Air Florida Flight 90
| Air Florida Flight 90 | |
|---|---|
 Boeing 737-222, identical type of the accident machine |
|
| Accident summary | |
| Accident type | Stall due to icing |
| place | Washington, DC , Arlington County |
| date | January 13, 1982 |
| Fatalities | 74 |
| Survivors | 5 |
| Injured | 5 |
| Fatalities on the ground | 4th |
| Injured on the ground | 4th |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Boeing 737-200 |
| operator | Air Florida |
| Mark | N62AF |
| Departure airport | Washington National Airport |
| Destination airport | Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport |
| Passengers | 74 |
| crew | 5 |
| Lists of aviation accidents | |
The crash of Air Florida Flight 90 occurred on January 13, 1982 at 16:01 am local time when a Boeing 737-200 after takeoff from Washington National Airport on a road bridge over the Potomac River and then plunged into the icy river . The rescue measures were extremely difficult due to the adverse weather conditions. Of the 79 aircraft occupants, only five survived. In addition, four motorists were killed on the bridge and five others were injured.
Plane and crew
The plane involved in the accident was an Air Florida Boeing 737-200 that was flying from Washington National Airport in Washington, DC to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale , Florida , with a stopover at Tampa International Airport in Tampa , Florida should fly. The plane was put into service by the airline at the end of July 1980.
The cockpit crew was made up of captain Larry Wheaton (34) and first officer Roger Pettit (31). Captain Wheaton was hired as first officer by Air Florida in October 1978. In August 1980 he became a flight captain. By the time of the accident, Wheaton had around 8,300 hours of flight experience, 2,322 hours of which on commercial aircraft. He completed 1,752 flight hours, 1,100 of which as a flight captain, on a Boeing 737.
First officer Pettit had worked for the airline since October 1980. Before that he was a fighter pilot in the US Air Force with 669 flight hours, as well as a flight instructor, examiner and instructor. At Air Florida , Pettit had a total of 992 flight hours on board a Boeing 737. Together, Wheaton and Pettit only flew 17.5 hours.
Both pilots had little experience of taking off in the prevailing weather conditions. Wheaton had only made eight take-offs and landings in snowfall and icy ice, Pettit only twice. In addition, Captain Wheaton had to take two routine performance tests because he had previously failed tests. Wheaton's weaknesses included following regulations, using the checklist, and understanding aircraft systems.
The three-person cabin crew consisted of flight attendants Donna Adams (Purser), Marylin Nichols and Kelly Duncan.
Weather conditions
The US capital experienced a difficult winter in January 1982. On January 13, a heavy snow storm swept over Washington. At 1:29 p.m. local time, Captain Wheaton landed the Boeing 737-200 as Air Florida Flight 95 at the airport. She came from Miami and was scheduled to leave for Fort Lauderdale at 2:15 p.m. local time. The snowstorm caused snow drifts on the runways at a temperature of −4 ° C. At 1:38 p.m. the airport was closed so that clearing vehicles could clear the runways. Flight operations only resumed at 2:53 p.m.
Start preparations
The passengers (71 adults and three children) were left on board between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. At around 2:20 p.m., an American Airlines maintenance team began de-icing the left side of the Boeing aircraft. Workers confirmed that there was approximately 4 cm of wet snow on the aircraft prior to the de-icing operations. Captain Wheaton decided to postpone the de-icing as the airport was not to reopen until 2:30 p.m. In addition, five or six other machines had take-off priority before Flight 90 could leave the gate.
De-icing was resumed at around 2:45 p.m. The left side of the aircraft was first treated with a mixture of hot water and 1,2-propanediol . The person performing the de-icing stated that he had set the water: glycol ratio (70:30) according to the American Airlines manual and his knowledge of the prevailing temperature of -4 ° C. This employee was replaced by a colleague who was supposed to de-ice the right side of the aircraft. This colleague used a different mixing ratio (80:20) because the outside temperature was wrongly given to him as −2.2 ° C. At 3:10 p.m. the de-icing of the machine was completed. At this point in time there was approx. 7 cm of fresh snow on the slope at the gate.
