Canister Pieces Found Stuck in Fire-Damaged Tire

Investigators combing through the wreckage of ValuJet Flight 592 said Sunday that they had found pieces of hazardous oxygen-producing canisters embedded in a fire-damaged tire that had been in the cargo hold, as well as the first evidence of thick smoke in the passenger cabin before the DC-9 crashed May 11 with 110 people aboard.

They also indicated that as many as 119 fully charged canisters could have been loaded on the plane in a haphazard manner, without the safety caps that are supposed to be on the canisters’ firing mechanisms.

The canisters contain a chemical that generates oxygen under high heat. If accidentally discharged, each canister is capable of producing sustained external heat of up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Gregory A. Feith, investigator in charge for the National Transportation Safety Board, refused to speculate on a cause of the DC-9’s crash into the Florida Everglades, saying his investigators are “not going to stop and shift their entire effort to the cargo hold and these oxygen canisters.”

However, facts laid out by Feith at a news conference near the scene of the crash northwest of Miami raise the possibility that poorly packed canisters somehow fell in the hold and started a smoky fire among the tires.

The canisters not only had no firing pin protection, but were mislabeled “empty” rather than “hazardous material.” Several of the boxes were placed unsecured in the cargo hold on top of the tires, possibly in a position to turn over during takeoff or in turbulence.

Feith said the tire was a key discovery. Wreckage stuck in the tire “leads us to believe this was a tire in the cargo hold. That tire does bear evidence of fire damage, heat damage,” he said.

When fire experts “were cleaning out the mud that was inside the tire, they did find two pieces of metal that they have been able to identify are end caps to these oxygen generators,” Feith said. “We believe they are two separate end caps for two separate oxygen generators.”

Investigators had identified possible smoke and fire damage in the cockpit area. Now they know that there was smoke in the cargo hold and in the passenger cabin, where a piece of railing in which passenger seats are anchored was found with heavy sooting patterns on it.