ValuJet Flight 592 was a regularly scheduled flight from Miami to Atlanta in the United States. On May 11, 1996, the ValuJet Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9 operating the route crashed into the Florida Everglades about 10 minutes after departing Miami due to a fire in the cargo compartment. The fire was caused by mislabeled and improperly stored chemical oxygen generators. All 110 people on board were killed.

ValuJet, a low-cost carrier, already had a poor safety record before the crash, and the incident brought widespread attention to the airline's problems.

In 1986, an American Trans Air McDonnell Douglas DC-10 being serviced at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport was destroyed on the ground by a fire caused by chemical oxygen generators. On February 3, 1988, aboard American Airlines Flight 132, a fire began in the cargo hold of the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 while the plane was in flight, caused by hazardous materials (primarily hydrogen peroxide); in that case the crew landed the aircraft safely. After Flight 132, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended to the FAA that all class D cargo holds be fitted with smoke detectors and fire-suppression systems. The FAA declined to implement the recommendation. registered N904VJ, was the 496th DC-9 assembled at the Long Beach plant. It was 27 years old and had been previously flown by Delta Air Lines. Its first flight occurred on April 18, 1969, and it was delivered to Delta on May 27, 1969, as N1281L. The airframe flew for Delta until the end of 1992, when it was retired and sold back to McDonnell Douglas. McDonnell Douglas then sold the plane to ValuJet in 1993.<!--ERAU copy: https://libraryonline.erau.edu:443/online-full-text/ntsb/aircraft-accident-reports/AAR97-06.pdf--> Interruptions in the cockpit voice recorder occurred on two occasions, one of which was one minute and 12 seconds in length.

All on board were killed in the crash. Recovery of the aircraft and victims was severely complicated by the location of the crash. The nearest road of any kind was more than a quarter of a mile (400 m) away from the crash scene, and the location of the crash itself was a deep-water marsh with a floor of solid limestone. The aircraft was destroyed on impact, with no large pieces of the fuselage remaining. Sawgrass, alligators and risk of bacterial infection from cuts plagued searchers involved in the recovery effort.

Victims

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  • San Diego Chargers running back Rodney Culver
  • Songwriter and musician Walter Hyatt
  • DelMarie Walker, 38, the prime suspect in a murder in Georgia

Recovery of the passengers and crew took several weeks, and very few intact human remains were found given the sheer violence of the impact, immersion in swamp water and scavenging by wildlife. About 68 of the 110 victims were identified, in some cases from examining jawbones, and at least one individual from a single tooth. A piece of torn flesh was proven to belong to Hazen, but Kubeck's remains were never found. Because of the adverse conditions, performing toxicology tests on the human remains to determine their exposure to fumes and smoke from the in-flight fire was not possible. This violated Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations forbidding the transport of hazardous materials in passenger-aircraft cargo holds.