Judy Ellenberg 2/27/53 The Ghost of Flight 401: Mystery Files | Sign up! The harrowing tale of three survivors of the 1972 crash of Eastern Airlines flight 401 into the Everglades. Shock had taken over. "Accident Description." . "That's what really gets me. That credo seems to be exemplified in every major airplane crash. It was a solemn and sobering return flight. Frank Borman called it all a bunch of "crap" and considered suing the producers of the 1978 made-for-TV movie about the ghost stories for libel. The Ghost of Flight 401 was a book of nearly pure fiction, as was the TV movie that followed it. Inside the planes cockpit, the crew was trying to slide in a replacement bulb, a roughly two-square-inch all-in-one light assembly unit covered by a translucent green plastic lens, valued at $12 altogether. Eastern's L-1011's came equipped with six Bowmar ovens (Lockheed Part Number 671878-115). Rose Marie Cillis - Mark Paternoster May 15, 2021, 11:07 pm. She had no first-aid kit. Flight 401 was a short-haul flight to Miami. Moe Lustig 7/16/23 Below Left - In red, stewardess Beverly Raposa at the memorial. He was mentioned in a book, The Crash of Flight 401, later made into a B-movie, and helped a Hollywood writer with the awful Ghosts of Flight 401, about commercial jets haunted by the dead pilots. This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Flight 401. Everything else was in small pieces spread in a general southwest or south-by-southwest direction for 1,500 to 2,000 feet. The City of Miami Springs hosted a Beautiful Memorial Ceremony on Thursday, December 29, 2022. Pick up your airboat and meet me at the Twenty Mile Boat Ramp. On Dec. 29, 1972, Eastern Flight 401 from New York to Miami took off from . Mary Carfizzi 11/3/19 Elisa Ruth Romero 5/28/44 I told Hansel that we needed to check, before we got into the air, whether there were any flight restrictions over the crash site which seemed pretty logical to me. Theyd been married only 20 days and were returning from their honeymoon. Shortly after I arrived, one of my friends, Hansel Meighen, practically dragged me to his airplane and loudly announced that we were going to go fly out to the Everglades crash site. Fuller wrote that the airline was apparently trying to cover this up. His left knee was dislocated, wrenched sideways at a vicious right angle. Clutching his walking stick, Bud shuffles past a mango tree into the backyard. This quote, which was obviously a joke, was presented in the Ghost of Flight 401 as fact. LOYLESS FUNERAL HOME, Land O'Lakes/Lutz Chapel. Bud asks his wife to look for his scrapbooks. All content is Skeptoid Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. We could also see a few other aircraft flying into the restricted airspace. Exactly fifty years ago, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 mysteriously . The Flight 401 Was A Normal Flight | The old airboat, the airboat in which he carried injured passengers, waits on a rusty trailer with flat tires. Effectively, we turned the clubhouse into the European equivalent of a weekend pub. Eugene Schenker 6/24/30 That was a miracle that is probably attributable to three factors: (1) the crash site was a soft, wet swamp; (2) there was no significant post-crash fire; and (3) the force of disintegration was directed horizontally and not vertically, flinging many survivors out into the swamp instead of subjecting them to fatal blunt force trauma which is characteristic of most airplane crashes. Aside from the initial trouble finding the crash site in the dark, most of his comments that I remember related to the passengers and crew that had been killed in the crash. Murray Yellin 6/9/11 The last thing Raposa remembered seeing before she was knocked out was a waterfall of colors. Donadeo, an Eastern Airlines technical specialist on L-1011 aircraft, was returning to Miami that night from a trouble- shooting assignment in New York. It seemed to help. The flight attendant, Mercy Ruiz, was badly injured, with a broken pelvis and a severe laceration on her forehead. Obviously, this is a red flag waving at us vigorously that we should be sure to take this tale with several good grains of salt. He felt a sense of mission as he looked out into the black swamp, knowing that his job required cunning and stealth. Not long after the crash, the ghosts of Loft and Repo were seen on more than twenty occasions by crew . Eastern used the Bowmar/Calrod brand. The cloak of black was made all the more intense by the surreal stillness. Some may have tried to turn this actual human tragedy into a fictional ghost story, but it was the efforts of the real people involved who used it to extinguish a few real ghosts in the form of safety flaws, to reduce the chances of the same type of accident happening again. Lockheed L-1011, aircraft 310, flight 401 headed from New York to Miami on Dec. 29, 1972. I come from an Eastern family - my mother, Betty Olson, retired from Eastern in 1976. His name showed up recently on a Web site (eastern401.googlepages.com) about the 35th anniversary of a