THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 14, 1996 TAG: 9605150628
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: MIAMI LENGTH: Long : 234 lines
With a sharpshooter scouting for alligators and poisonous snakes, recovery workers Monday recovered the flight data recorder from ValuJet Flight 592, along with disintegrated plane parts and human remains no bigger than a knee.
Workers brought in heavy equipment, teams of divers walked side by side, searching the murky swamp inch by inch, and Navy salvage specialists used sonar to look for the plane's black box recorders.
The data recorder, which could yield clues to the cause of the crash, was being taken to National Transportation Safety Board headquarters in Washington for analysis. It was shipped with the water still in it so the tapes wouldn't be destroyed by drying incorrectly.
A recovery worker found the data recorder by stepping on it, NTSB Vice Chairman Robert Francis said at an evening briefing. It was bent but in good shape.
Safety board spokesman Mike Benson confirmed the recovery of a flight data recorder late Monday afternoon, but he cautioned that investigators must determine if it was Flight 592's recorder. He said planes sometimes carry spare recorders as cargo, and investigators have found as many as four recorders in wreckage.
If the recovered instrument isthe right one, it may be of limited use because it measures only 11 aircraft movements and control settings rather than the hundreds of parameters recorded on newer models.
At least as important will be the unrecovered cockpit voice recorder, which contains the last 30 minutes of cockpit conversation and sounds. From air traffic control tapes, investigators know the crew reported smoke in the cockpit about 13 minutes after taking off Saturday. But those tapes offer no more specifically about what happened during the next two minutes, before the plane slammed into the muck and disappeared.
By midday, seven body bags of remains had been removed.
``I don't hold any hope we'll find any recoverable large parts of people,'' said retired Dade County Medical Examiner Joseph Davis, who is taking part in the investigation.
Inch by inch, hour by hour, investigators sloshed shoulder-to-shoulder through the Loxahatchee peat, the centuries-old muck entombing what's left of the DC-9 and the 109 lives it had carried briefly Saturday afternoon. They established a meticulous routine, one they'll follow for days to come: scooping evidence from the muck, photographing it, sealing it, transporting it by airboat to a staging area, photographing it again, then labeling each remnant in the hope that answers will ultimately emerge.
Investigators said the recovery of the wreckage would be slow because of the difficult conditions: heat in the mid-80s, swarms of mosquitoes and horseflies, razor-sharp sawgrass, and water 6 inches to 5 feet deep over mud that some locals estimate is 30 to 40 feet deep.
``This is tough stuff out there,'' Francis said.
While divers combed the Everglades, the shock of the air disaster reverberated across the nation. At the urging of President Clinton, inspectors immediately stepped up their review of the young upstart airline.
Clinton directed Transportation Secretary Frederico Pena to report this week on the additional measures the Transportation Department and the Federal Aviation Administration plan to take to ensure that U.S. airlines ``continue to operate at the highest level of safety.''
``I'm determined to do everything I can to make sure American aviation is the safest in the world,'' Clinton said.
Relatives of the victims continued to grieve. Some grew restive.
``They should have had a crane or a radar or something. They've got that kind of equipment,'' said Raquel Perry, daughter-in-law of crash victim Wilhelmenia Perry Oliver of Miami. She died while traveling to Norfolk to attend her son's graduation from Norfolk State University Sunday. ``By the time they get out there, with those alligators and stuff, she'll be all ate up,'' Raquel Perry said.
Some family members pressed to visit the scene, but Pena said it was still too hazardous.
Exactly how to complete the recovery work remained uncertain. Among ideas being considered were draining a portion of the swamp or extending a dike to the site.
CBS News reported that the Federal Aviation Administration was to be investigated as part of an overall probe being conducted in the wake of the crash by the Department of Transportation.
CBS said the Department of Transportation was looking into the possibility the FAA knew Valujet was headed for trouble before the crash. The network said the FAA declined to comment on the probe.
At the scene Monday, searchers filled bags with aircraft parts and human remains that Metro-Dade police Cmdr. Al Harper said were no bigger than a knee.
``They're actually recovering fingers and hands and feet,'' Harper said. ``It would be traumatic for even the most seasoned homicide detective.''
Davis cautioned that it could take up to a week to identify victims and that some might never be identified. A forensic anthropologist and a forensic dentist will help the medical examiner's office.
Davis said it was possible some of the passengers were conscious when the plane nose-dived into the Everglades about 15 miles from Miami International Airport. But the husband of pilot Candalyn Kubeck said he thought the crew was unconscious.
``They passed out from the smoke, based on that eyewitness report that the angle never varied. If that's correct, they were obviously incapacitated,'' said Roger Kubeck, a pilot at America West Airlines.
Candalyn Kubeck, 35, was believed to be the first female captain of a commercial jet to be killed in a U.S. crash.
NTSB investigator Greg Feith said it was impossible to say whether the crew was conscious. However, he said the Miami airport tower tried twice to contact the plane after the crew's last transmission and received no response.
He said there were ``one or two radar hits'' after the failed radio calls before Flight 592 disappeared from radar screens.
MIAMI - With a sharpshooter scouting for alligators and poisonous snakes, recovery workers Monday recovered the flight data recorder from ValuJet Flight 592, along with disintegrated plane parts and human remains no bigger than a knee.
Workers brought in heavy equipment, teams of divers walked side by side, searching the murky swamp inch by inch, and Navy salvage specialists used sonar to look for the plane's black box recorders.
