How safe are oxygen generators?
May 16, 1996
Web posted at: 11:40 a.m. EDT
From Correspondent Al Hinman
ATLANTA (CNN) -- Industry experts like chemical engineer J. Wilson Mausteller say oxygen canisters carried aboard airplanes are harmless if used and stored correctly.(60K AIFF or WAV sound)
In the wake of the crash of ValuJet Flight 592, the safety of emergency oxygen generators has been questioned. The oxygen is used by passengers if there is a drop in cabin pressure.
As more wreckage is found from the ValuJet plane that crashed last Saturday, killing 110 people, federal officials are pointing to generators as the cause of a possible fire or explosion on board before the plane plummeted into the Florida Everglades.
Mausteller, who is experienced with oxygen systems on planes, says such a fire is hard to imagine, but would be possible if several of the canisters started emitting oxygen.
"It would enrich the air supply ... if there were an initiating source. Conceivably that could have started a fire, or to use your term -- an explosion," Mausteller said.
A fire that destroyed a DC-10 jumbo jet at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport 10 years ago was blamed on a generator that accidentally began producing oxygen in the cargo hold. .
While no passengers were hurt in that accident, the incident caused the Federal Aviation Administration to classify the canisters "hazardous material." ValuJet was not authorized to carry hazardous material, the FAA said.
The hair spray-size generators produce oxygen by heating chemicals at close to 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit. They are activated when the firing pin is pulled, usually when a passenger pulls the mask from an overhead compartment.
Once installed, the canisters are heavily insulated to protect the plane from damage or fire, but the surfaces of some models can reach temperatures as high as 500 degrees.
Experts say it is virtually impossible for the generators to malfunction, citing tests where the devices have been thrown on the floor and jostled without problems.
However, the oxygen generators have malfunctioned at least once, possibly twice, in a fatal aviation disaster.
- Complete list of passengers and crew
- NTSB inventories scorched and sooted pieces of plane - May 15, 1996
- 'We felt their pain' - May 15, 1996
- Family members hold service for crash victims - May 15, 1996
- Expert: Oxygen generators should be safe cargo - May 15, 1996
- ValuJet not cleared to haul oxygen generators on doomed flight - May 15, 1996
- FAA steps up ValuJet inspections - May 15, 1996
- Investigators recover more parts of the plane that are stained with soot - May 15, 1996
- Church grapples with loss of four members in crash - May 15, 1996
- Poll: Fliers will keep flocking to cheaper skies - May 15, 1996
- DC-9 information
- Federal Aviation Administration
- ValuJet home page
- Miami International Airport
- United States Coast Guard home page
- The US Department of Transportation
FeedbackSend us your comments.
Selected responses are posted daily.
Copyright © 1996 Cable News Network, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.