Original subtitles

Man: A large jet aircraft has just crashed out here.

Large, like airliner size.

Man: You could smell the jet fuel,

you could smell the hydraulic fluid,

you could smell death.

Man: We're going to scour this swamp quadrant by quadrant.

Narrator: NTSB investigators face an unprecedented challenge.

Man: My first thought is: How am I going to pull this off?

Narrator: It's up to Greg Feith and his team

to figure out why Valujet flight 592

erupted into flames...

Pilot: Fire!

Narrator: ...just minutes after takeoff.

Man: Okay, let's start it up.

We had a raging fire.

Man: We almost destroyed their test facility.

Man: The Secretary of Transportation lost his job.

The Administrator of the FAA lost his job

because of this one accident.

Flight Attendant: We're completely on fire!

Pilot: Mayday, mayday!

Narrator: It's been six months

since Florida's worst aviation disaster.

Woman: Valujet forced many people in this agency

to ask some very tough questions.

Narrator: Federal hearings into the fiery crash

of Valujet flight 592

are filled with controversy and recrimination.

Woman: I'm the mother of the captain of Valujet 592,

Captain Candalyn Chamberlain Kubeck,

and I am very angry.

Malcolm Brenner: This was one of these historic cases

that had a tremendous amount

of public attention and public concern.

Woman: I have always thought this crash

was very preventable and very senseless.

Mother: Valujet 592 fell out of the sky

because of a complete breakdown of the system.

Narrator: The federal aviation administration is under attack

for failing to implement safety recommendations

made eight years ago after another onboard fire.

In 1988, an American Airlines crew

managed to land their burning DC-9

and save the lives of all 120 passengers.

Man: Had the Federal Aviation Administration

required fire and smoke detection

and/or fire extinguishment systems,

as the safety board recommended in 1988,

Valujet flight 592 would not have crashed.

Narrator: The 105 passengers who were put in danger

by that bureaucratic failure...

Flight Attendant: 11A and B.

Narrator: ...boarded a Valujet DC-9

on the morning of may 11, 1996.

Flight 592 is a 1 1/2-hour trip from Miami to Atlanta, Georgia.

Flight Attendant: Let me help you with that.

Jerome Chandler: Valujet was one of the first low cost carriers.

People, instead of driving,

they were getting on this low-fare blue and white airplane

with the cartoon character.

Woman: There's some little, little hair clips in there, too.

Narrator: It's the crew's second flight of the day on this plane.

In command of flight 592 is 35-year-old Candalyn Kubeck.

Captain Kubeck is an experienced pilot

with nearly 9,000 flight hours.

Richard Hazen: Okay...

Narrator: The first officer is a former Air Force pilot,

52-year-old Richard Hazen.

Hazen: Clear to start? Candalyn Kubeck: Proceed.

Hazen: Shoulder harness?

Kubeck: On.

Hazen: Parking brakes?

Kubeck: On.

Narrator: Today's flight is loaded

with almost 4,409 pounds of cargo

which includes passenger luggage,

Valujet company material and U.S. Mail.

The crew must sign off on all cargo loaded onboard.

With the paperwork complete...

Hazen: There you go.

Narrator: ...they prepare to taxi to the runway.

Controller: Critter 592, taxi to runway niner-left.

Hazen: Nine-left, critter 592.

Narrator: The DC-9 is 27 years old.

It has more than 68,000 hours of flight time.

On the flight into Miami from Atlanta that day,

the autopilot wasn't working, and the P.A. System was broken.

Kubeck: You want to test out the P.A., talk to the people?

Hazen: Ladies and gentlemen, from the cockpit

we're in a hold right now for crossing traffic on the ground.

Narrator: Mechanics in Miami were able to fix the P.A.

Flight attendant: It works. We can hear you loud and clear.

Controller: Critter 592, runway 9-left cleared for takeoff.

Narrator: But repairs to the autopilot will have to wait.

Kubeck: Set takeoff power.

Narrator: Once the DC-9 is back

at airline headquarters in Atlanta...

Hazen: Power is set.

Narrator: ...mechanics there will work on the problem.

Hazen: Rotate.

Chandler: The sky was relatively benign that may day.

And they were just looking forward to getting home.

Hazen: Positive rate.

