limited action.
He was picked up off the waiver wire by the Chargers, where he again saw
limited action but played in Super Bowl XXIX for the AFC champions, who lost to
San Francisco 49-26. He had continued
his evangelical calling, coordinating the Chargers’ chapel service and always
signing autographs with accompanying scripture.
Also on
board the flight was Austin-based winger and songwriter Walter Hyatt, generally
credited as one of the founders of Americana music, which celebrates both folk and country
roots of American music while also encouraging innovation. Hyatt had founded
“Uncle Walt’s Band” out of Spartanburg in 1969, and then crashed the Nashville
music scene. After the band broke up in
1975, Hyatt formed “The Contenders” with fellow Uncle Walt’s Band member Champ
Hood, and later reformed UWB in 1978. in
the late 1980s he went solo, and in 1990 signed with MCA where his album King
Tears was produced by Lyle Lovett. A second album followed. Hyatt had been in
Key West playing a club date when he returned to Miami and boarded flight 592
to return home to attend his daughter’s graduation.
About ValuJet Flight 592: The accident was
entirely preventable. According to the National Transportation Safety Board’s
investigation of the Flight 592 disaster, it was a clear day and the flight
operated under visual flight rules. The aircraft had previously operated as
flight 591 from Atlanta to Miami, and was running an hour late out of Atlanta
due to “unexpected maintenance involving the right auxiliary hydraulic pump
circuit breaker.” This maintenance issue was not related to the crash. In
addition to the flight crew and 105 passengers, the craft carried 4,109 pounds
of cargo including baggage, mail, and what is termed COMAT -- company-owned
material. The COMAT consisted of “two
main tires and wheels, a nose tire and wheel, and five boxes that were
described as ‘Oxy Cannisters [sic]-‘Empty.’ ”
The National Transportation Safety
Board determined the probable causes of the crash as a consequence of
maintenance- and safety-related decisions regarding oxygen generators. Each DC-9 carried 144 oxygen generators for
the passenger emergency oxygen masks. When these generators were swapped out on
[tail number], maintenance records indicated six of the 144 generators had
definitely been removed. The fire that brought down ValuJet 592 started in the
class D cargo compartment because of “one or more oxygen generators being
improperly carried as cargo” and the failure of the maintenance contractor,
SabreTech
to properly prepare, package, and
identify unexpended chemical oxygen generators before presenting them to
ValuJet for carriage … the failure of ValuJet to properly oversee its contract
maintenance program to ensure compliance with maintenance, maintenance
training, and hazardous materials requirements and practices.
However, NTSB saved blame for the
FAA, for not requiring “smoke detection and fire suppression systems in class D
cargo compartments” and for failing to “adequately monitor ValuJet's heavy
maintenance programs and responsibilities … ValuJet's oversight of its
contractors, and SabreTech's repair station certificate … [and] adequately respond[ing] to prior
chemical oxygen generator fires with programs to address the potential
hazards.”
Put simply, ValuJet 592 was
carrying hazardous cargo that was improperly secured, the hazard was realized,
a fire resulted, and 110 people died. The NTSB report on communication from the
tower and the flight data recorder indicate a fiery situation that was
overwhelming the best efforts of an experienced flight crew.
About ValuJet: ValuJet
started as a good idea from people with a history of good ideas in the aviation
industry. Deregulation in 1978 had
heightened regional competition and decreased travel costs, and low-cost
carriers such as Southwest and Midway were pushing the major carriers for
business. Starting with a single old Delta Airlines DC-9, ValuJet was going to
crack the Delta-dominated Atlanta market by bringing the low-cost approach of
Dallas-based Southwest Airlines into the southeast. Within a year of starting operation in 1993
ValuJet had expanded to fifteen aircraft with flights reaching across the
entire southeast, and by 1995 had expanded to nearly a hundred aircraft,
combining new orders from Boeing with the purchase of old craft from foreign
carriers.
Despite having a wealth of
executive leadership from the industry, including the architects of ASA and
WestJet, ValuJet still encountered problems.
Federal regulators cited the airline for repeated maintenance and safety
concerns, and in February 1996 recommended removing ValueJet’s certification to
fly – the airline had over 100 emergency
landings in less than three years. And, 592 was not the first accident
involving ValuJet. On June 8 1995, Flight 597 had
aborted takeoff from Atlanta when the right engine exploded and caused a cabin
fire. No one died, but five passengers and two flight attendants were
injured. The plane burned on the ground
at Hartsfield International.