The data recorder, which could yield clues to the cause of the crash, was being taken to National Transportation Safety Board headquarters in Washington for analysis. It was shipped with the water still in it so the tapes wouldn't be destroyed by drying incorrectly.
A recovery worker found the data recorder by stepping on it, NTSB Vice Chairman Robert Francis said at an evening briefing. It was bent but in good shape.
Safety board spokesman Mike Benson confirmed the recovery of a flight data recorder late Monday afternoon, but he cautioned that investigators must determine if it was Flight 592's recorder. He said planes sometimes carry spare recorders as cargo, and investigators have found as many as four recorders in wreckage.
If the recovered instrument is the right one, it may be of limited use because it measures only 11 aircraft movements and control settings rather than the hundreds of parameters recorded on newer models.
At least as important will be the unrecovered cockpit voice recorder, which contains the last 30 minutes of cockpit conversation and sounds. From air traffic control tapes, investigators know the crew reported smoke in the cockpit about 13 minutes after taking off Saturday. But those tapes offer no more specifically about what happened during the next two minutes, before the plane slammed into the muck and disappeared.
By midday, seven body bags of remains had been removed. ``I don't hold any hope we'll find any recoverable large parts of people,'' said retired Dade County Medical Examiner Joseph Davis, who is taking part in the investigation.
Inch by inch, hour by hour, investigators sloshed shoulder-to-shoulder through the Loxahatchee peat, the centuries-old muck entombing what's left of the DC-9 and the 109 lives it had carried briefly Saturday afternoon. They established a meticulous routine, one they'll follow for days to come: scooping evidence from the muck, photographing it, sealing it, transporting it by airboat to a staging area, photographing it again, then labeling each remnant in the hope that answers will ultimately emerge.
Investigators said the recovery of the wreckage would be slow because of the difficult conditions: heat in the mid-80s, swarms of mosquitoes and horseflies, razor-sharp sawgrass, and water 6 inches to 5 feet deep over mud that some locals estimate is 30 to 40 feet deep.
``This is tough stuff out there,'' Francis said.
While divers combed the Everglades, the shock of the air disaster reverberated across the nation. At the urging of President Clinton, inspectors immediately stepped up their review of the young upstart airline.
Clinton directed Transportation Secretary Frederico Pena to report this week on the additional measures the Transportation Department and the Federal Aviation Administration plan to take to ensure that U.S. airlines ``continue to operate at the highest level of safety.''
``I'm determined to do everything I can to make sure American aviation is the safest in the world,'' Clinton said.
Relatives of the victims continued to grieve. Some grew restive.
``They should have had a crane or a radar or something. They've got that kind of equipment,'' said Raquel Perry, daughter-in-law of crash victim Wilhelmenia Perry Oliver of Miami. She died while traveling to Norfolk to attend her son's graduation from Norfolk State University Sunday. ``By the time they get out there, with those alligators and stuff, she'll be all ate up,'' Raquel Perry said.
Some family members pressed to visit the scene, but Pena said it was still too hazardous.
Exactly how to complete the recovery work remained uncertain. Among ideas being considered were draining a portion of the swamp or extending a dike to the site.
CBS News reported that the Federal Aviation Administration was to be investigated as part of an overall probe being conducted by the Department of Transportation in the wake of the crash.
CBS said the Department of Transportation was looking into the possibility the FAA knew Valujet was headed for trouble before the crash. The network said the FAA declined to comment on the probe.
At the scene Monday, searchers filled bags with aircraft parts and human remains that Metro-Dade police Cmdr. Al Harper said were no bigger than a knee.
``They're actually recovering fingers and hands and feet,'' Harper said. ``It would be traumatic for even the most seasoned homicide detective.''
Davis cautioned that it could take up to a week to identify victims and that some might never be identified. A forensic anthropologist and a forensic dentist will help the medical examiner's office.
Davis said it was possible some of the passengers were conscious when the plane nose-dived into the Everglades about 15 miles from Miami International Airport. But the husband of pilot Candalyn Kubeck said he thought the crew was unconscious.
``They passed out from the smoke, based on that eyewitness report that the angle never varied. If that's correct, they were obviously incapacitated,'' said Roger Kubeck, a pilot at America West Airlines.
Candalyn Kubeck, 35, was believed to be the first female captain of a commercial jet to be killed in a U.S. crash.
NTSB investigator Greg Feith said it was impossible to say whether the crew was conscious. However, he said the Miami airport tower tried twice to contact the plane after the crew's last transmission and received no response.
He said there were ``one or two radar hits'' after the failed radio calls before Flight 592 disappeared from radar screens. MEMO: The Associated Press, Knight-Ridder News Service and The Washington Post
contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Recovery crews sift through debris at the crash site of a ValuJet in
the Florida Everglades Monday. The searchers continued to find
bodies of the 109 passengers and crew.
Graphics
KRT
SEARCHING FOR A BLACK BOX IN SHALLOW WATER
SOURCES: National Park Service, news reports; Naval Sea Systems
Command, Oceaneering Technologies
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
VALUJET IN THE AREA
TAD Aviation Services is opening a 200-employee reservations
center for ValuJet at Newport News/Williamsburg International
Airport.
ValuJet began flying there last year, drawn in part by $2 million
in incentives from Newport News.
With ValuJet in place, the Peninsula airport counted more than
35,000 passengers in January, compared with less than 20,000 a year
earlier.
Photo
Candalyn Kubeck was believed to be the first female captain of a
commercial jet to be killed in a U.S. crash.
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT PLANE FATALITIES VALUJET by CNB