Chandler: There was no portent at all about that flight.

Kubeck: Gear up.

Narrator: Without the autopilot

the pilots will manually fly the aircraft for the return flight.

It's an inconvenience, but not all that unusual, nor unsafe.

Kubeck: What was that?

Hazen: I don't know.

Kubeck: We've got some electrical problem.

Hazen: Yeah. That battery charger's kicking in.

Narrator: The plane's batteries are draining fast.

Captain Kubeck worries she could lose power

to her instrument panel and other key flight systems.

Kubeck: We're losing everything.

Narrator: Just six minutes after takeoff

the crew is facing a barrage of failures.

Controller: Critter 592, contact Miami Center on 1-32-45.

So long.

Narrator: Controllers in Miami believe flight 592

is safely on its way to Atlanta.

But in the cockpit

Captain Kubeck decides to turn around.

Kubeck: We need...we need to go back to Miami.

Woman: Do you smell smoke?

Passengers: Fire!

Narrator: It's suddenly clear why their systems are failing.

Flames are burning through the cabin floor.

Hazen: 592 needs immediate return to Miami.

Narrator: Kubeck has to get the burning plane on the ground

as quickly as possible.

Chandler: You can only shed altitude so fast.

You point it down much more than five or six degrees,

and all of a sudden you can become

in an over speed situation.

You can stress the aircraft.

And you don't want to do that.

Controller: Roger, critter 592. Turn left heading 2-7-0.

Descend and maintain 7,000 feet.

What kind of problem are you having?

Kubeck: Fire!

Hazen: Smoke in the cock... Smoke in the cabin.

Controller: Okay, roger that.

Chandler: The first officer is handling the communication.

The captain is handling the airplane.

They want to try to get on the ground.

They're working in a coordinated fashion--

classic cockpit resource management.

Nobody is panicking.

Nobody is throwing in the towel.

Kubeck: What altitude?

Hazen: 7,000.

Narrator: Captain Kubeck throttles back

in an attempt to descend.

But the left engine doesn't respond.

It stays at climb power.

As the right engine slows, the plane banks to the right.

She discovers her ailerons still have life

and manages to stabilize the plane.

Chandler: That was a good crew up in the nose of that airplane.

Narrator: Passengers are in a desperate fight for survival.

But there's no escaping the onboard flames,

which are burning at over 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

Toxic smoke is filling the entire cabin.

Chandler: This is heavy, poisonous smoke.

People are breathing it in.

Brenner: When a fire's onboard,

there's a real sense of helplessness.

There's a limited number of things you can do.

Woman: Take short breaths.

Narrator: Less than 10,000 feet above southern Florida's,

Captain Kubeck has the plane

in a tight turn back to the airport.

Flight attendant: We're completely on fire.

Narrator: The crew of flight 592 has only seconds

to get the burning DC-9 onto a runway

before all is lost.

Hazen: Critter 592.

We need the closest airport available!

Controller: Critter 592,

they're gonna be standing by for you.

Narrator: Emergency crews in Miami prepare for the landing.

Chandler: The airplane starts losing altitude progressively.

The airplane is out of control.

Narrator: The first officer's request for an alternate airport

are the last words controllers hear from the crew.

The DC-9 plummets toward the ground

at over 430 miles per hour.

Flight 592 has crashed

into one of the most inhospitable spots on earth--

the Florida's Everglades.

Man: A large jet aircraft has just crashed out here.

Large, like airliner size.

You need to get your choppers in the air.

Narrator: The Everglades covers

much of the southern tip of Florida's:

Hundreds of square miles of shallow swamp, mangroves

and watery grassland.

Just getting to the crash site

will be a huge challenge for rescuers.

Miami-Dade police helicopters

find the wreckage of Valujet flight 592

in swampland far from the nearest highway.

Reporter: Federal safety officials say

it's the most difficult recovery operation they've ever faced,

with wreckage strewn like confetti

in a muddy, alligator-infested swamp

that can only be reached by helicopter or air boat.

Man: It's a very waterous, marshy area,

and that's proving difficult to...

To reach people that may... May have survived this crash.

Narrator: Rescuers know that the first hours

of this rescue operation are critical.

