The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.21           May 27, 1996 
 
 
Facts Seep Out On Fatal Crash  

BY JANET POST

MIAMI - "If these planes fly over the Everglades constantly, how come they're not prepared for this? How come they didn't even know that one day this was going to happen? They wait until after this happens and then figure out what to do?" Dionne McClain raised these questions about the search efforts following the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in the Everglades, 16 miles from the Miami airport.

McClain is from Tennessee. Her fiancee was killed in the May 11 crash. All 105 passengers and 5 crew members died in the plunge of the 27-year -old DC-9, which was flying from Miami to Atlanta.

The plane had a flight record in the last two years that included seven instances of aborted takeoffs, emergency landings, or return-to-base flights. The cause of the crash remains officially undetermined. But initial reports mentioned the possibility of a major equipment malfunction, or the explosion of used oxygen generator bottles, filled with chemicals, being shipped in the plane's cargo hold next to some tires, which could have caught fire.

The Federal Aviation Administration said May 15 that the carrier was not authorized to carry the hazardous material as cargo. The oxygen generator canisters, which have caused heat explosions on at least two other occasions in the past decade, had been improperly mislabeled as empty, not giving a clue to the crew of the possible danger.

Several hours passed before officials found a way to begin searching the area on the ground, and debated as darkness approached whether it was possible to set up lights. Meanwhile local workers with airboats, who were some of the first to arrive on the scene, were turned away from assisting because of potential environmental hazards and concern "they might scavenge the victims' bodies," according to local TV news.

Meanwhile, ValuJet's safety record was already seeping into the news. A few former employees have spoken out. "I had legitimate safety concerns," Nancy Chiggers, a former ValuJet flight attendant, told WSVN-TV in Miami. "I witnessed a captain who grounded an aircraft and 15 minutes later they sent that same airplane out."

Anglea Corley, another former ValuJet worker, told TV reporters that the airline regarded maintenance as an extra expense. "Maintenance should be what you have to do to stay in the air," she said.

"They let things go that other airlines would not let go. I've been on planes where things were written off," said Joseph LoMonoco, who also worked for ValuJet.

By May 13, search parties were in the swamp. Scenes of the operation on television were interspersed with hourly discussions on airline safety.

"According to the National Transportation and Safety Board, ValuJet has an incident rate four times higher than the biggest airlines," said a report on ABC's "Nightline." ValuJet is a "cut- rate airline with cut-rate maintenance that somehow, until now, has been able to avoid any tough action from the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration]," Nightline's Brian Ross commented.

"Other than its shareholders, no one has been a bigger booster of ValuJet than Secretary of Transportation Federico Peņa," Ross continued. Peņa had just been in Miami. News coverage repeatedly featured his statement that "ValuJet is a safe airline, as is our entire aviation system."

The jet used for Flight 592 was a DC-9 built in 1969. Problems with the plane had included electrical fumes in the cockpit, cracks in the fuselage and vertical stabilizer, hydraulic pump problems, a faulty heat exchanger, loss of cabin pressure, and a rear door opening. FAA administrator David Hinson told reporters that "not a single one of these was a serious emergency." In the last eight years, the plane had 27 "service difficulty" reports.

On the day of the crash, before the flight left Atlanta for Miami, mechanics twice repaired circuit breakers for the fuel pump system in a half-hour delay that passengers were told came from "paperwork."

The average age of ValuJet planes, almost all of them DC-9s, is 26.4 years, making it the oldest fleet in the United States. But many other airlines fly old planes too, including Northwest Airlines, which owns 176 DC-9s, and TWA, which operates 58. The average age for U.S. commercial jets is 15 years.

"New aircraft cost tens of millions of dollars, and many airlines have decided it is more economical to refurbish their old planes than buy new ones," commented an article in the May 14 New York Times.

Airline crash expert Arthur Wolk explained on NBC's "Today" program that "there is no requirement imposed by the FAA to upgrade older planes to modern safety standards."

In the last two years ValuJet planes have returned to the airport of origin 68 times. An NBC "Dateline" report said there have been 256 malfunctions at ValuJet since it started up in October 1993, several of which led to fires on the aircraft. In a DC-9 engine fire last June in Atlanta, several people on board were injured.

In 1995 the U.S. Department of Defense decided to prevent ValuJet from flying military personnel after the Pentagon "found the airline's safety and maintenance programs unsatisfactory," ABC News reported.

In an essay in Newsweek that received final editing the morning of the crash, Mary Schiavo, inspector general of the Transportation Department, stated that she refused to fly Valujet "because of its many mishaps." After the crash Schiavo defended her statement, while administration officials took sides on the issue. "It is not the function of a public official to go public," said Sen. Ted Stevens.

Furthermore, Schiavo has said she will pursue allegations that FAA inspectors "felt pressure to tone down action on ValuJet." At recent congressional subcommittee hearings, FAA inspectors, with faces hidden for anonymity, complained of being overworked and undertrained.

David Stempler, president of the Airline Safety Association, pointed out on National Public Radio that the crash happened while the airline was under a second FAA inspection. In the wake of the crash, the only FAA proposal is for inspectors to ride in the cockpit of ValuJet planes for the next 30 days.

Obviously irritated by the sudden uproar, FAA administrator Hinson exclaimed at a May 14 congressional hearing, "When we say an airline is safe to fly, it is safe to fly. There is no gray area." As the heat in the debate turned up a notch, one senator was shown on national news telling colleagues, "You all better get a TV and find out what is going on, because this thing is getting volatile."

Profit drive
ValuJet is one of 20 "no-frills" or "low-cost" airlines operating; some 20 more are waiting to start up. In two years the nonunion airline has grown from 2 to 51 planes, and in the last year passengers are up 57 percent as more working people are forced to buy cheap tickets.

To keep up with the profits of their larger competitors, the low-fare carriers cut their costs to the bone.

One way ValuJet and other such airlines cuts costs is by farming out maintenance to nonunion contractors, who pay workers much less and require them in some cases to work on many different types of aircraft for quick turnarounds.

The turnarounds are important to company profits. ValuJet has few extra planes, and sometimes none, so it must keep jets in the air to maintain their flight schedules. In addition, most work is done at hangars away from the airport, which may be FAA-approved but do not have on-site FAA inspectors.

Airline workers here have been discussing the FAA investigation, and some are directly affected by it. International Association of Machinists (IAM) members at AeroThrust were informed that one of the engines on ValuJet Flight 592 had been worked on at AeroThrust and that FAA inspectors would be visiting the plant. Subsequently an IAM District Lodge 40 notice was posted in the plant expressing sympathy for the families of the victims. The statement said union mechanics and inspectors would continue to perform quality work; that speculation about the crash would not aid in the investigation; and that the union would cooperate fully with the federal investigation.

"I would really hate to think that anything I did contributed to the accident, but I don't think so," said one AeroThrust mechanic.

At the United Airlines flight kitchen, the disaster brought many comments. "The first thing they do at a crash is send out maintenance to paint over the company logo on the tail," said a mechanic who used to work on crash equipment. "They don't want the airline's name popping up on those gruesome news photos." Another kitchen worker, concerned about the airlines using decrepit planes, said, "They should put those old planes in the barn."

At USAir here, a few days before the crash, two-thirds of the workers were told they were being cut from the station. After the crash, many of the workers thought more seriously about the relation between downsizing and maintenance of the planes. "No maintenance - that's the wave of the future. We're going to see more ValuJets," said one mechanic.

Janet Post, a member of IAM Local 368 at United Airlines in Miami, is the Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Congress in the 17th District in Dade County, Florida.  
 
 
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