Talk:ValuJet Airlines

Flight 592 as system accident

Missed used term. Its not oxygen Bottle. for flight 592 Its Canister. A bottle represents a pressure vessle carrying compressed gas. These devices look a bit like a Flash Bang or a Large Smoke bomb and use a chemical reaction to make the o2 not compressed o2

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I would prefer the term "Generator" to be used in the tech manuals and especially on the stickers affixed to the devices. And then people can ask the next obvious question, Well, how does it generate oxygen? Through a chemical reaction. And does this chemical reaction produce heat, is it a chemical reaction that is a type of burning? Yeah, it sure is. It is a chemical reaction that's a type of burning and it most definitely does produce heat. Like in excess of 500 degrees Fahrenheit! Cool Nerd (talk) 16:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

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That’s the point argued by William Langewiesche in “The Lessons of ValuJet 592,” The Atlantic Monthly, March 1998.

The thing’s so complicated something is inevitable. And it’s not just the plane itself. It’s the whole layered system of checking and supervision, and not trusting people. And then people end up just doing small-j job and their main goal is to avoid getting in trouble. (I’m making more far-reaching conclusions that Langewiesche, but many (most?) organizations are dysfunctional in this fashion.)

The mechanics are blamed? The mechanics? When in fact the devices are called oxygen “cannisters” and everything is in techo-babble. The main focus understandably is on the new cannisters being put in, not on the old ones. The sub-contract mechanics are blamed for not putting on the plastic caps when they were in fact not provided with plastic caps. If they had insisted on plastic caps, it would have been like work-to-rule. They would have been viewed as impossible to work with, and been very unlikely to be hired back for future jobs.

They were oxygen generators. They generated oxygen from a chemical reaction at high temperatures. And no way should one of these live generators be transported in anything like a casual way. When you’ve got to transport them, each one has to be packed individually like a rare and precious egg. And the labels and the tech manuals have to make this crystal clear. They did not.

And any ‘new found commitment to safety’—and this is the key insight of system accident analysis—is simply more of the same. More supervision, more checking, more layers of artificiality. And even if all this helps certain accidents become less likely, the overall system makes other accidents more likely. Cool Nerd 10:51, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

If the mechanics had had the confidence to write on the oxygen generators . . .

And if the corporate culture had supported this confidence!

Let's suppose a mechanic writes on the label of one of the oxygen generators in big black magic marker--"These burn at 500 degrees Fahrenheit!!"

And he shows it to his boss. The boss says, okay. It's the noncommital okay. It's the okay of zen acceptance. And later on, the boss comes back and says to him, 'Now, it might be a good idea, and it certainly is the signature, salient fact about these cannisters, but can you tell me what the label said before you wrote over it?' [And he might well use words like 'salient' and 'signature.' People of all social classes like artful language. It also serves to lighten the mood.] And they might have a good discussion about the labels. True, they are techno-speak, engineer-speak, and worse of all, corporate-speak. But they might, just maybe, have some valuable information behind all the corporate bullshit. The boss decides, 'I'll tell you what, you can get other people to write over the labels, you can get other people involved, provided, provided they read the label first.'

And it becomes participatory. The labels are read, maybe laughingly, maybe only skimmingly, but at least they are read. Real discussion happens. And it adds two-way conversation to the corporate culture.

And the boss sends an email one level up. 'Hey, look what we're doing. And I think it's a hec of a good idea.' And the pattern repeats itself. The pattern of 'okay,' the step back, and the zen acceptance. The gentle coaching, and giving people the okay as long as they are moving in a generally positive direction. We are allowing open fields for people to operate, we are allowing people's natural competence and natural concern about safety to come forth. The cannisters do burn at five hundred degrees Fahrenheit. And that should be stated in good clear English.

And of course we are light years from such a corporate culture.

Cool Nerd 03:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Debate On Name Change

I think that the article on 597 should be merged here. I am going to do it. TastemyHouse 21:47, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

ValuJet does not currently operate as AirTran Airways. The companies merged, but what was ValuJet is not AirTran. The planes, leadership, business model are all different. That line should be deleted. If the user wants to see how the current AirTran was formed they should visit the AirTran page. The two carriers have seperate pages for a reason.

Welcome to Wikipedia and documenting history. Things change but that does not change the past or how things came to be. Valujet became Airtran -- this is documented by SEC filings, quotes in CNN (and other respected media outlets), and even recent media reports. Keep in mind that it hasn't even been 10 years since Valujet renamed and even if it had been, the foundation of the company will stay the same. It's very apparent to everyone else editing this article that many people are motivated to try to remove the horrific history of AirTran -- nobody tries to remove the non-tragic history of Valujet/Airtran, only the portions that reflect poorly on Airtran. Continental Airlines has history dating back over 70 years. Dbchip 22:13, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Since you are a tad snippy about this I will try to lay things out to you in a clear and concise manner. I wrote my college thesis on the history of ValuJet and AirTran and it was me who wrote the original articles for both carriers, so please do not try to school me on how to write a proper article. ValuJet and AirTran merged, that goes without saying. That was stated in both articles. My contention is with your statement about the foundation of the company being the same. If you look back to articles written on the 10th anniversary of the crash of Flight 592, just one in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution mentioned the ValuJet-AirTran connection, dozens of others across the nation did not because most people who look at this with an open mind realize the fact that AirTran is not ValuJet. AirTran has the youngest fleet in America, they do not outsource maintence, they replaced the management who were in charge of ValuJet, etc. etc. You show your bias very clearly when you talk about "the horrific history of AirTran". That is clearly a loaded and inappropriate statement. I do not want to remove the history of AirTran or ValuJet, I just find the statement "ValuJet currently operates as AirTran" to be inaccurate. To mention the merger is perfectly fine and should be included but the statement that you insist on included is not accurate and should be removed.

The answer is ValuJet and AirTran are two different airlines, ValuJet Airlines was renamed AirTran Airlines and then merged into AirTran Airways. The reason the general public and the media thought ValuJet became AirTran was because the management was the ValuJet management. The ValuJet management now the AirTran management decided to get rid of its existing airline previously known as ValuJet and chose the airline it purchased as the surviving airline.Granthew (talk) 14:40, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Incidents list: flight 109 not crew error?

I would not consider the severe turbulence incident on flight 109 as "crew error". The NTSB synopsis clearly states that it was clear air turbulence and not detectable by the weather radar.

Turbulence was perhaps a contributing factor, but the main factor was the oxygen generators in the forward cargo hold which caught fire. (And the organizational failure was how live oxy generators got loaded onto the plane in the first place.) Cool Nerd 22:14, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Destination List???

Why doesn't Valujet have a destination list?? It's readily available information.... QualityControl3533 (talk) 16:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Because the airline doesn't exist anymore...? Griffinofwales (talk) 03:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Removal of citations tag from incidents and accidents section

Two reasons: Each incident links to the relevant NTSB report, and this tag is for an article, not a section. Comments/Suggestions? (N419BH (talk) 13:00, 7 April 2010 (UTC))

Flight 597 separate article

Is it possible to make a separate article on Flight 597? I plan to use the NTSB report on that accident. Tigerdude9 (talk) 14:49, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Accident rate

The “safety problems” section claims Valujet had a dramatic accident rate, yet the accidents section only mentions three accidents. So, what gives? Which were these alleged 14 times more accidents than major carriers?Tvx1 23:54, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

"Valuejet" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Valuejet has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 September 19 § Valuejet until a consensus is reached. Renerpho (talk) 02:16, 19 September 2023 (UTC)