In 1972, Eastern Airlines flight 401

crashed into the Everglades,

three miles from the Valujet crash site.

Several passengers drowned

before rescuers could reach them.

Paul toy: To be in the Everglades after the crash,

it was utter devastation, destruction.

The smell, you could smell the jet fuel.

You could smell the hydraulic fluid.

You could smell death.

Narrator: Most of the aircraft

has sunk beneath the surface of the swamp.

Brenner: The wreckage was in the Everglades.

It's a hostile environment.

It wasn't clear at that point how much we'd be able to...

To learn from the wreckage or be able to recover.

Toy: We suited up as best as possible.

We first put on that tyvek suit.

And then we put on an extra sleeve.

Put two surgical gloves on.

Put a pair of work gloves on.

And then they duct-taped the work gloves to the tyvek suit.

Narrator: The heavy gear protects rescuers

from spilled fuel and other toxins.

But below the surface of the swamp

lurks an even deadlier threat.

Toy: They had to have a sharpshooter

on top of the airboat at all times.

Narrator: The crash site is a nesting grounds for alligators.

Greg Feith: As the divers were walking in the water,

if somebody sighted an alligator,

or you'd hear them hiss in the sawgrass,

they would take potshots to try and scare them away.

Narrator: Just hours after the crash,

officials come to a grim conclusion.

Toy: It doesn't look good that there are any survivors.

Narrator: All 105 passengers onboard flight 592 are dead.

Captain Kubeck, first officer Richard Hazen

and three flight attendants are also dead.

Man: I feel that it's going to be difficult,

if not impossible, to identify everybody.

Brenner: There was no evidence of the airplane.

There was just debris.

Very little present and no evidence of passengers.

Toy: You had to put it out of your mind

what actually you were doing.

You could not think of what it was that you were picking up.

If you did you would be useless,

and you wouldn't be able to do the job.

Chandler: My initial reaction in a situation like that

is just, it's anger.

It's "not again."

It's "how can this happen?"

It's "what happened?" "Why?"

Narrator: The morning after the crash,

NTSB investigators join local and Federal Police agents

at the site.

They know the pilots of flight 592

reported smoke in the cabin.

Now they need to find out what caused it.

Feith: Alright! Let's get to work.

Narrator: The team is led by veteran investigator Greg Feith.

Feith: You got to step back, take a deep breath

and then start to prioritize:

Okay, what do I have to do now?

And then utilize the resources to make that happen.

It's showtime. Here we go.

Man: I'll let Greg answer that, but I...

Feith: There's actually no way to tell

if the pilots were conscious or unconscious

at the time of impact.

My first thought is: How am I going to pull this off?

Narrator: Feith faces intense pressure

to come up with answers, and quickly.

Bill Clinton: I'm determined to do everything I can

to make sure that American aviation

is the safest in the world.

Narrator: The NTSB briefs the many volunteers

who've come to help recover the wreckage.

Feith: Need your eyes.

Now we've drawn up a grid.

We're going to scour this swamp quadrant by quadrant.

Everybody's looking to me for the answers

because I am in charge of the investigation.

What are we going to do? What do you want us to do?

Where do you want us to go?

Narrator: The first priority

is to find the aircraft's two black boxes.

Feith: This is what we're looking for.

This here is the data recorder.

And this here is the voice recorder.

You find one, you'll probably find the other one close by.

Narrator: From the CVR, investigators hope to hear

the last sounds in the cockpit.

Pilot conversation...

Kubeck: We need...we need to go back to Miami.

Narrator: ...and any alarms that might help identify

where the smoke originated.

The flight data recorder should reveal

how a fire might have spread,

through the sequence of failures it likely caused.

Each box holds clues that could help investigators

uncover the precise cause of the crash.

Feith: If you find one, the cold beer's on me.

Narrator: The black boxes emit a constant radio signal.

Searchers will use a sonar scanner

to pick up that signal.

Feith: How soon can we get out there with the sonar?

The sonar's on its way.

We'll be able to pick up those pingers

that hopefully identify where, in fact,

those boxes lie in the wreckage.

Narrator: But navy technicians soon find

that their sophisticated gear is no match for the Everglades.

Feith: Side scan sonar didn't work

because the sawgrass is so dense

it can't see through the sawgrass.

