Suddenly, he stopped. Front row from the left: Dottie Warnock, Pat Ghyssels, Beverly Raposa, Patty Georgia, Stephanie Stanich. She choked on the acrid fumes from the 43,000 pounds of aviation gas that had spilled from the plane and screamed, Dont light any matches!. Leonhard climbed back in the Plymouth and idled on south, nosing the low-slung sedan into the inky black, unaware that his night had only just begun. Don Repo survived long enough to reach the hospital, but he also proved to be too badly injured. "I was wounded in World War II when the ship I was on was hit by a kamikaze. At home, waiting sometimes fearfully, was Nancy, a pretty barefoot country girl in a cotton dress. Bernard A. Goldfuss 11/2/22 Flight 401 soared above a primordial swampland filled with poisonous snakes and alligators crawling through razor-sharp sawgrass and open-water sloughs. Below: The Casado family tour the crash site. "I couldn't understand why I lived and they didn't. Marc Leshay 11/28/51 The tall building behind the plane is Building 16 at MIA, the former headquarters of Eastern Air Lines. Not long after the crash, the ghosts of Loft and Repo were seen on more than twenty occasions by crew . Two tours in Southeast Asia had hardened him. There were 10 flight attendants in the main cabin serving 163 passengers. Accura Media Group LLC, 30 Dec. 2013. Evidently, I wasn't so stupid as to put any regulatory violations in writing in my log book. Selma Karpen 6/16/21 He was in the fetal position, head on his knees, hands covering his face, leaning against the trunk of a willow. One retired Eastern L-1011 pilot I spoke to said that he had a second officer flying with him on a B-727 for several months in the Spring of '73 who was a self-ordained preacher. Silvan Karpen 5/23/28 Ethel L. Jackson 3/8/08 We exited the area and returned to Opa locka Airport, but our conversations were subdued. With the autopilot engaged, the malfunctioning light was dismantled by two members of the crew. She was very scared, having never been in the Everglades before. 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. Surely, pilots and air crew would never make up such stories, would they? December 29, 2022, 8:23 PM. That was the last transmission before the left wing sliced into the Everglades at 225 mph. "They gave us six months off and then we were expected to be 'over it. The only thing she was looking forward to on arrival in Miami was going to bed. Patricia Renee Shackelford 12/9/52. He saw openings in the sawgrass created by sliding chunks of broken airplane. They never met again, never talked again, and never will: Ray died years ago in Arcadia. The flying safety was even more compromised because it was slightly hazy which reduced visibility to seven to ten miles over the Everglades. We had him out by 5:30 in the morning. She described him as dazed and unresponsive. It is now known that "Mrs. McAvoy" was Donna Smith, Thomas McAvoy's traveling companion. Trudy Smith didn't return to flying. Surprise turned to horror when Repo disappeared before the pilots eyes. "The three of us toast to life on that day every year.". at Highland Cemetery in Deport, Texas. 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. It was the first of the new generation of wide-body "jumbo jets" to crash. Spectral looking people with manic laughs or clanking chains are another popular image people often have of ghosts or spirits. Jana Dedek 6/24/53 Richard J. Schulleri 1/3/43 Stefan Jay Rubin 3/21/49 Trudy is survived by her nephews, Jason Mooney and wife Annette, Jeremy Ogelsby and wife Amy; great-nephews, Nathan Mooney and wife Courtney, Caleb Mooney and wife Savannah, and Brandon Ogelsby; great-nieces, Laura Mooney and Alaura Ogelsby;2 great-great-nephews and 2 great-great-nieces; cousins, Jacque Wirta and Jack Moncrief. Michael Ann Kaminer 12/28/45 Thirty minutes later, Leonhard and his passengers suddenly burst out of a thick patch of 12-foot-high sawgrass. Then he tells the story the best he can. I have lost contact with Bill Elliott. . Reports began to take on much more sinister overtone, at least in the eyes of the witness involved. On December 29th, 1972, Eastern Airlines Flight 401, a widebody L1011 jet, crashed into the Everglades while attempting to land at Miami International Airport. People observe a candlelight vigil in memory of victims of a plane crash in Kathmandu, Nepal, Monday, Jan. 16, 2023. He isn't a talker to begin with, unless it's about boats or engines or the 'glades. Delta pilot pay varies depending on schedule, aircraft and other factors, but current flight pay can range from an average of $75,000 