Arland Dean Williams Jr. (September 23, 1935 – January 13, 1982) 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.[1]
Williams was a divorced father of a daughter and a son, and was engaged to be remarried when he died.[3][4][5][6] Both his high school girlfriend[2] and his fiancée said that he was afraid of water.[4]
After the crash on the bridge, the plane then continued forward and plunged into the freezing Potomac River. Soon only the tail section which had broken off remained afloat. Only 6 of the airliner's 79 occupants (74 passengers and 5 crew members) survived the initial crash and were able to escape the sinking plane in the middle of the ice-choked river.
After the crash
News cameramen watched from the bridge, recording the unfolding disaster. There appeared to be no way to reach the survivors in the water. Bystanders helped as fellow passerby Roger Olian, with a makeshift rope, began an attempt to rescue them. At about 4:20 p.m., Eagle 1, a U.S. Park Police helicopter based at Anacostia Park in Washington and flown by pilot Donald W. Usher and carrying paramedic Melvin E. "Gene" Windsor, arrived and assisted with the rescue operation. At one point in the operation the helicopter's skids dipped beneath the surface of the icy water.
According to the other five survivors, Williams continued to help the others reach the rescue ropes being dropped by the hovering helicopter, repeatedly passing the line to others instead of using it himself. While the other five were being taken to shore by the helicopter, the tail section of the wrecked Boeing 737 shifted and sank farther into the water, dragging Williams under the water with it.
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 copter's 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.
— "A Hero – Passenger Aids Others, Then Dies", The Washington Post, January 14, 1982.
An essay in Time magazine dated January 25, 1982, was written before the identity of Williams was known. Roger Rosenblatt, the essay's author, wrote:
So the man in the water had his own natural powers. He could not make ice storms, or freeze the water until it froze the blood. But he could hand life over to a stranger, and that is a power of nature too. The man in the water pitted himself against an implacable, impersonal enemy; he fought it with charity; and he held it to a standoff. He was the best we can do.
— Rosenblatt, R., "The Man in the Water", Time, January 25, 1982.[7]
Legacy
The four other members of the Air Florida rescue who also risked their lives but survived were honored shortly after the disaster.
In 1993, Reagan retold the story of Williams and paid tribute to him during a commencement address at the Citadel on May 15.[11] In 2000, the Citadel — and Williams's alma mater (class of 1957) — created the Arland D. Williams Society to recognize graduates who distinguished themselves through community service. The Citadel also established the Arland D. Williams Endowed Professorship of Heroism in his honor.