What really worked for us was going back to the basics.

We had a line of what we call divers

that had to walk basically shoulder length apart,

and we would cover specific areas, probing

until we hit something hard.

It ended up being human power that really helped us recover

better than 75% of the aircraft.

Narrator: As the Everglades search continues,

investigators in Miami dig through flight 592's records

looking for clues as to what might have caused a fire.

They soon learn that the flight was delayed earlier in the day

due to minor electrical problems.

The find raises concern

that an electrical fire brought down the plane.

Brenner: We were looking at any explanation.

There could have been a fault in the wiring or a short circuit.

And we realized it's going to be a very difficult investigation.

Narrator: Recovery teams continue to battle intense heat.

Feith: Florida, in may, 90 degrees, 95% humidity--

we had to worry about how long can you be in that heat?

Toy: And you're trudging through and you're in your waders

and you're stepping on stuff.

You have to bend down

and you have to pick it up and see what it is.

Feith: There were times where, you know,

you think you're picking up a wire bundle,

and it was a snake.

You're picking up the back end of a snake.

So it was all of those things that made this probably

one of the most challenging environments

for an accident investigation to be conducted.

Narrator: NTSB Fire Investigator Merritt Birky studies

masses of tangled wiring from the crash site.

Merritt Birky: I was sent down there to determine the cause

of that in-flight fire.

Narrator: When faulty wiring sparks a fire,

electrical arcing causes the wires to burn and melt.

Birky: When we recovered more of the electrical harness

on the plane, we saw some damage there,

but it wasn't evidence of electrical arcing on the wires.

It was all external damage to the insulation.

Narrator: The careful examination

rules out faulty wiring as a potential cause of the fire.

Another challenge--

the Everglades is not a stagnant swamp.

It has a current that flows out to sea.

Feith: One of the unique things about the Florida's Everglades

is that it's water.

And it's constantly in motion.

Narrator: That current makes the job

of tracking down aircraft debris even harder.

Feith: Well, as the water moves, and basically the tide

goes up and down, if you will,

some of those parts that were trapped

under water in the sawgrass

would break loose and float to the surface.

You could go back and find more parts

than the first day you were in that grid.

Narrator: Two days into the investigation,

Feith finally catches a break.

Feith: A hot damn.

We found ourselves a box.

It was sitting on the bottom in the mud partially submerged

under about three to four feet of water.

Feith: One of the Metro-Dade Police Fire Rescue folks

was walking their grid

and actually stepped on one of the orange boxes.

The whole accident site, all of the investigators,

everybody comes to a halt as soon as the word spreads

that we think we got a recorder.

Reporter: Officials wasted no time

bringing it out of the swamp into a police car

and onto a plane for Washington.

Narrator: The aging DC-9 was equipped with a primitive FDR.

It recorded only 11 flight parameters,

compared to the hundreds recorded by modern units.

But the next morning, when Feith studies

the preliminary results from Washington,

he finds a clue that may point to the origin of the fire.

Feith: Dive 800 feet and back in three seconds.

It's impossible.

Narrator: The FDR recorded a sudden increase in air pressure.

Feith: What we found on the flight data recorder,

that records the parameter of the static pressure,

was that there was a bump.

It spiked, briefly, and then went back to a nominal value.

Narrator: Sensors on the fuselage

measure outside air pressure.

Normally the pressure decreases with altitude.

But as flight 592 was climbing

the pressure briefly went up, not down.

A DC-9 cannot dive and climb that quickly.

The numbers don't make sense.

Feith: Look at this.

We really didn't know what--

I mean, we theorized about a variety of different things.

Could have been an explosion onboard?

Narrator: A shockwave moving outward from inside the aircraft

can cause a sudden spike in external pressure.

Feith: And of course you start thinking,

hmm, an explosion could do that.

So do we have a bomb?

Narrator: With an onboard explosion a real possibility,

Merritt Birky examines the wreckage

to see if he can figure out where the fire originated.

Birky: So we had a lot of...

A lot of parts coming in that were damaged,

almost all limited to the cargo compartment.

We had melted structure components

that were in the overhead of the cargo compartment,

which made up the floor of the passenger compartment.

And then we also had some seat tracks for the passengers

that were burned and melted.

