Burial Set for 53 of ValuJet Crash Victims

Fifty-three coffins bearing the unidentified remains of people killed when ValuJet Flight 592 plunged into the Everglades will be buried next week in adjoining plots marked with a bronze plaque, officials said Thursday.

All 110 people on the flight died when the jetliner crashed May 11. Only 57 bodies have been identified, and the 53 coffins represent one for each remaining victim.

The Dade County Medical Examiner Department has finished examining and photographing the unidentified remains, spokesman Charles Nicolas said. Now it’s time to turn over the identified remains and allow the victims’ families to bury them, he said.

ValuJet will pay for the joint funeral, including the travel costs of relatives who want to attend. There will be a memorial service Tuesday near the crash site, and the funeral and burial will be Wednesday at Woodlawn Park Cemetery South, ValuJet spokesman Gregg Kenyon said.

Marking the graves will be the bronze plaque reading: “In loving memory of our family and friends who perished on May 11, 1996.” It will list all 110 people aboard.

“They will be buried in an area where they will all be together. It will be hedged off once the burial is complete,” Knopke said.

County coroners will keep trying to identify remains pulled from the site, Nicolas said. They are matching up their photographs and notes with information provided by families on what the victims were wearing, their dental records and physical characteristics such as scars.

Searchers returned to the remote Everglades crash site Thursday and found clothing and “personal effects,” police said. Authorities said they decided to renew the search, which had been given up in early June after 75% of the plane had been found, because water levels in the area had dropped.

The cause of the disaster has not been determined but investigators have focused on oxygen canisters stored in the cargo hold that may have started or fueled a fire.