Kelly Duncan
Kelly Duncan-Moore (born 1959) was the youngest flight attendant on Air Florida Flight 90, which crashed minutes after takeoff during severe cold weather conditions from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (then Washington National Airport) on January 13, 1982. The doomed plane failed to gain altitude, crashed into the 14th Street Bridge, and then plunged through a thick layer of ice into the Potomac River, killing 78 people, including 4 people 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 five passengers did not sustain fatal injuries during the initial and secondary 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-choked 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 (Arland D. Williams, Jr.) of the six persons in the water.
In the NTSB final report the NTSB recognized Duncan, stating:
| “ | In addition, the Safety Board recognizes the unselfish act of the flight attendant who inflated the only available lifevest and gave it to one of the more severely injured passengers[1] | ” |
After recovering from her injuries, Duncan returned to flying for less than two years before beginning church work ministering to children. She received a degree in early childhood education and became a teacher. [2] In 2005, married and with three teenaged children, she told an interviewer from CNN that "living through that horrific crash changed her life and her priorities":
| “ | I feel like every day has been a blessing. I have a wonderful life. (...) It sounds crazy to say it, but that accident changed my life for good. (...) God used a bad thing to turn my life around. | ” |
