He received numerous “hero” awards, and a standing ovation from the joint session of Congress assembled for President Reagan’s first State of the Union Address. All this happened to be captured on television cameras.īecause of the television coverage, Skutnick was lionized by the media. He swam to the exhausted woman and was able to grab her and push her to the riverbank where others rushed her to an ambulance. ![]() He coolly assessed his chances of rescuing her, took off his coat and boots, and plunged into the icy water. If he did nothing, the woman was going to die in front of him. He was close enough to see her face and know that she was almost gone. He was standing on the riverbank about 30 feet from the woman in the frigid water too weak to hold on to the rescue line. Lenny Skutnik was a 28-year old office assistant working in the Congressional Budget Office who was among the federal employees sent home early because of the snowstorm. WHYY thanks our sponsors - become a WHYY sponsor But a fifth survivor, a woman, was too exhausted and in shock to hang on to the rescue line lowered from the helicopter. Eventually a rescue helicopter arrived which was able to extract four of the survivors from the debris in the river. ![]() Spectators lined the bridge and riverbank but were unable to help. The handful of survivors from the crash clung to debris in the swirling, icy waters of the Potomac. Of the 79 passengers and crew on board the airplane, 74 died. ![]() Four motorists were killed on the bridge. Many federal offices closed early that afternoon to allow workers to try to get home before the blizzard resumed.īecause of inadequate de-icing, Air Florida Flight 90 was unable to gain sufficient altitude upon take-off, and crashed into the 14th Street Bridge and plunged into the Potomac River. According to the National Transportation Safety Board Report, the air temperature was 24 degrees Farenheit, and the wings of Air Florida Flight 90 required de-icing before take-off. The airport had been closed during the heaviest snowfall, but reopened in the afternoon when the blizzard seemed to let up. Just about 30 years ago, on January 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 was trying to take-off in a blizzard from National Airport on the Potomac River facing Washington, D.C. The other hero who sticks in my memory is Lenny Skutnik, an ordinary guy with an ordinary name who found himself unexpectedly confronting an immediate life-or-death decision. Visiting the Flight 93 memorial last weekend got me thinking about heroes.
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