Kelly Duncan
Encyclopedia : K : KE : KEL : Kelly Duncan
Kelly Duncan (later married as Kelly Duncan Moore) was the youngest flight attendant on Air Florida Flight 90 which crashed moments after takeoff during severe cold weather conditions from Washington National Airport on January 13, 1982. The doomed plane failed to gain altitude, and crashed into 14th Street Bridge and then plunged through a thick layer of ice into the Potomac River, killing 78 persons, including 4 persons in cars on the bridge.
Duncan, 22-years old, was seated in a rear jump seat and was wearing a seat belt as required by procedures during the takeoff. Only she and 5 passengers did not sustain fatal injuries during the initial impacts. Afterward, only the broken off tail section of B-737 aircraft remained afloat. Finding herself alive in the cold water, Duncan assisted the other survivors as they clung to a small part of the tail section in the ice-chocked river. She inflated the only flotation device they could find, and passed it to one of the more-injured passengers. A single rescue helicopter of the U.S. Park Police arrived about 20 minutes later, and with assistance from bystanders, rescued all but one of the six persons in the water.
After recovering from her injuries, she returned to flying for less than two more years, and then changed professions to beginning church work ministering to children. Many years later, and now married with three teenaged children of her own, in 2005 she told an interviewer from CNN that "living through that horrific crash changed her life and her priorities." CNN quoted her as saying:
- :"I feel like every day has been a blessing. I have a wonderful life," Moore said. "It sounds crazy to say it, but that accident changed my life for good. ... God used a bad thing to turn my life around."
- :::Kelly Duncan Moore, 2005
External links
- [MetaFilter post with links to Flight 90 crash]
- [NTSB Report AAR-82/08 Air Florida, Inc., Boeing 737-222, N62AF, Collision with 14th Street Bridge near Washington National Airport Washington, DC January 13, 1982]
- [Air Florida Flight 90: Reservists remember]
- [Roads to the Future website - 14th Street Bridge, the Air Florida Crash, and Subway Disaster]
- [Cockpit voice recording transcript for the crash of Air Florida Flight 90]
- [Aviation Safety Network - report on Air Florida Flight 90]
- [CNN 2005 interview with Kelly Duncan Moore]
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