Safety caps are often used in high-speed performance tires to reduce stress on the steel belts and the shoulder of the tire where the tread meets the sidewall.
32.
The agency also said SabreTech failed to put safety caps on the generators after removing them from another ValuJet plane and did not properly train the employees involved.
33.
SabreTech workers packed the oxygen generators, which had been removed from other ValuJet planes, in boxes without attaching safety caps or properly labelling the boxes, according to NTSB documents.
34.
SabreTech, a Phoenix, Arizona-based maintenance contractor hired by ValuJet, admitted at a hearing last November that it prepared the generators for shipment without the required safety caps and mislabeled them.
35.
SabreTech has acknowledged that subcontractor mechanics in Miami failed to install safety caps on at least some of about 150 oxygen generators removed from three McDonnell Douglas MD-80 airliners in February.
36.
The generators were supposed to have safety caps installed that would have stopped them from being set off even if jostled, but investigators says it appears that no caps were installed.
37.
Guy Lewis, an assistant U . S . attorney, said " critical maintenance steps were left out, " and that company personnel falsely indicated that the safety caps had been installed.
38.
She was listening to David Gentry, ValuJet's vice president of heavy maintenance, as he repeatedly failed to answer who should have ordered the safety caps, and who should have reviewed Sabretech's work.
39.
While maintenance workers had neglected to put the safety caps on the generators, they carefully packaged them in cardboard boxes and wrapped them with bubble wrap, he said in his opening statement.
40.
According to evidence gathered by crash investigators, SabreTech workers removed small emergency oxygen generators from one of the planes but failed to put safety caps on them to prevent a potentially dangerous activation.
