Video: 'WLS Channel 7 - The 3:00 Movie - "Air Florida Flight 90 Bulletins" (1982)' (times are Central Standard Time)

(Wednesday, January 13, 1982, 4:01:01 p.m. EST; during Air Florida Flight 90) — An Air Florida jetliner taking off from Washington National Airport (now Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) in a snowstorm crashed into a crowded bridge this afternoon and broke as it plunged into the frigid Potomac River, killing 78 people and injuring another nine.

Video: 'Air Florida Flight 90'

The twin-engine Boeing 737-222 had suddenly appeared out of the swirling snow over the 14th Street Bridge at the height of an early commuter exodus and hit seven occupied vehicles and destroyed 97 feet of guard rail before plunging through the ice into the Potomac River about a mile from the end of the runway.

Air Florida Flight 90 to Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport was carrying 74 passengers and five crew members. Only four passengers and one crew member (a flight attendant) were rescued from the crash and survived.

Video: 'CBS Evening News open - 1982-01-13'

Another passenger, Arland D. Williams, Jr., assisted in the rescue of the survivors, but drowned before he could be rescued.

Four motorists on the bridge were killed.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the cause of the accident was pilot error.

Video: 'Air Crash - Air Florida Flight 90 - Boeing 737'

The pilots failed to switch on the engines’ internal ice protection systems, used reverse thrust in a snowstorm prior to takeoff, tried to use the jet exhaust of a plane in front of them to melt their ice, and failed to abandon the takeoff even after detecting a power problem while taxiing and having ice and snow build up on the wings.