a year for a starting first officer to more than $300,000 a . Janice Testa 9/12/52 The Nordskog were installed mostly on the L1011-500 series. FSF. Follow my voice!. North Miami Beach, FL (PRWEB) December 7, 2007 On Monday, December 3, 2007 survivors of Eastern Airlines Flight 401, gathered at the Metro-Dade Firefighters Memorial Building, in Doral (Miami), Florida, to remember the 101 passengers and crew, who lost their lives in the fateful crash of a Lockheed L-1011, jumbo-jet in the Florida Everglades, December 29, 1972, while en route from New York to . Fuller, J. The ultimate "yes sir, no sir" man, Bud shuffles reluctantly onto the porch, blinking furiously in the sunlight, wondering what's up. Those pilots probably didn't even know there was a NOTAM prohibiting flight immediately above the crash site. We were in Dade County, and my patrol zone was Broward County to the north., During his airboat training, senior wardens of the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission had told Leonhard, Never stop or slow an airboat down in rank grass because you may not be able to power out of it. "Then I saw this great big fireball and the whole 'glades lit up. 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. They have two sons and live in Dade City now, near Tampa. Im a tough Portuguese girl from Rhode Island.. He seemed deeply saddened by that fact. It promised to be an exciting week in Miami, especially for people who had bucks for a meal at Joe's Stone Crabs and a night at the Fontainebleau Hotel, where the sexy dancer Ann-Margret was headlining. Roberto Palma 6/10/27 With their very careers on the line, each witness must be totally certain what they saw is what they saw. There was a lot of activity on the ground, but we couldn't see much detail from 3,000 feet. This just the beginning. The man vanished before their very eyes and those of several other passengers. With the engine dangerously wide open - the boat slipped over the grass at 35 mph - he maneuvered around all obstacles. This story has relevance to those of us in anaesthesia. PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Farrell - Miami Herald Staff. 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. 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. It is 12 feet long and 7 feet across. One of them attracted . His book was later adapted into a made-for-tv movie starring William Shatner as an NTSB investigator. It's truly amazing how the mind works for, at the time, I had no idea of the significance of what I saw that night nor did I intend to store it away in my memory banks. Ever the good Catholic, she crossed herself in the dark and silently prayed, Oh God, please let that be true.. The landing gear from Flight 401 at the crash site; Photography courtesy Ron Infantino. Donald Stanley Casadona 7/16/38 Photo credit: Don Boyd of Sun Bird Photos. (It was later expanded to a much larger area either later that same day or the next day.). 2023 Skeptoid Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The bronze plaques are being donated as well as the granite base. As I sit writing this 34 years later in December 2006, I can still visualize the events of that night just as if they had occurred yesterday. Loft and Repo have never been reported on the same flight, by the same witnesses, at the same time. With almost twice the area of Rhode Island, the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States has some of the most formidable terrain on Earth. I dont know this for sure, but I seem to remember he was the last survivor rescued.. His doctor warned him not to travel alone, not with his weak heart and lungs and aching back. Afterward, folks hope to take the old man into the Everglades, in his own airboat, if he wants. Possible Curse of Seminole Indians | The L-1011 was new, parts were scarce, and any non-structural components that passed scrutiny said Fuller went into Eastern's spare parts pool. Pilot Bob Loft, copilot Bert Stockstill, and flight engineer Don Repo were bringing the plane in to land at Miami International Airport. She was shown photos of several of the flight staff and she picked out Don Repo. Photo was taken earlier while on the ground in Miami. He not only saw the face too, but recognized it as none other than Don Repo, the engineer who died on Flight 401. Anyway, the statute of limitations has long since passed. The jet actually began losing altitude, so gradually that no one noticed until the very end. Lourdes Albert 2/20/50 She worked in the executive offices at Easterns Miami base. The following is a list of survivors and victims