ValuJet Report
     Fourteen months after ValuJet Flight 592 plummeted into the
 Florida Everglades, only a single aircraft flying in the United
 States has been certified to carry safety equipment that could
 have prevented the crash.
     Investigators at a National Transportation Safety Board meeting
 today detailed the various missteps leading to the swamp plunge that
 took 110 lives and placed primary blame on ValuJet. But they also
 concluded that the crash could have been avoided if the FAA had re-
 quired the appropriate fire detection and suppression equipment.
     "The fundamental problem was lack of fire detection and suppres-
 sion," said Merrit Birky, the board's fire expert.  With those
 systems in place, the crew would have had time to land the plane
 safely, he said.
     While the Federal Aviation Administration is evaluating public
 comment on its proposal to equip all aircraft with the system, only
 one Delta Airlines Boeing 737 prototype currently carries the
 certified equipment.
                            Failures All Over
     On May 11, 1996, the ValuJet DC-9 came down approximately 11
 minutes after taking off from a Miami airport.  Within days, the
 cause of the crash had been attributed to a fire generated by sev-
 eral oxygen canisters illegally shipped in the cargo hold.
     The canisters, designed to provide oxygen for air masks when
 cabin pressure dips, were erroneously labeled as "empty" without
 any of their safety features in place and stored in the plane's
 Class D cargo hold by maintenance contractors SabreTech.
     The Class D cargo hold, the type found on narrow-bodied planes,
 such as the DC-9, the MD-80 and the Boeing 737, are airtight and
 covered in fire-retardant fiberglass_two measures designed to suf-
 ocate potential fires. They are inaccessible during flights and
 bereft of smoke detectors and extinguishers, unlike Class C cargo
 holds found on larger passenger jets.
     While ValuJet's hold was airless, the fire fed on the oxygen
 canisters and created a roaring blaze that filled the passenger
 cabin and cockpit with smoke, eventually burning through vital
 controls in the aircraft. In today's presentation Birky showed a
 video of a test fire involving similar generators where tempera-
 ures soared to 3,000 degrees in 10 minutes.
     The NTSB today included SabreTech in its blame for the disaster
 for improperly loading the canisters.
                       NTSB's 17-Year Campaign
     Since 1980, the NTSB has been calling for the fire detection and
 suppression technology, which the Federal Aviation Administration
 determined in 1993 not to be cost-effective.
     "The FAA has to weigh a cost versus benefit analysis of which
 the economic impact is only one factor," said Les Dorr, a spokesman
 with the FAA. "We adopt regulations that we determine have the bene-
 fits that justify the costs."
     The NTSB has been critical of the agency's response.
                       Delta Ahead of the Curve
     Delta Air Lines announced Monday it had voluntarily pursued the
 certification necessary to begin installing the systems in its fleet
 of 737s immediately. The safety provision is expected to cost the
 airline more than $10 million.
     "We're the only carrier anywhere approved to install them;
 everyone else is still researching," said Kimberly King, a spokes-
 woman for Delta. "We're moving ahead right now with the instal-
 lation, which will put us ahead of the curve of the FAA's 2001
 timeline."
     For the public, however, the lack of fire suppression and de-
 tection in Class D cargo holds has not been a deterrent to flying
 thus far. Although family members and friends of ValuJet's victims
 have lobbied aggressively for the adoption of the equipment,
 general interest in the upgrade has been limited.
     "We're not hearing that travelers are giving a great outcry
 about these things," said Chris Privet, a spokesman for the American
 Society of Travel Agents. "There is a heightened awareness of these
 kinds of things when they happen. But in general I think people
 believe flying is pretty safe."
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