The passenger boarding bridge should be pulled in at 3:15 p.m. Shortly before, Captain Wheaton asked the Air Florida district manager , who was outside the main cabin door, how much snow was on the plane. The manager replied that a light film of snow had formed on the left wing from the engine to the wing tip. However, the area from the engine to the fuselage is free of snow.
At 3:25 p.m., an aircraft tug tried to push the Boeing from the gate using the pushback procedure . The vehicle, which was not equipped with snow chains, had to abort the attempt without success. Wheaton or Pettit suggested using the thrust reverser as an aid, but the tug operator pointed out that this was contrary to American Airlines' guidelines. Nevertheless, the engines were started and the thrust reverser switched on. According to eyewitnesses, the engines worked between 30 and 90 seconds, blowing up snow and slush. Several Air Florida employees noticed melted snow on the ground in front of the left engine. This effect was not observed in front of the right engine.
At 3:35 p.m. Flight 90 was successfully pushed from the gate. After the tug was disconnected, the Boeing's engines were restarted. The cockpit crew began to work through the pre-take-off checklist . 15:39 to Flight 90 was behind a DC-9 of the New York Air . In the waiting position, Wheaton and Pettit talked about the weather conditions. Pettit noticed that the de-icing had been a while. Both noticed that the amount of snow was different on both wings.
The DC-9 took off at 3:57 p.m., the flight 90's cockpit crew worked through the pre-take-off checklist , setting the engine pressure ratio (EPR) to 2.04 and the marker tabs for the decision speed ( ) to 138 knots (corresponding to . 255 km / h), for which the rotation speed ( ) was set to 140 knots (corresponding to 260 km / h) and the safe take-off speed ( ) to 144 knots (corresponding to 267 km / h).
Startup and crash
Flight 90 received take-off clearance at 3:59 p.m. and was supposed to take off on runway 36. The tower also asked not to delay the take-off, as an arriving aircraft (Eastern Flight 1451) was only 4 km away. During the take-off, the first officer noticed problems with the displays. The take-off speed was not high enough, the Boeing 737 did not reach the correct altitude. A few seconds later there was a stall, and at 4:01 p.m., after just 1.4 km, the machine brushed the Rochambeau Bridge and fell into the Potomac River .
Crash site
The crash site is on 14th Street Bridge, a five-bridge complex spanning the Potomac River that connects Arlington County with Washington, DC . The entire bridge is within sight of the Pentagon . Three of the bridges leading Interstate 395 and US Highway 1 , drive over two bridges trains and the Yellow Line of the Washington Metro . The northbound traffic is routed over the Rochambeau Bridge .
On the day of the accident, a traffic jam formed on the bridge due to the poor weather conditions, as many authorities in the capital released their employees earlier in the evening due to the difficult traffic conditions. The Boeing hit the bridge and hit six cars and one truck. 30 meters of the bridge railing and 12 meters of the bridge wall were destroyed. The wreck fell into the ice floe-covered Potomac River. The plane broke and sank, only a part of the fuselage remained on the surface of the water, about 61 meters from the north bank. Five of the six surviving occupants were able to cling to the wreckage. A sixth inmate stayed afloat with a life jacket slipped on by the surviving flight attendant Kelly Duncan.
Rescue operations
Rescue workers could only reach the scene of the accident with difficulty due to the volume of traffic and the adverse weather conditions. The United States Coast Guard , which had a base nearby, had the icebreaking harbor tug Capstan , but at the time it was on a different rescue mission. Ambulances struggling through the snow and heavy traffic found upon reaching the crash site that they did not have the right equipment. Because of the low water temperatures and the ice floes on the surface, the casualties could not be reached by swimming.
Foreman Roger Olian tried to jump into the water to get to the survivors, but had to give up after a few meters. Pentagon servicemen who had rushed ashore to help helped Olian ashore. Secured with an improvised rope made of cables, pieces of rope and other material, Olian made another attempt. But it only got about ten meters and was withdrawn.