of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401. If you would like to contribute to this cause, donations can be made to: National Air Disaster Foundation (write "EAL 401 Memorial" on the check), You may also make donations by credit card on their website: www.PlaneSafe.org. Whatever the case, whether from real testimony or a desire to entertain, the legend of the ghosts of Flight 401 helped to make sure the victims and survivors are not forgotten. We were standing outside the clubhouse on the ramp, getting ready to lock up the building before leaving, when we both noticed something unusual overhead. Robert Albin Loft 3/17/17 It infamously crashed in Florida's Everglades swamp just before midnight, killing 101 of the 176 people on board. Angelo Donadeo, Patricia R Georgia, Adrianne Ann Hamilton, Jennifer Larsen, Thomas Mulcahy, Mercedes V Ruiz, Beverly Jean Raposa, Trudy J Smith, Sue F. Tibbs, Sharon R Transue, Dorothy M Warnock. As in other reports, the flight attendant selected Repos photo from a choice offered to her. THE CRASH OF FLIGHT 401 20 YEARS LATER SURVIVORS LIVE WITH PAIN, MEMORY, Author: ARNOLD MARKOWITZ Herald Staff Writer Copyright (c) 1992 The Miami Herald. ", Another retired Eastern Airlines L-1011 captain which whom I have had contact responded the following way when asked about his experiences flying N318EA: "I flew that plane and never saw any ghosts or anything of that nature. But one other very important thing we learn from Serling's history of Eastern Air Lines is that the central claim of Fuller's book that ghosts accompanied the salvaged pieces of Flight 401 installed in other planes is false. On Dec. 3, Southern Airboat and other organizations also plan to honor Bud and the victims and survivors of Eastern Flight 401 with a service and a barbecue in Miami. Sadly, she did not survive. 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. In the end, it appears that the source of the stories was an article in an issue of the Flight Safety Foundation. I was too young for that kind of stuff. They married in 1974. Repo, Donald Louis | The Senior Architecture Analyst provides architecture . Fuller's book was soon made into a popular TV movie, also called The Ghost of Flight 401, notable for having creeped people out for years. Newsroom Ready: Canadian officials, families honour Flight PS752 victims on third anniversary Grieving friends and relatives of victims killed during the downing of Flight PS752 called for justice and accountability from the Iranian regime as Canadians from coast to coast marked three years since the country's military shot the plane down. The other house is gone; his still requires repairs. He sold 13 in a month. Now 41, he lives alone in Titusville, on a disability pension. Under the command of Captain Robert Albin Loft, an expert navigator rated 50th in seniority at Eastern. For those who haven't seen the images: In her initial report from the crash site a large Ukrainian wheat field "dotted with purple flowers and Queen Anne's lace" the New York Times . Mary Carfizzi 11/3/19 I was then almost 26 years old and had recently graduated from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Flight 401. On Dec. 29, 1972, it carried 178, including crew. Allen M. Stark 8/11/49 Below: Franklin and Anita Kent celebrate Franklin's pending release from Palm Springs hospital with some ice cream, on February 17, 1973 (W.O. One of the flight attendants happened to glance at the window of an oven in the galley, and saw the face of a man looking back at her! But, to play it safe, she always wore an add-on hairpiece and teased her hair up into a bouffant to make herself look taller. "I've tried to throw [the suitcase] away many times, but something always holds me back. I don't remember the take-off or the landing that day, but I vividly remember the meteorological conditions and the crash site. If he saw legs kicking, he turned the seat over. It looked like a piece of the wreckage, or something, had been propelled on a near horizontal trajectory, traveling just a foot or two above the waters surface, and rocketed into the willows with tremendous force., Bent at the waist, the two men waded into the hole, following a ragged debris trail of damaged vegetation. A yellow flash. After a few minutes they saw the lights of rescue helicopters, circling, searching, much too far east and south. degree history and physical education. The plane was dropping from the sky at a rate of 200 feet each minute. Raposas survivors became upset. Bob Loft appeared before the Vice President of Eastern Air Lines in First Class. I had first, second and third-degree burns all over my body. The flight engineer on duty during this flight was a personal friend to Repo and instantly recognized the face as that of his deceased friend. It was shortly after the May 11, 1996 . If one more time he could harvest a mess of frog legs in the Everglades. Ten feet in front of them were what looked like two mannequins to Leonharda partially clothed woman lying faceup in the mud and a naked man lying facedown. His fishing and hunting skills helped put supper on the family table. A Florida plane crash scene became even more disturbing when an alligator was spotted devouring the victim's body. Loft abandoned the landing and informed Air Traffic Control of the issue. 