Air Florida Flight.doc

Air Florida Flight 90 Air Florida Flight 90SummaryDateJanuary 13, 1982TypeCrash on takeoffAccident siteWashington, D.C.Fatalities78 (4 on ground)Injuries10AircraftAircraft typeBoeing 737-222OperatorAir FloridaTail numberN62AFPassengers74Crew5Survivors5U.S. National Transportation Safety Board diagram of flight path for Air Florida flight 90 which crashed on takeoff at Washington, D.C. on January 13, 1982, killing 78 persons.Air Florida Flight 90 was an Air Florida flight of a Boeing 737-222 airliner that crashed into the Fourteenth Street Bridge across the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. on January 13, 1982 immediately after takeoff in a severe snowstorm. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the cause of the accident was aircraft icing and the failure of the pilots to use all of their anti-icing equipment or abort the takeoff. The accident claimed the lives of 78 people, including four in cars on the Fourteenth Street Bridge.SummaryThere were 74 passengers, including 3 infants, and 5 crew members on board. All but 5 of the occupants of the plane died. The aircraft struck the bridge which carries Interstate Highway 395 between Washington D.C. and Arlington, Virginia. It crushed 7 occupied vehicles on the 14th Street Bridge, killing 4 people, and took out 20 feet of guard rail, before it plunged through the ice into the Potomac River. A total of 78 persons died in the worst accident in Washington D.C. history. The crash occurred less than two miles from the White House and within view of both the Jefferson Memorial and The Pentagon.Record cold weather conditionsDuring the second week of January 1982, one of the worst periods of exceptionally cold weather in history had stricken the east coast of the United States. Atlanta, Georgia recorded freezing temperatures, and the citrus crop in Florida was considered to be at risk. Around the nations capital, for several days, freezing temperatures had brought vehicles to a standstill and interfered with daily activities.On January 13, at Washington National Airport (DCA), which is located in Arlington, Virginia, immediately across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., the airport had opened at 12 noon under marginal conditions. The crew of Air Florida Flight 90 had left Miami at 11:00 AM EST, and arrived at about 1:45 PM EST.That afternoon, they were to return south to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL), Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with an intermediate stop at Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa, Florida. The scheduled departure time was delayed about 1 hour 45 minutes due to a moderate to heavy snowfall, which necessitated the temporary closing of the airport.Delays, poor decisions, crashThe airplane was de-iced, by spraying the wings with an antifreeze-type chemical mixture, but the airplane had trouble leaving the gate when the ground services tow motor couldnt get traction on the ice. After finally leaving the departure gate, the Boeing 737-222 aircraft waited on a taxiway 49 minutes for clearance to use the congested airports only instrument-rated runway, which requires a treacherous flight path north following the river, and winding between restricted airspace and obstacles such as the Washington Monument and The Pentagon.Air Florida N62AF Boeing 737-222 photographed at Miami, FloridaThen, with snow and ice on the airfoil surfaces of the aircraft, the aircraft attempted to take off on the main (and only open) runway in heavy snow at 3:59 PM EST. The pilot apparently decided not to return to the gate for reapplication of deicing, fearing the flights departure would be even further delayed, and chose to continue takeoff. Even though it was freezing and snowing, the crew did not activate the anti-ice systems. Analysis (confirmed by the FBI) of the flight voice recorder (black box) tape determined that during the departure checklist, the copilot announced, and the pilot confirmed, that the planes own anti-icing system was turned off. This system uses heat from the engines to prevent sensors from freezing and providing inaccurate readings.As it turned out, this failure to operate the planes anti-icing system caused exactly what could be expected to happen: the Engine Pressure Ratio (EPR) thrust indicators provided false high readings - when the pilots thought they had throttled up to the correct take-off EPR of 2.04, the actual EPR was only 1.70. The aircraft traveled almost 1/2 mile (800 m) further down the runway than is customary before liftoff was accomplished. Survivors of the crash indicated the trip over the runway was extremely rough, one of whom admitted he feared that they would not get airborne and would fall off the end of the runway.Although the aircraft did manage to become airborne, it attained a maximum altitude of just 337 feet, and was airborne for 30 seconds. At 4:01 PM EST it crashed into the 14th Street Bridge across the Potomac River, 0.75 nautical miles (1400 m) from the end of the runway. It hit six cars and a truck on the bridge, and tore away 