'People, don't get on this plane'
Passenger recounts DC-9's next-to-last flight
May 23, 1996
Web posted at: 3:30 p.m. EDTLOUISVILLE, Kentucky (CNN) -- A passenger who was on the doomed ValuJet plane's next-to-last flight said the aircraft's engines stopped on the ground before takeoff and there was no cabin electricity just before landing in Miami.
After Pamela Hettinger disembarked May 11, she said she saw passengers waiting to board the ill-fated ValuJet Flight 592. Now she says she wishes she had known what was about to happen, so she could have warned them.
"Why didn't I jump up and down and say, 'People, don't get on this plane.'" (160K AIFF or WAV sound)
She and Wayne Hettinger boarded ValuJet Flight 591 in Atlanta. In Miami, they planned to board a cruise ship. It didn't take long for Pamela Hettinger to become uneasy about the flight.
"We would back up (from the terminal) and the lights would go off and they would cut the engine and then we'd pull back up, and that happened three different times," she said.
"The mechanic would get on and off. He would confer (with the crew). He would go up to the cockpit, then he'd come back and he would be with the flight attendants right there in the front talking to them. Then he'd get off and they would try again," Hettinger said.
ValuJet officials acknowledged after the crash of Flight 592 that circuit breaker boxes were replaced in the airplane before it took off that day.
After Flight 591 was airborne, things were normal until the plane went into its pattern for final approach to Miami.
"When we had dropped to 10,000 feet, and I remember because we were over the Everglades and we were making our final approach, that's when all the electric went out and she (a flight attendant) had to use a bullhorn to tell people to fasten their seat belts," Hettinger said.
A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board said he could not comment on Hettinger's remarks, but he said interviewing passengers on her flight was a priority for investigators.
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