In this date in 1982, in the midst of a blizzard Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the southbound 14th Street Bridge between Washington, DC and Virginia.

Heroism, REAL heroism was on display that day, with Mr. Arland D. Williams Jr. who was trapped in the wreckage, passing a line from a US Park Police rescue helo to flight attendant Kelly Duncan, who was towed to shore. When the helo returned, Williams, still trapped in the wreckage, passed one line to Joe Stiley, who was holding on to a panic-stricken and blinded (from jet fuel) Priscilla Tirado, who had lost her husband and baby. Stiley's co-worker, Nikki Felch, took the second line. As the helicopter pulled the three through the water and blocks of ice toward shore, both Tirado and Felch lost their grip and fell back into the water.

Priscilla Tirado was too weak to grab the line when the helicopter returned to her. 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 successfully pull her to shore.[12] The helicopter then proceeded to where Felch had fallen, and paramedic Gene Windsor stepped out onto the helicopter skid and grabbed her by the clothing to lift her onto the skid with him, bringing her to shore. From the time the helicopter had arrived on scene to Felch's rescue, 10 minutes had passed.

When the helicopter crew returned for Williams, the wreckage he was trapped into had rolled slightly, submerging him; according to the coroner, Williams was the only passenger to die by drowning.



I knew US Park Police officers (still do) who were stationed at the helo base and they said the pilot's last quip as the non-flying offiers headed out into the blizzard was "This is the last you'll hear from Eagle One today." An hour later...

They also told me of sights that reminded them of their time as Army Special Forces in Vietnam (at least one I've since learned was SOG). One was of just a hand and wrist sticking out of a car the plane smashed into when it hit the bridge.

That Park Service Jet Ranger is now on display at the Law Enforcement Museum in DC:

https://nleomf.org/museum/

The pilots used improper de-icing procedures, allowing ice and snow to build up on the wings before take-off. Their final words on the CVR are chilling.

16:01:00 CAM-2 Larry, we're going down, Larry....
16:01:01 CAM-1 I know!
16:01:01 [SOUND OF IMPACT]

I still remember the name Lenny Skutnik after all these years.

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:

I still remember the name Lenny Skutnik after all these years.

A few years after this incident, my first wife and I rented a townhouse in the Lorton, VA complex where Lenny lived. They had named the community center after him, and AFAIK it remains so to this day. There are many in the DC area who remember Lenny's name.

They had a flyable aircraft but didn't know it. The engine gauges were giving bad readings due to iced sensors. If they had jammed the power levers to the firewall they would have flown.

Lots of human factors and decision making lessons learned from that accident.

I was listening to DC101 the following day when Howard Stern called Air Florida while broadcasting and asked how much a one way ticket to the 14th st bridge would cost.

I've never listened to or watched him again

Later in life one of my college roommates was a USCG rescue diver at the time and pulling bodies out of the Potomac

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
They had a flyable aircraft but didn't know it. The engine gauges were giving bad readings due to iced sensors. If they had jammed the power levers to the firewall they would have flown.

Lots of human factors and decision making lessons learned from that accident.

I am not familiar with this incident, and am a former student pilot with no rating whatsoever at best, but this statement seems very strange. Outside of an engine fire or power-on-stall (not applicable to multi-engine turbine planes), if the plane is falling out of the sky, why wouldn’t you hammer the throttles? Engine power is a major component of forward velocity, necessary to put air over the wings and generate lift.

^They did finally apply maximum throttle, but only a few seconds before the plane crashed. They were in the air for only 30 seconds. As Fly-Sig said, due to frozen sensors, they believed they were at the correct power setting all through the take-off, only realizing their mistake when it was far too late.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: kkina,

That airplane used something called EPR to set takeoff power. Exhaust Pressure Ratio or Engine Pressure Ratio. One pressure sensor at the front of the engine and another at the back. The higher the power the higher that ratio.