We determined that the fire was very intense

up in the upper area of the cargo compartment

on the left side.

Narrator: Birky makes an unusual discovery.

Birky: It's stainless steel.

You don't normally see burned stainless steel

in an in-flight fire.

Narrator: Planes are made of lightweight material

like aluminum and titanium, not stainless steel.

The burned metal raises a question:

Just what kind of cargo was onboard the plane?

Investigator Malcolm Brenner needs to know

exactly what type of cargo Valujet flight 592 was carrying.

Brenner: The operations group more and more became concerned

about the cargo that was loaded on the airplane

and what possible significance it could have to the accident.

Narrator: The cargo documentation lists

three airplane tires and five boxes of empty oxygen canisters.

Brenner: The operations group found that the manifest,

which indicated that there were oxygen canisters--

empty oxygen canisters-- in the cargo,

signed for by the first officer.

Hazen: There you go.

Brenner: When Greg Feith was available, I briefed him.

Okay, company material:

Three aircraft tires and five boxes of parts.

Feith: Malcolm is a pilot.

He has an understanding of aviation.

He's a smart guy.

Brenner: It's the contents of the cardboard boxes

that confuse me.

144 empty oxygen canisters.

Feith: Wait. How many of them?

Brenner: 144.

Feith: An oxygen canister is a green bottle,

very large bottle, that supplies oxygen

to the flight crew and the passengers.

There's no way, Malcolm.

You can't fit that many on a plane.

We all took a pause and said:

Why would you be carrying 144

of these big green oxygen cylinders?

Malcolm asked a very innocent question.

Brenner: What exactly do you think they mean

by "oxygen canister"?

Feith: And that's really what triggered the investigators

to step back and say:

We need to verify exactly what was meant.

Narrator: At the crash site, the recovery work continues.

The debris includes dozens of small metal cylinders--

parts not from the DC-9.

Investigators now understand what was in the boxes

listed on the cargo manifest.

Feith: We found out that it was not a canister

but in fact an oxygen generator.

Narrator: Oxygen generators are small devices

installed above passenger seats of certain airlines.

They're connected to oxygen masks that drop down

in the event of cabin depressurization.

Pulling down on the mask yanks a lanyard,

which slides out a retaining pin.

That triggers a chemical reaction

that generates breathable oxygen.

Feith: The masks are attached to nipples

on this oxygen generator.

That's the supplemental oxygen

that flows through the tube to the mask.

Narrator: Investigators wonder whether the oxygen generators

that were being carried in the cargo hold

could have caused the fire.

Feith: We had five boxes of these, or 144 of them,

thrown in a box, carried as cargo.

We had to look at, well, if they're carrying these,

and they're supposedly empty,

what danger is there carrying them as cargo?

There's no question. They're clearly listed as empty.

Did they have a potential for creating a fire,

or a fire situation,

that could have jeopardized the safety of this aircraft?

Narrator: As recovery teams continue

to pull oxygen generators from the bottom of the Everglades,

they find that while some are in fact empty...

Feith: This one's never even been triggered.

Narrator: ...many others are full.

Feith: The oxygen generators that we had found

had been damaged.

Some of them were completely flattened.

Some of them were charred and crushed.

Some of them still had the material in 'em,

but the case had been dented and damaged.

Narrator: It's the temperature of the canisters

after they've been triggered that concerns investigators.

Birky: These things get pretty hot, Greg.

Really hot.

Narrator: They can reach 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

That's why in the cabin

they're stored behind a heat-resistant shield.

Feith: An oxygen generator

that is not mounted in its proper position

in a heat sink cradle in the passenger service unit

is lethal.

Because if it's anywhere near a combustible material,

you're gonna have a fire.

Narrator: It now seems highly volatile chemicals

were improperly shipped aboard flight 592.

Had the pilots known what was actually onboard,

they likely would not have signed off on the manifest.

Hazen: Here you go.

Narrator: They and their 105 passengers would still be alive.

Four days after the crash of flight 592,

hazardous materials specialist Jim Henderson joins the team.

Jim Henderson: Initial documentation

that we were looking for

was the records of where the chemical oxygen generators

had come from, how they got on the airplane.

Narrator: Henderson reviews the history of the Valujet fleet.

