Air Florida

Air Florida operated jet service within Florida cities, but in 1978 it started flying beyond Florida and into other states. Air Florida was able to have a large presence on the Northeast-to-Florida market for quite some time during the 1970s and 1980s.

It also operated international services to various points in the Caribbean as well as to London, Brussels, Shannon and Amsterdam from Miami.

On January 13, 1982, an Air Florida Boeing 737 en route to Miami (believed to be #N68AF), crashed into Washington, DC's 14th Street Bridge and fell into the Potomac River shorty after taking off. 78 died which included most of the passengers, and the crash made an impact in the aviation industry: It was discovered that the cause of the crash was that the plane's engines had been frozen by the snow just prior to the crash. As a consequence, all plane makers must install snow de-freezers on their planes' engines after that crash. That way, when a plane's engines are frozen, the snow can now be melted immediately.

Air Florida tried several times to buy out Western Airlines during the 1980s, to increase their presence in the West and begin flights to Mexico and Western Canada. However, the negociations with Western, which eventually went to Delta Airlines, only got Air Florida 16 percent of the California based company.

Air Florida eventually folded during the late 1980s.

The airline operated such types as the Boeing 707, McDonell Douglas[?] DC-9 and DC-10, Boeing 727's and Lockheed Electra[?]'s along with the 737 jets.

External Link

• The Air Florida Crash of Flight 90 (http://meme.essortment.com/airfloridaplan_rjgw.htm)