At 4:04 p.m., the airport fire department sent three ambulances over the George Washington Parkway to the scene of the accident. At 4:11 p.m. a rescue control center was set up on the south bank. The fire engines carried a rubber dinghy that was launched at 4:22 p.m. However, it could not reach the survivors because ice floes made rowing or paddling impossible. As the water temperature was only 1 ° C, the time factor played a large role in saving the six survivors.
At 4:22 p.m. a United States Park Police helicopter of the type Bell 206 reached the scene of the accident. The helicopter with the nickname Eagle 1 was piloted by Donald W. Usher. Paramedic Melvin E. Windsor threw lifelines from the side door to the survivors. Bert Hamilton, who stepped into water about 3 meters from the wreckage, was recovered first. Eagle 1 flew to the bank, where Hamilton was met by rescue workers. Usher and Windsor flew back and dropped a line again. The passenger Arland D. Williams was able to grab the line and passed it on to the flight attendant Kelly Duncan, who was flown to the shore. On the third approach of Eagle 1 , Windsor lowered two lines. Again Williams passed one line, this time to businessman Joe Stiley, the second line was caught by Stiley's secretary Nikki Felch. Stiley also held the passenger Priscilla Tirado with his free arm. The helicopter tried to drag these three survivors slowly between the floating ice floes to the bank. Felch and Tirado lost their footing, however, and only Stiley made it to shore.
An eyewitness, administrative clerk Michael Lenny Skutnik, took off his coat and shoes and jumped into the water to bring Priscilla Tirado, who was now in shock, to shore. At the same time, Eagle 1 was flying back to Nikki Felch, who was floating in her life jacket. Windsor stood on the helicopter's runners, grabbed the woman's clothes, and pulled her up. Nikki Felch could also be brought ashore. Usher flew the helicopter back to the wreck to retrieve the sixth survivor. But the wreck had now turned slightly and pushed the seriously injured Williams under water.
Recovery of the wreck
The recovery of the wreckage of the crashed airplane turned out to be difficult. US Coast Guard boats brought Army and Navy divers to the wreckage. First the bodies were recovered. The wreckage was then taken to a hall at the airport. The black box could not be recovered from the Potomac River until January 20, 1982. It was not until January 26 that the two engines could be recovered, which were immediately brought by the NTSB to the manufacturer Pratt & Whitney and examined there.
Investigation of the accident and conclusion
After evaluating flight recorders , voice recorders and eyewitness reports, examining the wreckage (especially the engines) and testing in the Boeing 737 simulator, the National Transportation Safety Board came to the conclusion that the disaster was due to several pilot errors. In addition, there was an incorrect or different de-icing mixture by the employees of American Airlines .
The actual cause of the crash was icing up on the engine pressure gauges and the snow and ice on the wings. The measuring devices for the engine pressure showed incorrect values due to icing. While the pilots set the engine pressure ratio to 2.04, it actually only reached 1.70. This increased the machine's approach path by 800 meters. Snow and ice on the wings caused greater air resistance, which made the taxiway longer and the taxiing itself uneasy (according to a testimony from Joe Stiley). The voice recorder shows that First Officer Pettit repeatedly found that his instrument displays did not correspond to reality. Flight captain Wheaton, on the other hand, dismissed the worries of his colleague and continued the take-off. The Boeing took off, but the aerodynamics changed by snow and ice caused the tip of the aircraft to shoot up sharply immediately after take-off, increasing the air resistance even further. The rate of climb slowed, a stall occurred at a height of 107 meters, and the 46-ton machine crashed.
The reasons why the NTSB ruled on pilot error are as follows:
- Neither Air Florida officials on site nor Captain Wheaton himself ensured that the aircraft was free of snow and ice before leaving the gate.
- The cockpit crew used the thrust reverser function of the engines to maneuver the machine off the ramp. The result was blown snow.
- The engine de-icing was not switched on when the pre-take-off checklist was processed .
- Despite visible snow and ice on the wings, the pilots decided to take off. A snapshot of Edward J. Kovarik, who photographed the Boeing 737 at the gate from an aircraft that had just landed, shows that the entire aircraft was covered with snow. In the coarse-grained photo, the thick snow on the plane is clearly visible.