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. An hour or so later, a Christmas carol floated through the air, reassuring Infantino he was not alone. Maureen I. Chesler 10/12/47 Blackness. Bud no longer worked as a game warden - his day job was laying carpet. ExpandAutoplay. Now it was her turn. He knows exactly how he'd go about it. Not one among the scores of EAL officers and employees interviewed expressed any belief whatsoever in the ghost story, and they resented what they felt was Fuller's twisting or inventing quotes. Two years after the crash, a book called The Ghost of Flight 401 was published, claiming that there were many reported sightings of the pilot, who had most likely accidentally switched off the autopilot, and the flight engineer, who had missed the warning chime because he left his seat to investigate the issue with the landing gear light. This photo taken in September 2009. This one quip appears to be the genesis of the entire story. Inside was a treasure: Her camera with the unprocessed film of shots of the crew taken that day. Lilly leaned back in her seat, resting quietly. According to my late mother, she wanted to get back to flying, but she was petrified every time she heard jet noise. The government considered him totally disabled. "He's one of us," says John Canti, a firefighter, paramedic and outdoorsman. Mama, heat up the frying pan. He was trapped beneath the water. Even though I didn't own an airplane, the club members considered me one of their own, a privilege that I treasure and respect to this day, despite the fact that I haven't had any involvement with the club since the late 1970s. That credo seems to be exemplified in every major airplane crash. He cranked up the engine and moved toward the sound. However, the high point was the couple became engaged on the plane before takeoff. Official Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 - History, Photos, Survivors and Tribute | It would be hard to make up a plausible story like Ronald Infantino's -- too sad, too joyful. "It has always bothered me that there was nothing done with 401," said Dummett, a retired Miami-Dade firefighter and founder of the American Airboat Search and Rescue Association, now living in Lake Wales. It didn't light. Many of the accounts share similar characteristics. Darrylle Becker 3/16/43 The Ghost of Flight 401 (TV 1978) - YouTube | 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. Meanwhile, 1,100 miles to the north, an Eastern Airlines jumbo jet lifted off in bitter cold weather from New Yorks John F. Kennedy International Airport. The plane crashed into the swamp; fortunately, it was a relatively gentle angle into a soft surface, and that's what allowed so many to survive. Exactly fifty years ago, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 mysteriously . Klaus Schenck 9/5/39. 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.. Flight 401crash-landed into the Everglades at over 200 mph. After about an hour, he saw the first helicopter. Thank you, Rob. Less than three hours later the aircraft . Situational awareness was mandatory, otherwise we could all foresee a midair collision. 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. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 4 | Those words guided Leonhard as his 14-foot patrol airboat bulldozed through dense walls of water-anchored grass. