The morning of January 13, 1982, was a brutal example of winter weather in the mid-Atlantic region. A heavy snowstorm dumped ~6.5 inches of snow on the area, and sub-freezing temperatures created icy conditions. Washington National Airport was closed the previous night and through the morning, re-opening around noon as plows fought to clear runways.
By mid-afternoon, the airport was operational, under marginal conditions. Air Florida Flight 90 arrived in the afternoon from Miami, scheduled for a quick turn-around and return flight to Ft. Lauderdale. After boarding, the aircraft was de-iced at the gate, but was delayed taxiing from the gate to the runway due to heavy ice. It then sat for another 45 minutes on the runway, allowing ice to further accumulate on the wings.
The flight finally took off in the late afternoon, with 79 souls on board; 74 passengers and 5 crew members. The plane struggled to get airborne due to the heavy ice on the wings. Even as it lifted off, it was unable to achieve more than few hundred feet of altitude. Within 30 seconds of takeoff, around 4:01PM, it crashed into the 14th street bridge, and plunged into the frozen Potomac River.
The crash occurred during afternoon rush hour, when the roads were filled with commuter traffic. Four people were killed on the bridge as the Boeing 737 crashed into their vehicles. The impact with the bridge, and the subsequent impact into the frozen river killed 73 crew and passengers inside the plane.
Six people survived the crash, only to find themselves helpless amongst chunks of ice in the frigid, 30-foot deep river. Witnesses watched helplessly from the shore as the six survivors clung to wreckage. The broken ice on the surface of the river made it impossible for the survivors to swim out, or for any rescue to be mounted from the shore.
Within 20 minutes, a U.S. Park Police helicopter, piloted by Don Usher, with paramedic Gene Windsor on board, arrived on the scene. In a daring rescue attempt, with no equipment except for a tow rope improvised into a rescue line, they began to pull the survivors from the river, one by one.
Usher piloted his helicopter over the scene with unbelievable skill in such a desperate situation, often with the skids touching the water. Windsor stood on the skids, one hand holding onto the aircraft as the wind whipped around him, the other hand working the rescue line.
But the heroism on the water that day wasn’t limited to the Park Police. The line was first dropped to a man, who handed it to another survivor and helped them to board the helicopter. Four times this scene repeated itself. The line dropped to the same man, where he promptly handed it off to another. The fifth time he handed off the lifeline, the recipient, Priscilla Tirado, was unable to hang on, her strength sapped by hypothermia from the long exposure in the water. A civilian who was nearby, Lenny Skutnik, dove into the water and helped rescue Tirado.
When the helicopter returned for the remaining survivor, the one who had passed off the lifeline to five others, he was nowhere to be found. Windsor, the paramedic on the Park Police helicopter would later recall, “When the mission was over I called my wife and I said there was a sixth man. And I told her we couldn’t rescue him. And with that the tears flowed.”
At the time, and for almost a year and half after the crash, the identity of ‘the man in the water’ or ‘the sixth passenger’ was unknown. I well remember reading the news reports after that fateful day, and marveling at the courage and selflessness of this unknown person who allowed others to be rescued at his own expense.
Seventeen months later, on June 7, 1983, President Reagan announced that the identity of the unknown hero had been determined. After a lengthy investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard, Arland D. Williams Jr. was identified as ‘the man in the water’ who had heroically helped others to safety. Williams was a 46-year-old employee of the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a graduate of The Citadel in South Carolina, and had served two years in the military before transitioning into banking.
President Reagan posthumously awarded Arland Williams the Coast Guard’s Gold Lifesaving Medal in a ceremony at the White House. The award was accepted by Williams parents, and his two children. William’s legacy was further honored with the renaming of the 14th Street Bridge as The Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge. His alma mater at the Citadel also carries on his legacy of heroism via the Arland D. Williams Jr. Professorship in Heroism, and the Arland D. Williams Jr. Society, established to honor other Citadel alumni who perform acts of extreme heroism.
Many of us at the time were captivated by the heroism of the Park Police crew, the individual who dove into freezing water to assist in rescuing the fifth passenger, and the selfless acts of Arland D. Williams Jr. There was much speculation in the months after the accident over who the unknown hero might have been, and we all breathed a bit easier once we could properly honor this hero.
May these acts of heroism inspire us today as they did all those years ago.
P.A. Tennant – January, 2026
Soli Deo Gloria
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Photo: U.S. Park Service
Copyright 2026 Paul A. Tennant
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P.A. Tennant 