Essay On The Man In The Water Crash

“On January 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the 14th Street Bridge across the Potomac River in Washington, immediately after takeoff in a severe snowstorm - an incident that would leave 78 people dead, including four on the ground.” This is the first sentence of a CNN news report about the 1982 Air Florida crash in Washington, D.C. The first portion of Rosenblatt’s writing, The Man in the Water, states “As disasters go, this one was terrible but not unique, certainly not among the worst on the roster of U.S. air crashes.” Both begin to tell about the same story, but taken with two different approaches. Thousands of people across the world watch the news every morning. Whether it’s Good Morning America, CBS, Today Show, CNN,
He focused mainly on the man in the water, Arland D. Williams, who died helping other people to safety. Throughout his essay, Rosenblatt not only tells what happens and describes the details, he also connects his actions to human nature, turning it into a reflective essay. In the second paragraph, Rosenblatt first mentions how nature is shown in this unfortunate event, writing, “Here, after all, were two forms of nature in collision: the elements and human character. Last Wednesday, the elements, indifferent as ever, brought down Flight 90. And on that same afternoon, human nature - groping and flailing in mysteries of its own - rose to the occasion.” He turns the story into something deeper, even philosophical, as he says “Since it was he who lost the fight, we ought to come again to the conclusion that people are powerless in the world,” relating it to everyone else in the world today. In addition, he embellishes the story with inferences about what happened before the plane crashed, and how Williams might have felt in that moment. This turns the catastrophe into a whole different story, letting us know William’s feelings, and letting us ponder about how we can better ourselves to be the best person we can