The pilot Bob Loft and the flight engineer Don Repo were two of the 101 people who perished in the air crash. Have You Met Fred the Tree? Less than three hours later the aircraft . Burning jet fuel engulfed the aircraft as it plowed through the swamp. Bud revved up the engine and headed northwest. Beverly Raposa stumbled out of the nightmarish apocalypse, hurt, disheveled and covered in clumps of dripping swamp grasses. His last complete thought before losing consciousness was, This is going to be one hell of a rough landing., Beverly Raposa with her Eastern Airlines stewardess class in the 60s; Photography courtesy Ron Infantino. Thirty minutes later, Leonhard and his passengers suddenly burst out of a thick patch of 12-foot-high sawgrass. One curious aspect of these sightings is that people always saw one or the other. Like a lot of other aspiring commercial pilots, I had had a checkered aviation career, having worked, among other things, as the full-time chief pilot of a regional oil company while attending college. . My guess is that the L1011 essentially did a flat or horizontal cartwheel and tore itself apart. Wreckage site of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401. Theyre not going to find us, an anxious passenger whispered. On December 29th, 1972, Eastern Airlines Flight 401, a widebody L1011 jet, crashed into the Everglades while attempting to land at Miami International Airport. The Department of Technology, Management and Budget supports the business operations of the state agencies through a variety of services including Information Technology project delivery, maintenance and support. In addition to commemorating Flight 401, the creative talent behind the exhibit is seeking to help survivors raise the funding needed to create a permanent large-scale memorial to Flight 401's victims and survivors in the City of Miami Springs, once home to a thriving Eastern Air Lines community. He said that every time an appearance of the ghosts had been entered into a plane's logbook, the logbook was suddenly replaced with a new blank one. Author John G. Fuller claimed the whole book was true . Lloyd Irving Bearman 1/16/23 The FAA guy sitting closest to Leonhard yelled, Holy shit!, An airboat doesnt have brakes, Leonhard explained. Two minutes later, Flight 401 called the air traffic control tower. Afterward, folks hope to take the old man into . Back in the day, when he spent so much time in the wilderness, only the airplanes overhead reminded him of civilization. Richard Childs 5/21/52 I vaguely remember that we ended up taking a total of five people on that flight. Two tours in Southeast Asia had hardened him. In fact, she told my mother that she cringed in fear every time she drove down Le Jeune Road (the eastern boundary of Miami International Airport) just because of all the jet noise when planes were landing and taking off. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. A jet airliner is not something that immediately comes to mind: except to those who know aboutEastern Air Lines flight 401. What happened next must have happened very quickly. This photo taken in September 2009. It was rare for commercial airliners to fly westbound directly overhead Opa locka Airport at such a relatively low altitude. Ghosts of Flight 401. Fortunately, Bud was an expert. The third, Repo, used a porthole to try and get a visual on the gear. 2017. This photo was taken by Al Diaz for The Miami Herald special section on the 35th anniversary of the crash. Gas gangrene attacked his lungs. Combined with numerous anonymous witnesses and countless tales, the rumors spread throughout the aviation community. Robert Albin Loft 3/17/17 An alligator was spotted by a news crew in a helicopter next to the wreckage of a small airplane crash in the Florida Everglades devouring the victim's body.. His right arm was badly hurt. About us | Our programming | Become a supporter | Privacy. In fact we all were troubled because, by the luck of the draw or fate, some passengers survived while others in similar situations who looked as though they should have survived, were killed. He'd see the lights and hear the roar as the jets climbed into the black night over the swamp or descended toward Miami International Airport. His book was later made into a TV movie. I think all the survivors had been rescued by that time and taken to hospitals, but there were a lot of bodies still at the crash site. Robert A. Loft, then 55 years old, with 30 years experience and 29,700 flight hours under his belt, attempted to lower the landing gear. Author Fuller noted that, mysteriously, the cockpit voice recorder was also replaced when the repair work was finally done, which struck him as odd. "That's what really gets me. . I really do think I can gig some frogs if I had to.". My mother never told me the flight attendant's name, but she did say that she had suffered a broken back in the crash. I mean, I was a single person with no family. 