20 feet of guard rail. It then plunged into the freezing Potomac River. All but the tail section quickly became submerged.As a result of injuries received during the crash, 4 of the 5 crew members and 69 of the 74 passengers perished, leaving only 6 survivors in the freezing water out of the 79 who had been aboard the aircraft. There were also four fatalities among the motorists on the bridge, with four others on the bridge injured.Clinging to the tail section of the broken airliner with 5 passengers in the ice-choked Potomac River, flight attendant Kelly Duncan inflated the only flotation device they could find, and passed it to one of the more-injured passengers, Nikki Felch.Hampered response, unlikely heroesThe blizzard conditions had happened fairly suddenly on this day, and many Federal Government offices in downtown Washington had just been closed early. Thus, there was a massive backup of traffic on almost all of the citys roads, making it almost impossible for ambulances to reach the crash site. The United States Coast Guards Capstan (WYTL 65601) a 65-foot harbor tugboat and its crew based nearby whose duties include ice breaking and responding to such a water rescue were some considerable distance away downriver on another search-and-rescue mission. Emergency ground response was greatly hampered by ice covered roads and gridlocked traffic. Ambulances attempting to reach the scene were even driven down the sidewalk in front of the White House. Rescuers who did reach the site stood and watched in horror, as they had no adequate equipment to reach the survivors, and the below-freezing waters and heavy ice made swimming out to them all but impossible. Multiple attempts to try to throw a makeshift lifeline - made out of belts and any other things available that could be tied together - out to the survivors proved ineffectual.One man, Roger Olian, a sheet-metal foreman at St Elizabeths, a Washington hospital for the mentally ill, was on his way home across the 14th Street bridge in his truck when he heard a man yelling that there was an aircraft in the water. He was the first to jump into the water to attempt to contact the survivors. Other motorists and civilian bystanders made a makeshift rope of battery cables, scarves, and anything else they could find to keep Olian from drowning. He remained in the water for about twenty minutes until a United States Park Service Police helicopter arrived, whereupon he was reeled back to shore by the others, while the helicopter crew focused on the crash survivors clinging to the tail section of the plane.The only rescue helicopter arrivesNews cameramen watched helplessly from the bridge, being only able to record the disaster for the rest of the world to see. Suddenly hope arrived in the form of a park police helicopter, trailing a lifeline reaching to the outstretched arms of the victims in the water below. The pilot apparently had to navigate by following the freeway out to the Potomac River from the small windows on the bottom of the copter as air visibility was zero at the time. Further compounding the problem was that the disaster location - or exactly what was the disaster - was unknown, as flight controllers were only aware that the plane had disappeared from the runway and did not respond to radio calls, but had no idea what had happened or where the plane was.At approximately 4:20 PM EST, Eagle 1, a United States Park Police Bell 206 Jetranger helicopter, N2PP, based at the Eagles Nest at Anacostia Park in Washington DC and manned by pilot Donald W. Usher and paramedic Melvin E. (Gene) Windsor arrived and assisted at great risk to themselves, at one time getting so close to the ice-clogged river that the helicopters skids went beneath the surface of the water.The helicopter crew lowered a line to survivors to tow them to shore. First to receive the line, Bert Hamilton, who was treading water about ten feet from the floating tail, took the single lifeline dangling beneath the chopper and passed it under his arms. The others watched while the helicopter carried him a hundred yards to the Virginia shore and returned. The helicopter returned to the location of the aircrafts tail, and this time a survivor sometimes referred to as the sixth passenger caught the line. Instead of wrapping it around himself, however, he passed it to flight attendant Kelly Duncan. On its third trip back to the wreckage, the helicopter trailed two lifelines, for its crew knew that survival in the river was now only a matter of minutes. One of the lines was aimed at the sixth passenger. He caught it again, and again passed it on, this time to Joe Stiley, the most severely injured survivor. Stiley slipped the line around his waist and grabbed Priscilla Tirado, who, having lost her husband and baby, was in complete hysteria. Patricia Felch took the second line, and the helicopter pulled away. Before it reached the shore, however, both Priscilla Tirado and Patricia Felch lost their grip and fell back into the water.By then one of these passengers was too weak to grab the line. A watching bystander, Congressional Budget office