Only six of the airliner's 79 occupants (74 passengers and five crew members) survived the initial crash and were able to escape the sinking plane in the middle of the ice-choked river.

Bystanders helped as fellow passerby Roger Olian, with a makeshift rope, began an attempt to rescue them.

According to the other five survivors, Williams continued to help the others reach the rescue ropes being dropped by the hovering helicopter, repeatedly passing the line to others instead of using it himself.

The next day, The Washington Post described his actions: He was about 50 years old, one of half a dozen survivors clinging to twisted wreckage bobbing in the icy Potomac when the first helicopter arrived.

On two occasions, the crew recalled last night, he handed away a life line from the hovering machine that could have dragged him to safety.

Then the life line saved a woman who was trying to swim away from the sinking wreckage, and the helicopter pilot, Donald W. Usher, returned to the scene, but the man was gone.An essay in Time magazine dated January 25, 1982 was written before the identity of Williams was known.

He was the best we can do.The four other members of the Air Florida rescue who also risked their lives but survived were honored shortly after the disaster.

On June 6, 1983, Williams was posthumously awarded the United States Coast Guard's Gold Lifesaving Medal in a White House Oval Office presentation to his family by President Ronald Reagan and Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth H. Dole.

[8][9] Senator Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, a fellow alumnus of the Citadel, initiated the action in late 1983.