‘There’s No Airplane,’ Diver Says After Search

Where is the airplane?

A Metro-Dade diver descended Tuesday into hell - the 8-foot deep, muck-encrusted tomb of ValuJet Flight 592. There, under the Everglades, probing the blackness with shielded feet, he found only shards of the DC-9 jetliner that plunged to earth 12 days ago.

There, at the precise impact site, he did not find the vital cockpit voice recorder. He did not find any human remains. Aside from two 3-foot-by-6-foot scraps, he did not find any substantial pieces of the jetliner.

“There is no aircraft in the pit,” said Paul Toy, the diver who began - and soon completed - an underwater survey of the impact crater. “There’s no airplane left.”

What Toy found was persuasive evidence to confirm investigators’ worst fears: The DC-9 was virtually pulverized on impact.

He discovered, under 4 feet of water and 3 feet of muck, an 18-inchdeep cavity carved into solid limestone rock. About 15 feet in circumference, the depression clearly was created by the doomed aircraft.

One hundred and 10 people perished in the May 11 crash. The DC-9, bound for Atlanta but crippled by an apparent fire, nose-dived into the Everglades as the crew struggled to return to Miami.

Protected from toxic jet fuel and any biological threats by a special suit, Toy spent about 95 minutes in the crater Tuesday morning.

“It was muddy,” he said. “Putting your hand in front of your face, you couldn’t see it. I was like a mudfish out there.”

Nevertheless, feeling around with his feet, using gloved hands to manipulate a hooked gaff, he recovered several fragments of debris.

“With just about every shuffle, I would find a piece,” Toy said. “But not enough to account for a DC-9.”