'There's no airplane left'
Divers find little in probe of ValuJet crash crater
May 21, 1996
Web posted at: 3:45 p.m. EDTDADE COUNTY, Florida (CNN) -- Divers in protective but heat-trapping rubber suits descended Tuesday into the underwater crater formed when ValuJet Flight 592 slammed into the Florida Everglades.
One of the divers, Officer Paul Toy of the Metro Dade Police, said the aircraft is not buried in the pit. (127K AIFF or WAV sound) He said the largest pieces of the aircraft in the hole were only as big as a table. He said there were no bodies in the crater.
The divers say they have finished their exploration of the crater and will now turn the investigation over to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The May 11 crash killed all 110 people aboard. The first dives are considered "exploratory," said Metro Dade Police Detective Ed Munn. (185K AIFF or WAV sound) "They don't know what they'll find."
The crater is 175 feet long, 60 feet wide and about 6 feet deep. The area is so murky, "everything will be done by touch," Munn said. (150K AIFF or WAV sound)
The five-member worked in teams of two, with one of the divers waiting as a "safety" backup on a floating platform, Munn told CNN's Susan Candiotti.
Among the items divers hope to locate is the DC-9's elusive cockpit voice recorder. Since recovery efforts began, only body parts and about 10 percent of the plane have been brought to the surface.
The divers' bulky black suits, made of a heavy rubber compound, have communication lines attached that lead back to the surface. Divers talked to colleagues while working under water in shifts of about 20 minutes.
Canisters dispute
A dispute has broken out between ValuJet and SabreTech, the aircraft maintenance company that handled more than 100 oxygen canisters loaded aboard Flight 592. There's speculation the canisters may have contributed to a fire believed to have broken out on the plane before the crash.
Instead of being labeled hazardous, a shipping ticket indicated the canisters were empty of volatile chemicals. After the crash, ValuJet said it would not have accepted the shipment from SabreTech if the boxes had been accurately labeled as hazardous. The canisters were from some of ValuJet's MD-80 planes being remodeled by SabreTech in Miami.
SabreTech denies any wrongdoing. Kenneth Quinn, an attorney for the company, said Monday that the canisters were ValuJet's property, and SabreTech workers were merely returning them to the airline for disposal. He said it was up to ValuJet to identify the canisters as hazardous. (195K AIFF or WAV sound)
SabreTech questioned why ValuJet would want the canisters aboard the plane because, "the canisters apparently cannot be reused or recharged after their life limit of 12 years," Quinn said. ValuJet spokeswoman Marcia Scott said it was "clear that ValuJet and SabreTech's Mr. Quinn have significantly different interpretations of what occurred."
After taking a helicopter tour of the crash site Monday, Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles was struck by the starkness.
"Every crash scene that I've ever seen a picture of . . . you always see the debris, you see kind of a picture of what happened," Chiles said. "Here, you don't see very much at all."
Correspondent Susan Candiotti and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
CNN Interactive Weather:
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- ValuJet searchers face stormy weather - May 20, 1996
- More signs of fire found in ValuJet debris - May 19, 1996
- Ground-penetrating radar added to ValuJet search - May 19, 1996
- Muddy crater may hold clues to ValuJet crash - May 18, 1996
- Divers going into crater caused by DC-9 crash - May 18, 1996
- Poll shows confidence gap in budget airlines - May 18, 1996
- ValuJet cuts flights; FAA says airline is safe - May 17, 1996
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