The sensors are like a pitot or static port, measuring the air pressure. If a sensor ices over, the pressure already there is trapped and any change is not sensed. That's what happened in this accident, so the EPR displayed to the pilots was reading higher than it actually was.

Different power settings are used for every takeoff in jets based on numerous factors, included air temperature and airport elevation. There is no single number on a dial or position of the power levers. In those older generation aircraft the fuel metering was essentially just mechanical, linked directly to the throttles. As the engine spools up, and as the aircraft speeds up, engine airflow changes and the pilot has to adjust the throttles. This also happens during climb and descent. The iced EPR sensor meant there was no way to set their takeoff power correctly, but they were unaware of that.

I think there were 2 human factors that came into play wrt EPR. First, pilots are trained from day 1 to always trust your instruments unless there is clearly contradictory information. So the pilots were in the mindset of simply trusting the EPR gauge, and they presumed the engines were providing proper thrust. A second factor is pilots know their career can be over if they burn up an engine. That's a multi-million dollar repair. Pilots are very careful to not overtemp a turbine engine, thus in the back of these pilots' minds may have been an initial resistance to pushing up the power until it became obvious they were not going to keep flying.

These days there are a ton of computers managing the engines, and other parameters may be used to measure power, such as rpm. In many airliners the throttles are fully electronic and put in the TO/GA detent, with the computer calculating the correct power and managing it. There is a MCT, Max Continuous Thrust detent above TO/GA which won't burn up the engines but gives max thrust.

The ice detection systems today plus the standard procedures make it seemingly impossible to get anywhere near the situation Air Florida was in.

Unfortunately it would have to be emphasized that the pilots were not simply the victims of malfunctioning sensors. They are the ones who chose to try non-standard de-icing procedures, and completely skipped over the "engine de-icing" checklist item (because they were used to Florida routes, where it was routine to call out a "No" to that item).

I worked as USCG HQ in SE DC at the time and had just gotten off work I believe at 3:30. It took probably about 10-15 minutes for my carpool of Coasties to meet get out of the parking garage. We were in the Rt 1 traffic trying to get on the 14th St bridge, but traffic was worse than normal (due to the snow?) so I went the embankment to the road in front of the Jefferson Memorial and crossed the river via the bridge by the Lincoln Memorial. We then made our merry way south on Rt 1 to almost Ft Belvoir. Since we were rocking out to a Lynyrd Skynyrd tape, didn't find out what had happened till we got home.

Some flying. Kind of amazing no one got killed from the blades.

I believe a local Dee Jay (the Greaseman) was fired for the comment made on air about the flight having a "Stopover at the 14th Street Bridge.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: downtownv,

The flight attendant Kelly Duncan was a teacher/teacher aide at Christ fellowship Perrine Baptist Academy. All my kids new her and I have talked to her several times. Nothing about the flight. School stuff. My kids 26, 25, and 17 years old now. This was during pre K and elementary.

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
I believe a local Dee Jay (the Greaseman) was fired for the comment made on air about the flight having a "Stopver at the 14th steet Bridge.

Close. He called Air Florida to book a seat to the 14th St. bridge.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
I believe a local Dee Jay (the Greaseman) was fired for the comment made on air about the flight having a "Stopver at the 14th steet Bridge.

Close. He called Air Florida to book a seat to the 14th St. bridge.

I knew there was something he said, It was a long time ago and we were driving home (Slowly) from Camelback skiing, in that heavy snowstorm.

That was Howard Stern who was fired.

https://www.insideradio.com/fr...d6-8f4a0c7ff8b0.html

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
I believe a local Dee Jay (the Greaseman) was fired for the comment made on air about the flight having a "Stopover at the 14th Street Bridge.

Stern got fired. See my previous post

The Greaseman took over the time slot

I always like Mayday's dramatization of the event... Watch on Youtube.

I remember working in New Orleans when a PanAm 727 crashed in 1982 killing all aboard. Smell of kerosene hung heavy in the air that day. Tragic, as are all aircraft accidents. At least today we have much better microburst reporting.