ValuJet Flight 592 Memorial
On May 11, 1996, a DC-9 crashed into the Everglades eleven minutes after takeoff from Miami. All 110 people aboard died. The plane is still in the swamp.
ValuJet Flight 592 departed Miami International Airport on May 11, 1996, bound for Atlanta. Eleven minutes into the flight, improperly stored oxygen generators in the cargo hold ignited a fire. The crew lost control. The aircraft struck the Everglades at high speed and disappeared into the sawgrass. All 110 people aboard were killed. Recovery operations retrieved less than a third of the human remains.
The crash led directly to the FAA requiring smoke detectors and fire suppression systems in all cargo holds — regulations that had been resisted by airlines for years. The 110 people who died on Flight 592 changed aviation safety permanently.
A small memorial marker stands along the Tamiami Trail near the crash site. The Everglades has absorbed the wreckage — the swamp is too deep and too unstable to recover the aircraft. The memorial is modest: a simple marker in a landscape that gives no indication of what happened there. The contrast between the quiet of the Everglades and the violence of the event is part of what makes the site so affecting.
The memorial is located along US-41 (Tamiami Trail) west of Miami, near mile marker 45. Pull off on the shoulder — there is no formal parking area. The marker is small and easy to miss. This is a place of remembrance; visit with appropriate respect.