assistant Lenny Skutnik, stripped off his coat and boots, and in short sleeves, dove into the icy water, and swam out to assist her. The helicopter then proceeded to where the other passengers had fallen, and paramedic Gene Windsor dropped from the safety of the helicopter into the water to attach a line to her. By the time the helicopter crew could return for the sixth passenger, the last survivor, both he and the airplanes tail section had disappeared beneath the icy surface. He had been in the paralyzing cold for twenty-nine minutes. His body and those of the other occupants were later recovered. According to the coroner, this man, who had passed the lifeline to others, was the only plane passenger to die by drowning.United States Coast Guard Capstan was too far away on another search-and-rescue mission downriver to assist the 6 initial survivors of Air Florida Flight 90 which crashed into the 14th St Bridge and then the ice-choked Potomac River on January 13, 1982. Capstan is seen here with another smaller Coast Guard boat helping with recovery of bodies and salvage operations.A half hour after the plane crashed, the Washington Metro suffered its first fatal subway crash, which meant that the busiest airport, busiest highway and busiest subway line were all closed simultaneously, paralyzing the Washington DC area. (See Unusual Coincidence below.)Later examination of the crash by the National Transportation Safety Board would determine that three factors contributed to the crash: The pilot did not return for additional de-icing after sitting on the runway waiting for departure approval for over an hour The planes own anti-icing equipment was turned off, potentially causing certain sensors to freeze and produce incorrect readings The plane did not have enough power on takeoff to allow it to be able to maintain altitude Had even one of these factors not been present, it is believed that the plane would not have crashed.Air Florida would later go bankrupt and cease operations.Responses in the mediaNews media outlets followed the story with diligence. Notably, the Washington Post newspaper published a story about the unidentified survivor of the impact (the sixth passenger) who handed the lifeline to others and apparently drowned before he could be rescued himself.He was about 50 years old, one of half a dozen survivors clinging to twisted wreckage bobbing in the icy Potomac when the first helicopter arrived. To the copters two-man Park Police crew he seemed the most alert. Life vests were dropped, then a flotation ball. The man passed them to the others. On two occasions, the crew recalled last night, he handed away a life line from the hovering machine that could have dragged him to safety. The helicopter crew - who rescued five people, the only persons who survived from the jetliner - lifted a woman to the riverbank, then dragged three more persons across the ice to safety. Then the life line saved a woman who was trying to swim away from the sinking wreckage, and the helicopter pilot, Donald W. Usher, returned to the scene, but the man was gone, source: A Hero - Passenger Aids Others, Then Dies, Washington Post, January 14, 1982. One day after the crash, shock jock Howard Stern called Air Florida during his radio show on WWDC-FM and asked what the fare was for a one-way ticket from Washington National Airport to the 14th Street Bridge.NTSB, aircraft, pilotsSalvage operations on January 19, 1982 of wreckage of Air Florida Flight 90 in the Potomac RiverThe National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of this accident was pilot error stating that the flight crews failure to use engine anti-ice during ground operation and takeoff, their decision to take off with snow/ice on the airfoil surfaces of the aircraft, and the captains failure to reject the takeoff during the early stage when his attention was called to anomalous engine instrument readings.Contributing to the accident were the prolonged ground delay between de-icing and the receipt of ATC takeoff clearance during which the aircraft was exposed to continual precipitation, the known inherent pitchup characteristics of the B-737 aircraft when the leading edge is contaminated with even small amounts of snow or ice, and the limited experience of the flight crew in jet transport winter operations.The aircraft, N62AF, was first delivered to United Airlines in 1969 as N9050U Boeing serial #19556 and was the 130th aircraft off the 737 line.Honoring heroismThe sixth passenger, who had survived the crash and had repeatedly given up the rescue lines to other survivors before drowning, was later identified as 46-year-old bank examiner Arland D. Williams Jr. The repaired span of the 14th Street Bridge complex over the Potomac River at the crash site, which had been officially named the Rochambeau Bridge, was renamed the Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge in his honor. The Citadel in South Carolina, from which he graduated in 1957, has several memorials to him. In 2003, the new Arland D. Williams Jr. Elementary School was dedicated in his hometown of Mattoon in Coles Coun