How do you know that the aircraft "would have survived" had there been no canister to start the fire? This is an aircraft with eight aborted takeoffs/emergency landings in the two years prior to the fatal flight -- two of which were on the same day! It had multiple maintenance issues and operational problems the day of the crash.
You act like the fire on flight 956 was no big deal:
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Thick, black smoke began to fill the cabin as the 31 year old DC-9 touched down on the runway six minutes after taking off at 3:45 p.m. on November 29, 2000. “Smoke was choking me,” said passenger Karon Goepel, “it was kind of like taking your breath away.”
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More frightening than the Flight 956 incident itself may be the alleged actions of the airline afterward. Jim Hall, acting chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, characterized the incident as an intense cargo fire, then criticized AirTran and the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport for hampering the NTSB’s investigation.
Hall said the NTSB’s preliminary investigation of the fire that chased 92 passengers and five crew from the plane showed that the aircraft had been wiped clean of smoke traces critical to the investigation. He also indicated that airline and airport officials may have done it deliberately.
Removing such evidence would be a violation of FAA regulations, Hall said. “It (the plane) was moved to a hangar and cleaned by the owner of the aircraft (AirTran) with the knowledge of the operators of this airport,” he said in an Atlanta news conference. “And both this airline and this airport should know better than to tamper with evidence of a federal investigation of an incident.”
The fire aboard Flight 956 was so intense that, according to NTSB spokesman Keith Halloway, it burned through the floor of the first class cabin and through the plane’s aluminum fuselage. Investigators don’t know if the fire had reached that level of intensity when passengers were still aboard, Halloway noted.
Some passengers were upset when told that AirTran officials had been less than forthright about how serious the situation really was. “I can’t believe they are trying to cover it up. It’s terrible,” said passenger Karon Goepel. “That’s wrong. It needs to be investigated.”
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The pilot of another one of the DC9 incidents sure makes it sound a lot more serious than you:
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One of these incidents involved an AirTran DC-9 which made an emergency landing shortly after takeoff from Greensboro, North Carolina on August 8, 2000. In this incident, smoke filled the cabin and cockpit so quickly that, worried about not being able to make it to the nearest airport, the pilots contemplated landing the plane on a highway.
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And of course, in true AirTran style:
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Feith confirmed that the aircraft involved had experienced electrical problems before, including the in-flight loss of electrical power several times, which led to another emergency landing in Atlanta.
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Regardless of the cause of one of the 717 incidents, it is true that it had a total electrical power loss and had to make an emergency landing.
I think it's really interesting that you use Midwest Express as an example of a safe airline. They have a DC-9 heavy fleet, just like ValuJet/AirTran, yet have had only one wiring incident in their 15 years of history. How many, exactly, has AirTran had in their few years?
Regarding the airdisaster.com statistic that you reference, it clearly says:
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Statistics valid through December 31, 2001
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Air Safety Online sums it all up quite well:
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“AirTran is still ValuJet and the only difference is that their in-flight fires were not fatal in the last couple of years,” Dunham told Air Safety Online. “If people knew about the condition of AirTran planes they would realize that ‘cheap’ is not always safe, and the possible price of life is too big a price to pay.”
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Do you work for AirTran?