Plot
The film introduces the people whose lives will, on January 13, 1982, intersect on Air Florida Flight 90 from Washington, D.C. to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Marilyn Nichols, a stewardess, has just learned she is pregnant. Priscilla Tirado and her husband Jose are leaving for Florida to take up a new job. Nikki Felch is going on a trip with her boss, Joe Stiley, to Alabama, but her boyfriend David Frank wants to get married. Bert Hamilton is going on a business trip to Florida, but would rather stay with his wife and son. Roger Olian is a maintenance man at St. Elizabeths Hospital, married to Donna, who works in the Naval Recruitment Office. Arland D. Williams, Jr. is also flying to Florida to close a bank for the Federal Reserve and is expecting to meet his fiancée Carol Biggs in Georgia. Marilyn, flight attendant Kelly Duncan, and the plane, Boeing 737-222, leave Florida and fly to Washington. They land at Washington National Airport in a blinding snowstorm. After the passengers board the plane, they must sit for 50 minutes.
This causes ice to accumulate on the plane. Most passengers ignore the stewardesses' safety talk. The de-icing that is done is done improperly. Pilots Larry Wheaton and Roger Pettit seemed unconcerned about ice on the wings. When the plane tries to take off, ice on the sensors causes the pilots to have a false idea of their speed. The plane only attains 352 feet altitude before it stalls. The plane hits the 14th Street Bridge and crashes into the Potomac River. Bert, Joe, Nikki, Priscilla, Kelly and Arland make it out of the plane and cling to a piece of wreckage in the freezing river. Roger Olian, who was on the bridge, plunges into the river to try to help. Meanwhile, friends and relatives learn about the crash. Donald Usher and Melvin Windsor take off in their helicopter; Roger gets close enough to shout encouragement to the survivors. The helicopter rescues Bert and soon they return try to catch Arland, but passes the rescue line to Kelly. They pull Olian out of the river. Each time he is offered the rope, Arland passes it on to Joe, Nikki and Priscilla. Joe is pulled to shore, while a stranger, Lenny Skutnik, jumps in and pulls Priscilla to shore. By the time Nikki is rescued, the rescue team returns to the crash site and see Arland has slipped beneath the water and dies.
In Florida, Air Florida employees pass the bad news to Marilyn's husband Larry that she has died. The survivors start to come to terms with what happened as they are sent to different hospitals and are reunited with their loved ones.
Palm Beach International Airport is a public airport in Palm Beach County, Florida, located just west of the city of West Palm Beach, Florida, United States, for which it serves as the primary airport. It is also the primary airport for most of Palm Beach County, serving the suburbs and cities of Boca Raton, Wellington, Boynton Beach, Jupiter, and Palm Beach Gardens. It is the third busiest airport in the Miami metropolitan area after Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport. The airport is operated by Palm Beach County's Department of Airports. Road access to the airport is direct from I-95, Southern Boulevard, and Congress Avenue. The airport is bordered on the west by Military Trail.
Air Florida Flight 90 was a scheduled U.S. domestic passenger flight operated by Air Florida from Washington National Airport to Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport, with an intermediate stopover at Tampa International Airport. On January 13, 1982, the Boeing 737-200 registered as N62AF crashed into the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River just after take off from Washington National Airport.
The 14th Street bridges refers to the three bridges near each other that cross the Potomac River, connecting Arlington, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Sometimes the two nearby rail bridges are included as part of the 14th Street bridge complex. A major gateway for automotive, bicycle and rail traffic, the bridge complex is named for 14th Street, which feeds automotive traffic into it on the D.C. end.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1972.
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Martin Leonard Skutnik III is a retired employee of the United States Congressional Budget Office who, on January 13, 1982, saved the life of Priscilla Tirado following the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 into the frozen Potomac River, Washington, D.C. As passengers were being rescued, Tirado was too weak to take hold of the line dropped from a helicopter. Skutnik—one of hundreds of bystanders—dove into the icy water and brought her to the river bank.
Arland Dean Williams Jr. was a passenger aboard Air Florida Flight 90, which crashed on take-off in Washington, D.C., on January 13, 1982, killing 74 people. One of six people to initially survive the crash, he helped the other five escape the sinking plane before he himself drowned.
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