- The pressure sensor at the entrance to both engines was blocked by ice. As a result, pressure values that were too low were displayed during the start process.
- The cockpit crew attempted a de-icing by placing the machine in the exhaust jet of an aircraft standing in front of them (the New York Airlines DC-9). This is in contrast to the procedures stipulated in the flight manual and ensured that the pressure probe was blocked by melted snow and ice on the wings.
- Captain Wheaton dismissed his first officer's objections and proceeded with the launch.
"The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the flight crew's 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 captain's 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 deicing and the receipt of ATC takeoff clearance during which the airplane 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. "
Media processing
Washington, DC as the capital of the USA has many TV and radio stations. The first on-site reporter was Chester Panzer from WRC-TV . He and a colleague were stuck in a traffic jam on the George Washington Parkway in an outside broadcast van and witnessed the crash. The first film footage is from Panzer and his cameraman. Panzer managed to capture Skutnik's rescue mission. With these pictures he reached the final selection for the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 .
The Washington Post published a report on the previously unidentified sixth passenger who passed the lifeline to others and could no longer be rescued.
The disaster was on 20 September 2006 for the US documentary series Seconds From Disaster ( Seconds From Disaster ) under the title Plane Crash in the Potomac River worked up with animations, drama and interviews. In Germany, this episode appeared as the 12th episode of the third season under the title Crash in the Potomac River on November 24, 2007 on the channel N24 .
The film Catastrophe on the Potomac - Crash in the icy floods (original title: Flight 90: Disaster on the Potomac) with Jeannetta Arnette , who tells the story of this crash, was released in 1984 .
Honors
The sixth passenger, who passed the helicopter's lifeline to others twice, was later named Arland D. Williams Jr. identified, a 46 year old bank auditor. In his honor, the Rochambeau Bridge was renamed the Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge .
The Coast Guard awarded Lenny Skutnik and Roger Olian the Gold Lifesaving Medal. Arland D. Williams was awarded this medal posthumously. Lenny Skutnik was invited by US President Ronald Reagan to give his State of the Union address . He is the first guest of a President at this event to be honored by name in the speech. The honored guests who follow him are called Lenny Skutniks in US-American usage .
The helicopter crew of Eagle 1 , pilot Donald W. Usher and medic Melvin E. Windsor were awarded the Silver Lifesaving Medal for their service. The United States Department of the Interior also presented them with the Interior Department's Valor Award ...
Skutnik, Olian, Usher and Windsor continued to be awarded a medal from the Carnegie Hero Trust Fund . Flight attendant Kelly Duncan was commended on the NTSB report for her selfless act when she gave the only life jacket she could find to Priscilla Tirado.
Effects
Air Florida
The crash of Flight 90, in which 78 people lost their lives, meant a major setback for the airline. On July 3, 1984, almost two and a half years after the disaster, the airline was declared insolvent. In August 1985, Midway Airlines paid $ 35 million for three Air Florida jets .
Security in bad weather
Robert L. Sumwalt III, vice chairman of the NTSB, said that the accident was instrumental in improving communications in the cockpit. The de-icing procedure has been improved.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 10/11) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 2, section 1/2) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 2, section 3) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 2, sections 4 - 6) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 3, section 2) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 3, section 4/5) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 4, Sections 3 and 7) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 4, section 4) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 4, section 7, p. 5, section 1) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 5, section 2) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 21, chapter 1.15) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 107, transcript of the voice recorder) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 9) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 82, chapter 3.2) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ 1983 Laureate
- ↑ Washington Post report on the 30th anniversary of this event
- ↑ Report of the National Transportation Safety Board (p. 78, section 1) (PDF; 7.8 MB)
- ↑ New York Times report on August 15, 1985 (Eng.)
- ↑ Washington Post report on the 25th anniversary of the catastrophe on January 12, 2007
Coordinates: 38 ° 52 '26 " N , 77 ° 2' 34" W.