The individuals who run ValuJet Airlines have yet to come to terms with the crash of Flight 592 in the Florida Everglades. The two other parties identified by the National Transportation Safety Board as contributors to that crash - SabreTech and the FAA - have admitted to at least some mistakes in the chain of errors that led to the May 11, 1996, crash. Other airlines and some repair stations absorbed the lessons of that crash. They have intensified control over maintenance performed under contract and supervision of non certificated respectively.
But ValuJet - behaving as if it were as much a victim as the 110 people who died on Flight 592 - refuses to bear any responsibility. That stance is consistent with the way the airline's managers ran their farmed-out maintenance operations, and lies at the core of why Flight 592 crashed.
Shortly before the NTSB convened to formally determine the causes of the crash, ValuJet launched a preemptive strike, releasing the results of its own investigation. Predictably, it blamed the crash entirely on maintenance contractor SabreTech. Airline officials insisted SabreTech personnel lied to them, to the FAA, and to the NTSB and other federal investigators. ValuJet declared it had carefully monitored SabreTech's maintenance of its three MD-80s. But, ValuJet said, SabreTech deceitfully and improperly removed, packed and labeled oxygen generators from two of those aircraft and shipped them on Flight 592. Those actions were so far outside the range of SabreTech's normal behavior, the airline alleged, no reasonable person could expect ValuJet to have uncovered them.
But reasonable people have a right to expect that an airline certificated to operate under the laws and regulations of the U.S. will ensure that maintenance on its aircraft is performed properly. They have a right to expect the airline to be at least as concerned with having maintenance completed correctly and safely as with having that work done quickly and cheaply. ValuJet's argument doesn't wash, because one would expect the airline's own supervisors and inspectors to double-check that work. If work is conducted on three shifts, that means an airline also will observe the work around the clock. ValuJet did none of these things (AW&ST Aug. 25, p. 34).
ValuJet makes the spurious argument that the DC- 32 of Flight 592 was fully airworthy and, therefore, maintenance had nothing to do with this crash. Yet an airline is responsible for the airworthiness not of individual aircraft but its entire fleet. ValuJet shirked that responsibility by not adequately supervising the work done on the MD-80s at SabreTech. That contributed directly to the crash of Flight 592. One safety board member after another made the point: You can contract out the work, but you can't contract out the responsibility for safety.
There is plenty of blame to go around in the aftermath of this tragedy. Senior FAA officials ignored major problems at ValuJet that were scuttlebutt a full year before the crash, at the FAA Academy, where the agency's safety inspectors are trained. The officials failed to recognize the special scrutiny they should have been giving the self professed fastest growing airline in history. They put in place an inspector to oversee ValuJet's maintenance who, a subsequent investigation found, was unqualified to hold such a critical safety position. The officials buried an internal report that highlighted ValuJet's problems nearly three months before the crash.
Immediately after the crash, then- FAA Administrator David Hinson andhis boss, then-Transportation Secretary Federico Pena, played media spin doctors, telling the world: Don't worry, all U.S. airlines are safe. Only much later did FAA officials take serious action. They grounded ValuJet, but then they denied the crash had anything to do with that action.
The entire aviation safety system failed in this crash, and the failure of the system has done much to propel the grassroots movement of crash victims' families. In fact, the track record of the FAA in this case should give travelers pause.
The lesson about commercial aviation is that safety, ultimately, rests more on corporate culture than spot checks by even the most vigilant and numerous federal inspectors. Most airlines learned this lesson long ago, but realize it must be taught again and again.
There is a lesson in Flight 592 for investors, too. And that is to look beyond the financial numbers, because a single accident can render a booming brand name valueless. The FAA and SabreTech have taken the first step toward fixing their failings by acknowledging the lessons of the crash. Sadly, ValuJet and its executives, however, have yet to answer the school bell.