Passenger Airlines Ordered Not To Haul Oxygen Generators As Cargo Ban To Last A Year During Review Of Canisters’ Safety

Passenger airlines are being prohibited from hauling cargoes of oxygen generators like those suspected of being a factor in the ValuJet crash.

The Transportation Department announced the ban Thursday to take effect at 6 a.m. EDT Friday. It will last until the end of the year while investigators review the safety of the generators.

ValuJet Flight 592 plunged into the Everglades May 11 killing 110 people after the crew reported smoke in the cockpit and cabin. Attention has focused on a reported cargo of 119 oxygen generators, which can generate high heat if triggered, starting a chemical reaction that produces oxygen.

“The Federal Aviation Administration will immediately notify all passenger carriers that they may not accept for shipping of transport oxygen generators as cargo,” said D.K. Sharma, head of the Research and Special Programs Administration at the Transportation Department. Sharma’s office regulates shipping of hazardous materials.

The ban applies to both foreign and domestic passenger aircraft entering, leaving or operating in the United States, the department said.

The generators are commonly used aboard aircraft to generate oxygen if needed in an emergency. Individual canisters are stored in insulated overhead or seatback compartments.

When shipped in large numbers as cargo, however, the generators are classed as hazardous materials because they can generate heat up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Regulations allow them to be carried only by airlines that are registered to haul hazardous cargo, and the generators must be packaged under strict rules that permit no more than 11 pounds in one container and 55 pounds in one cargo hold.

ValuJet is not registered to carry hazardous cargo, but the airline contends that the generators it was hauling were labeled as empty and were being returned to its headquarters in Atlanta.

Aviation industry sources say that oxygen generators are usually merely disposed of when they have been used or exceed their shelf life and are not normally recharged.