tragedy that killed more than 100 passengers and traumatized dozens more. Season 1. Anyway, the pilots couldn't tell if the wheels were down. The flying club tie-down area and ramp were immediately adjacent to the Sun Line operation and I often was called upon to fuel aircraft on the Sun Flying Club property. We had a habit of informally gathering at the clubhouse on Friday and Saturday evenings to down a few beers and catch up on all the news that had any impact on us. For survivors, the crash has left physical and mental scars. I was a kid, 21 years old. The left wingtip banked into the marsh at 227 miles per hour. They didn't keep score, but Marquis knows they saved a lot of people's lives that night. A light on the instrument panel the first officer was monitoring failed to illuminate green to confirm that the nose landing gear was extended and locked. Burning jet fuel engulfed the aircraft as it plowed through the swamp. theYear = now.getYear() With no one flying the plane or noticing its steady descent at flight speed, it flew itself into the ground. At least he lives near his precious Everglades. The trip to Florida, by official accounts, was pleasantly routine. Henry Nunez 8/18/23 Soon after, ghosts from Flight 401 began to haunt the land and other airplanes. Photos of the 35th anniversary memorial gathering at the crash site, December 29, 2007. (3) 2022 TV-14. Repo was dead. An hour or so later, a Christmas carol floated through the air, reassuring Infantino he was not alone. Genres. Afterward, folks hope to take the old man into . (Ron Infantino) On the 29th of December 1972, an Eastern Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 Tristar landing in Miami, Florida plowed into the Everglades well short of the airport, throwing dozens of survivors into a grisly fight for survival. Later on during the flight though, problems with the engine all stemmed from a fire that no-one knew about. Pin. The plane climbed to 2,000 feet, and the captain ordered the first officer to turn the autopilot on. Evelyn De Salazar 11/6/08 Paranormal phenomena and bizarre oddities. Barbara Ann Saal Trudy Jean Smith, age 73, of Dallas, Georgia, formerly of Deport, Texas, died November 29, 2020. Discretion was the better part of valor. From L to R, Captain Robert Albin Loft, pilot Albert John Stockstill, and flight engineer Donald Louis Repo. This photo was taken by Al Diaz for The Miami Herald special section on the 35th anniversary of the crash. Afterward, folks hope to take the old man into the Everglades, in his own airboat, if he wants. The aircraft disintegrated, scattering wreckage over an area approximately 1600 feet long by 300 feet wide (NTSB). The NTSB also reported that 67passengers survived the carnage and 94 perished, as did two of the cabin crew. Bud waved his light until the helicopter took notice. Her face burned from the jet fuel. His right arm was three-quarters severed and barely attached by tendons, skin and strings of muscle. Flight 401s chain of problems began on the approach to Florida two hours after departure. The problem had consumed all their mental energy. Renee Joaquin Albert 8/3/36 The disaster of this flight still remains as one of the worst in American aviation history. An Eastern flight attendant posted this scan (below) from his L-1011 FA manual. They turned on the autopilot. Flight 401 - Autopilot indicator | Anne Ponte 1/7/16 Flight 401 - Possible Explanation | With their very careers on the line, each witness must be totally certain what they saw is what they saw. , Elder, R. "Flight 401 Survivors, Years After the Crash and Memorial Efforts." Ghosts of Flight 401. It was the first accident involving a wide-bodied airliner, and the most deadly crash in the United States at that time. Greta Foye 3/19/45 Flight 401crash-landed into the Everglades at over 200 mph. The night was a balmy 72 degrees, the mosquitoes surprisingly sparse. 16 Mar. From his vantage point atop the levee, Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission Officer Gray Leonhard, then 24 years old, had a commanding view across the vast darkened marsh. Please dont leave me! Infantino yelled. The lack of confirmation from the interior landing light signal so consumed the entire crews attention, that none of them noticed that one of them had inadvertently switched off the autopilot. He was a devoted husband of sixty-two years to his first wife Martha (nee Regan) and beloved husband of his second wife Sue Johnson.Charlie was a loving son to the late Junius and Rachel Johnson, much loved father of the late Tracy Johnson and dear brother to the late Jeane Johnson Stanfield. He'd get that look. Michael Ann Kaminer 12/28/45 Lucille Cilles 1/30/24 An aerial view of the crash site; a swath of the Everglades; Photography courtesy Ron Infantino. Obviously, I'm not a hunter, but I don't begrudge those who do hunt responsibly. From an aviation perspective, this was no small feat. Salvatore Carfizzi 7/15/15 Water saturated by jet fuel filled his boots, burning his legs. 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