Henderson: We found out that Valujet had recently purchased

three airplanes from other carriers.

Well, I think I know where they came from.

Valujet's work order on these airplanes

basically were to open the plane up,

find out what the dates were on the generators.

Narrator: Oxygen generators have a shelf life.

To meet federal safety standards,

any out-of-date generators on the recently purchased planes

needed to be replaced.

That job was given to a company called Sabretech.

Henderson: We spoke to the maintenance personnel,

primarily to find out how these were handled.

Thanks for taking time.

The chemical oxygen generators

had been removed from an airplane.

We wanted to make sure that they were handled

in accordance with their work cards.

Narrator: Henderson learns that Sabretech removed

144 oxygen generators.

Most of them were out of date, but still full.

There are strict guidelines regulating

how oxygen generators are to be removed and shipped safely.

Henderson: The work orders basically described

how to take them off the aircraft

and how to replace the new generators on the aircraft.

Once removed from the aircraft, one of the safety precautions

is to replace the safety cap

that keeps it from accidentally activating.

Mechanic: It says we should put shipping caps on them.

Do we have any?

Brenner: Many of the mechanics

realized how dangerous they were.

The mechanics recognized the need for safety caps.

Several mechanics told us in interviews

that they had advised their supervisors

of the need for safety caps.

Henderson: They look like this. Did you see any?

Mechanic: No. They didn't have any.

And you can't take them off the new ones.

Narrator: Henderson learns

that since they didn't have protective caps,

Sabretech mechanics improvised.

Henderson: The maintenance people

didn't have the safety caps.

One of the other things that was mentioned on the work order

was that they'd take the lanyards

and wrap them around the oxygen generator.

There were several others

who felt that the lanyards were unnecessary,

so they actually physically cut the lanyards off,

leaving the pins basically free inside of the generator.

Henderson: Did you put any labels on the actual generators?

Mechanic: After I pulled them out, I put a green tag on them.

Narrator: On the tags,

Sabretech workers wrote the word "expired."

What investigators still don't know

is how the 144 oxygen generators

ended up on a passenger plane weeks later.

Henderson: And at that point they're to be disposed.

Now the disposal requires that they be disposed

as a hazardous waste.

Narrator: When investigators interview

Sabretech shipping staff,

they learn that the generators sat in the hangar for weeks.

Henderson: Sabretech had a new customer coming in.

And they wanted to clean up the area for the new customer,

to give them a good impression of their company.

As far as they were concerned, they were Valujet's material,

and therefore they were to be returned to Valujet.

Narrator: Investigators discover

that the potentially hazardous generators were on flight 592

due to a misunderstanding over a single word: Expired.

Henderson: Did someone actually think

that "expired" meant "empty"?

The shipping papers described the oxygen generators

as oxy--o-x-y, for oxygen-- canisters,

and then the word "empty."

This was a big problem

because these oxygen generators weren't empty.

They had expired, but expiration just meant

that they had exceeded their shelf life.

The use of the term "empty" was an error on his part.

However, the shipping clerk himself wasn't that familiar

with the oxygen generators.

They were still capable of generating oxygen.

They hadn't been properly safed.

They hadn't been properly packaged.

So we were really concerned

that this might be either what caused the accident

or what made the fire worse.

Narrator: On may 11, 1996,

airport workers loaded potentially flammable cargo

onto Valujet 592.

However, the DC-9's cargo hold

is specifically designed to contain a fire.

Feith: Regulations required that the cargo hold be airtight.

If in fact you do have a fire in that cargo hold,

it will burn itself out because it's airtight.

Narrator: But would a cargo fire burn out

if the cargo itself produced oxygen?

Feith: We knew about the oxygen generators.

We knew the potential they had for being a fire source,

but we didn't really know, in the grand scheme of things,

their real potential for bringing down an aircraft.

Narrator: At an FAA fire test facility...

Feith: Okay, let's do this.

Narrator: ...they hope to recreate the fire

that consumed flight 592.

Feith: One minute to ignition.

We had to trigger one of the oxygen generators manually.

Birky: Nothing at all.

We didn't really get much of a fire.

Narrator: An activated oxygen generator isn't enough

to set fire to the cardboard box it's packed in.

Feith: So how did these things start a fire?