17 Mar. The control tower at Opa locka shut down at 11pm each evening back then so the L1011 had to be in contact with Miami Approach Control, since we assumed it was ultimately being vectored for an approach to MIA. The stories began four years later with the publication of John G. Fuller's 1976 book The Ghost of Flight 401, which revealed that those four years had been filled with incidents of flight crew being startled by apparitions of Loft and Repo appearing on board other Eastern Air Lines planes. 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. Serving coffee, tea and soda was all very nice, but this was what counted. Wreckage site of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401. Loft and Repo have never been reported on the same flight, by the same witnesses, at the same time. After retiring he volunteered with the Civil Air Patrol, his last rank was Lt. Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 traveled from New York to Miami. Back row from the left: Mercy Ruiz, Sue Tebbs, Adrienne Hamilton, Trudy Smith. Edward was also sent to Florida to build Trap and Skeet gun clubs in some southern states, he always maintained that the clubs were 20 years ahead of their time. "This is way in the past.". As you may know, the mansion is an historic landmark in Miami, located just north of the airport it served as the location of the NTSB hearings into the crash. Lilly leaned back in her seat, resting quietly. Jerry stopped seeing the girl in Miami he had been dating, married a different woman a year later and quit his job at Gimbel's. Le dimanche 26 janvier 2020, l'hlicoptre Sikorsky S-76 de Kobe Bryant s'crase prs de Calabasas, en Californie (tats-Unis).Les neuf occupants de l'appareil sont tus sur le coup. Also in attendance was Ron Infantino, David Kaplan and the Casado family. Aviation Safety Network. Muriel J. Ames 11/30/40 Then, on Saturday, December 29, a fleet of over 100 airboats carried survivors, their families and others to the crash site for a special memorial. His wife said his ashes would be spread over the crash site in the Everglades that ''he loved so much,'' at a later date. Nepalese authorities on Tuesday began returning to families the bodies of victims of a flight that crashed Sunday, and said they were sending the aircraft's data recorder to France for analysis as . On Dec. 29, 1972, Eastern Flight 401 from New York to Miami took off from . It was an easy way to break the monotony of intense study, tour the good old USA and also earn a few bucks and I must emphasize the aspect of the earnings. In a calm, soothing voice, she said, Now close your eyes and pretend you have a cup of coffee, hot chocolate or tea in your hands. 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. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crashed into the Everglades on a moonless night on December 29, 1972. Ghosts of Flight 401. 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. Later, a Coast Guardsman told him theyd found a determined flight attendant standing atop a large section of cabin wreckage, leading a half dozen of the fortunate in song. "Remember what the doctor said," Nancy chimes in. In recent months Canti and others have made pilgrimages to Bud's screened door to hear his story. The aircraft, a Lockheed L-1011-1 Tristar jet, seemed to have an issue with the front nose gear. He has never taken pleasure in talking about what he saw after Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 went down and how he felt about it. The final leg of the flight was canceled as a result of this fire. Carpet layers need strong backs. This crux of the story was completely made up out of whole cloth. Three women on the jetliner's tail, about 20 feet above the water, begged Bud to save them. Raposa popped the release buckle and fell into the marsh, landing on her hands and knees. Solomon Fisher 7/18/11 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. We were like five bobbing bubble-head dolls because there were a lot - and I mean a lot - of other aircraft up in the air doing the same thing we set out to do. They didn't find each other until morning. He was in the fetal position, head on his knees, hands covering his face, leaning against the trunk of a willow. For many years she was a strong advocate for crew and passenger safety in the airline industry speaking to Local and international groups in the U.S. and around the world. Blackness. Several survivors tracked him down to thank him personally. No roar of unmuffled high-horsepower engines. Chapter 4 - Flight 401 Passenger List. Born in Seymour, Conn. on May 8, 1929, to Julius and Mary Kaslo Ulrich. This becomes less surprising when you look at Fuller's publishing history. He'd launch his airboat at the Miccosukee Indian Reservation on the Tamiami Trail and race north into the river of grass. Adelaide Geneve Bearman 9/21/22 Oddly, he felt no pain. 101 