Arland D. Williams
Class of 1957
Hometown: Mattoon, Il.
- Williams was a passenger aboard Air Florida Flight 90, that crashed on take-off in Washington, D.C., on January 13, 1982, killing 74 people. One of six people to initially survive the crash, Williams repeatedly passed rescue ropes to five other survivors to help them escape the sinking plane before he himself drowned, heroically sacrificing his own life to save the others. A witness said of Williams, "His heroism was not rash. Aware that his own strength was fading, he deliberately handed hope to someone else, and did so repeatedly."
- Williams was posthumously awarded the US Coast Guard's Gold Lifesaving Medal by President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office of the White House. The 14th Street bridge over the Potomac at the crash site was renamed in his honor. It took over a year to positively determine Williams was the "Man in the water" who selflessly sacrificed his life to save others. In essay in Time Magazine dated January 25, 1982, 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]