DEATH IN THE EVERGLADES

By ERIK LARSON

Just last month Lewis Jordan, president of ValuJet Airlines, tried his best to ease concerns over whether his fast-growing no-frills airline was just as safe as any other. "ValuJet has never experienced a fatality," he said. On Saturday, however, he had the grim duty of announcing that a ValuJet DC-9 carrying 104 passengers and five crew members had plunged into the Everglades while trying to return to Miami International Airport, killing everyone aboard. The accident, in the midst of a 120-day surveillance of the airline's operations by the Federal Aviation Administration, seemed certain to increase the FAA's concerns about the airline's safety.

Flight 592, on one of ValuJet's 51 McDonnell Douglas DC-9 and MD-80 aircraft, had taken off from Miami International bound for Atlanta when its crew reported smoke in the cockpit and turned the aircraft around for an emergency return to the airport. At about 2:25 p.m. Miami air-traffic control reported the jet had disappeared from its radar.

Daniel Muelhaupt, the pilot of a small plane, watched as the big jet turned and plunged into the Everglades at a 75 degree angle in a 100-ft. spume of water, dirt and small fragments of debris. He then flew over the site and radioed for help. "The wreckage was like if you take your garbage and just throw it on the ground," he told CNN. Moments later Coast Guard aircraft and crews from the nearby Fort Lauderdale Air and Sea Show, then in progress, were dispatched to search for the aircraft, but they found only scattered pieces in a large discolored ellipse of marshland. The crash is the seventh worst in the U.S. since 1979, when 275 died in an American Airlines disaster.

ValuJet is one of a new breed of low-price airlines that seek to take advantage of a large pool of pilots and flight attendants who found themselves out of jobs after layoffs at large airlines. It is so no-frills that ValuJet president Jordan uses a $100 desk he bought at Home Depot. The strategy has proved a success for ValuJet. In 1993 the airline flew to Orlando and Tampa in Florida from Atlanta; today it serves 31 cities in 19 states. It reported that in April it had flown 50% more "revenue passenger miles" than it had in April 1995. But last month it also announced it had reached a voluntary decision to slow the expansion of its fleet.

The airline has experienced a long sequence of nonfatal mishaps. In January 1994 a ValuJet DC-9 skidded off an icy runway in Washington, forcing the closure of the airport. Last June the crew of a ValuJet DC-9 taxiing in preparation for takeoff from Atlanta heard a loud bang as an engine failed, scattering shrapnel that injured seven passengers and causing a fire that spread to the fuselage. Within 90 seconds smoke had engulfed the passenger compartment. The crew's prompt evacuation of the passengers drew praise from a controller who watched the scene through binoculars--but also caused the FAA to order close inspections of engines ValuJet had purchased from a Turkish airline.

The FAA began its most recent review in February, after a rash of minor mishaps. In one incident, a jet arriving in Nashville landed with such force its landing gear collapsed. The agency found ValuJet to be in full compliance with regulations but expressed concern about pilot training and maintenance. Last week's ill-fated DC-9, which Jordan said was built in 1969, had passed an inspection on May 7.

The disaster is certain to intensify the concerns of passengers who are drawn to low fares but worry that no frills may mean greater risk. "People are always concerned about start-ups," says Mark McDonald, the 36-year-old president and chief executive officer of Nations Air Express. "They don't have the same name recognition of a Delta or an American. But people are not aware that we have to go through the same certification process as the major carriers or else we couldn't survive."

At the crash site rescuers were hampered by the inhospitableness of the Everglades--and the plane's flammable oil slick. Said Miami Fire Lieut. Luis Fernandez: "We've had to pull the airboats out of the water. It's not like the ocean; there's no water circulating, so there's no way for the fuel to dissipate. What we're having to do is land on high ground and then have our rescuers slush through four feet of water." With that kind of contact come the natural hazards of the swamp: alligators and snakes.

--Reported by Tammerlin Drummond/Miami and Stacy Perman/New York

With reporting by TAMMERLIN DRUMMOND/MIAMI AND STACY PERMAN/NEW YORK