out of the 176 occupants onboard the . Then the commuter airline folded. Rosario Messina 2/29/26 35 Years after an Eastern Air Lines jet crashed into the Everglades, a rescuer looks back. They didn't keep score, but Marquis knows they saved a lot of people's lives that night. Anyway, the statute of limitations has long since passed. at 12:30 pm, December 30th) 2017. He had to make a detour of some 50 miles before he would arrive at the boat ramp on the north side of the Tamami Trail. Flight Nurse jobs Other than those observations, I don't recall much more from that flight. As the plane descended on its final landing approach to Miami International Airport, a cheerful voice boomed over the cabins loudspeaker address system: Welcome to sunny Miami, the captain announced. A lot of the people I saw were naked. Trudy Smith didn't return to flying. A yellow flash. Elizabeth M. Pollack 12/10/17 The Ghost of Flight 401 was a book of nearly pure fiction, as was the TV movie that followed it. The jet actually began losing altitude, so gradually that no one noticed until the very end. (No one had a camera, so I don't have any personal photos.) Ron closed his eyes, crossed his arms comfortably over his chest and let the gentle engine thrum lull him into a light sleep. Not long after the devastating crash, stories began to emerge in the Eastern Air Lines community of unexplained encounters with some of the crew from flight 401. "Life's played funny tricks on me," said Richard N. Micale, 41, not laughing. This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic. My log book shows that our flight lasted 1.2 hours. James Yandolino 3/7/52 Official Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 - History, Photos, Survivors and Tribute. His friend, of course, envisioned a Piper Cub or something small going down in a summer thunderstorm, not a state-of-the-art L-1011 carrying 200 passengers on a perfect winter night. Marc Leshay 11/28/51 The signal inside the cockpit had not illuminated as it should have. Bernard A. Goldfuss 11/2/22 Klaus Schenck 9/5/39. . The bronze plaques are being donated as well as the granite base. It is now known that "Mrs. McAvoy" was Donna Smith, Thomas McAvoy's traveling companion. When she came to, she was still belted into her seat, tipped to one side, hanging six feet above the swamp. victims, and the general public. They were both 26 years old. Some believethat Eastern Air Lines cannibalized and reused pieces of the wreckage in other airliners. 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. 1 of 37. Skeptoid Media, Miguel Junco, being carried into a hospital by an attendant. It was, in fact, the same plane that had the trouble in Mexico City. We could also see a few other aircraft flying into the restricted airspace. All photos by Southern Airboat, who coordinated the event. I'll forever believe that it was Eastern Flight 401, just minutes before it and its passengers and crew became part of aviation history and legend. Jonathan Adam Kaminer 8/22/70 Let us email you a link to each week's new episode. Sadly, she did not survive. Captain Bob Loft survived the impact but was so severely injured that he died during the rescue efforts. In his investigations talking with various airline employees (which occupy most of the book), he discovered the likely reason: According to the flight crew, who were highly reluctant to discuss it, Don Repo had appeared in the cockpit and talked them through the landing. Unborn son of Rochelle and Stefan Rubin Well launch from there.. I was coping with someone who was disabled. There were 75 at the time, 20 years ago tonight. The flying club was also a de facto social club with members having the common bonds of flying and aircraft ownership. Not long after the crash, the ghosts of Loft and Repo were seen on more than twenty occasions by crew . That left two seats open. Lost - Flight 401 Passengers (Name and Birthdate), Charles Camichel 9/9/1899 (we assume this is the "C. Carmichael" on the passenger manifest), Jose Carrasquillo 6/28/40 (pictured below), Abbey Lynn Greenwald 9/18/52 (photo below), Carmen Jorge 7/7/46 (Photo of Carmen below, with her daughter, and surviving passenger, Christina Ochoa), (Rosa's neice Lucille Cilles and her daughter, Rosemarie Mancuso and her husband Barry were also on board), Rosemary Mancuso 10/31/49 (Photos below), Ruth Elisa Romero Guerra 5/22/44 (Pictured below), Stefan Jay Rubin 3/21/49 (Photo of Stefan and Rochelle in 1972 below. Silvia Crespo 11/30/32 Albert J. Stockstill 6/9/33 He had a broken arm and some cuts and scrapes, but no other visible wounds, Leonhard said. "The three of us toast to life on that day every year.". Greta Foye 3/19/45 He'd cruise up on the frog, spear the frog with the 3-pronged gig, knock the frog off the gig into a sack, all the while moving forward in the airboat while getting ready to gig another frog. 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