Narrator: NTSB investigators are back at square one.

They can't prove their theory.

Birky: What were these things packed in?

Narrator: The failure of the fire test

prompts investigators to look more closely

at exactly how the oxygen generators

were packaged for transport.

Birky: The first test we did,

we had not packed them exactly the way they were packed.

Feith: I need a layer of bubble wrap...

Birky: We did not use bubble wrap in the first test,

that is put bubble wrap over the top of the generators

before we closed the box.

We put five boxes of oxygen generators,

put them on top of a tire and put some luggage around them.

Feith: Okay, let's start it up.

It made an unbelievable noise.

It sounded, it was a high-pitched scream.

We all looked at each other and we were kind of startled,

I mean the sound was deafening.

Narrator: Ten minutes after ignition

the ceiling of the test cargo container

reaches 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Birky: Lord almighty.

We almost destroyed their test facility.

Narrator: After 11 minutes

it exceeds the capacity of the monitoring equipment.

Feith: Alright, let's get that fire out.

We had a raging fire, and none of us had expected a fire

to be that big and that hot.

And it was just amazing to see how disastrous,

how, how destructive something this long

and that big around could be.

Narrator: The experiment supports the NTSB theory:

Improperly packaged oxygen generators

caused the crash of Valujet 592.

Even in an airtight cargo hold, the fire would have burned

fiercely enough to bring down the DC-9.

Feith: The problem with flight 592

is that you defeat the intended purpose

of the class d cargo hold,

because even though the hold may be airtight,

you've got 144 sources of oxygen in that airtight container.

Narrator: Investigators now suspect

that the accidental activation of a generator

during loading or on takeoff

is all it took

to trigger a disaster that claimed 110 lives.

With the help of the plane's flight recorders...

Feith: Oxygen generators are loaded sometime after 1300.

Narrator: ...investigators are able to reconstruct

the final moments of Valujet 592.

Hazen: Positive rate.

Kubeck: Gear up.

Feith: There was a muffled bump or thump

that had come off the cockpit voice recorder,

which prompted the captain to ask...

Kubeck: What was that? Hazen: I don't know.

Feith: That muffled noise, that thump,

when you marry that information up to the flight data recorder,

it happened at the same time

that we saw the bump in the static pressure.

Narrator: The sound recorded on the CVR is the tire exploding.

The same explosion picked up by the flight data recorder.

Controller: What kind of problem are you having?

Kubeck: Fire!

Hazen: Smoke in the cock... Smoke in the cabin.

Feith: It's been 30 seconds since the explosion.

Hazen requests a return to Miami.

Hazen: 592 needs immediate return to Miami.

Feith: We can hear a lot of background noises.

We have the flight attendant coming up front.

Flight attendant: We're completely on fire!

Feith: She's talking about how bad the fire is,

and the last part of it is silent.

And then nothing.

There is no crew interaction. There is no talking.

There is no verbal communication.

All you hear is the sound of the wind.

It indicated to us that whatever was happening was fast,

incapacitated the flight crew

to the point where they were unconscious.

It only took 3 minutes and 42 seconds

for the fire to bring down the plane.

Narrator: There was no chance

of getting the plane to the ground safely.

In the wake of the accident,

the FAA grounds Valujet indefinitely.

The national transportation safety board

recommends better training

for employees who handle oxygen generators.

Chandler: There weren't any bad guys with black hats.

They were all people just trying to get by,

doing the best they could.

Narrator: The NTSB also renews its call from 8 years earlier

to have smoke detectors and fire extinguishers

installed in the cargo holds of all passenger jets.

Chandler: The FAA turned around,

after Valujet crashed,

and mandated fire suppression and fire alerting systems,

but they should have done that a long time ago.

Woman: An inferno. What a hell those people went through.

Man: Our loved ones are dead

because this agency has not done its job.

Chandler: It's classic tombstone regulation.

You build a body count,

and that body count is the only thing

that sways people to go out and do anything.

Feith: The secretary of transportation lost his job.

The administrator of the FAA lost his job

because of this one accident.

Brenner: It was a very important lesson,

and it's unfortunate

that it comes about

with this kind of cost.

But this was a case

that did make major changes

in the industry,

that we all work together

to make sure this doesn't happen again.