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 Photo of the crash site of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 into the Florida Everglades on Dec. 29, 1972. Mercy Ruiz, Cindy Kaza, Ron Infantino. The Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu that plummeted into a gorge Sunday . , Elder, R. "Flight 401 Survivors, Years After the Crash and Memorial Efforts." Retired Air Force Col. Frank Bormana former astronaut, vice president of Eastern Airlines and now a first respondercame to escort her into a helicopter hovering at ground level a short distance away. Flight Safety Foundation, 29 Dec. 1972. The problem had consumed all their mental energy. When the Coast Guard helicopter attempted a landing, the prop wash threw hunks of debris dangerously around. "Hey! "Hey, what's happening here?" The National Air Disaster Alliance/Foundation gave Marquis a humanitarian award for being the first to respond to the crash, and in a touching tribute, members of The Southern Airboat association presented Marquis with a completely rebuilt airboat - the same one he had used to rescue crash victims in 1972.. "I think it's nice, but I don't think I really deserve a lot of hullabaloo over this," Marquis, 78, of Homestead, said of the award. Feel the warmth going down.. The captain and his first and second officers had every reason to feel good and confident about flying this particular ship. He told of an unidentified mechanic who came upon a whole stockroom of equipment, all in perfect working condition, that Eastern had ordered to be removed from various aircraft. The guy laughed and said "Scary. Airline employees began spreading stories of apparitions to the point where Eastern management warned employees that they could face dismissal if caught, and any log book entries about such matters would be removed. The memories don't. Wrong. 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. 490-492. It took a while, but the female passenger eventually calmed 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. at 12:30 pm, December 30th) With the exception of names being changed for the sake of respecting the real victims, the film . Patricia A. Ghyssels 3/31/45 She put in 11 more years with United before retiring. Game warden Gray Leonhard in the 70s; Photography courtesy of Gray Leonhard. . In his mind, he's still a strapping young fellow with big muscles. With an injured back and a cut foot, she slogged through sucking muck, shredded saw grass and plane wreckage. 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. He saw a man, sitting in the water with a neck injury, trying to remain upright. He found one, selling $500 vacuum cleaners in Tampa. Like so many such cases, its exploitation of a tragedy for financial gain and publicity was disrespectful to both the victims and the survivors. It was approximately 15 to 20 miles west-southwest of the Opa locka Airport and it was pretty difficult to find at first. Johnson, Charles | They turned on the autopilot. The other flight crew members were First Officer John Stockhill, a flight engineer, and Donald Luis Repo, an aircraft mechanic, and flight engineer. Branches had been recently snapped off all the way around the opening, all pointing inward. I vaguely remember that we ended up taking a total of five people on that flight. They didn't find each other until morning. But the passengers were her peopleher responsibilityand it was still her job to help them. Royal Aviation Museum (3) 2022 TV-14. Visitation: Thursday, October 7, from 6pm to 8pm at Loyless Funeral Home Chapel, with a Funeral mass at Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church on Friday at 10am. "The temperature is in the low 70s, and it's beautiful out there tonight." I was tired and hit the sack as soon as I got home. The Ghost of Flight 401: Mystery Files | Oddly, he felt no pain. Jose Carrasquillo 6/28/40 They go deep into the heart of the Florida Everglades to contact the victims' ghosts and find out what really happened that fateful night in 1972. With determination born of her Portuguese grandparents work ethic and her work on a 160-acre dairy farm as a young girl growing up in Rhode Island, the former Girl Scout troop leader shouted, Im a stewardess. 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. Cite this article: This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic. They had drowned because their seats landed with their heads tilted down into the swamp water. Mysterious Universe On December 29, 1972, the Lockheed L-1011-1 TriStar - Flight 401 - left New York and flew on a downward vector to Miami, Florida. Water saturated by jet fuel filled his boots, burning his legs. Bob called Infantino, who loves to tell the story: "He was a regional coordinator with AFLAC, American Family Life Assurance Co., and that's when I started -- 16 years ago, and I've been with them ever since. #563 On the night of Dec. 29, 1972, holiday parties were in full gear. Imagine his surprise when he came face to face with Don Repo. The reports were given by experienced and trustworthy pilots and crew. 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. Top Left: The girls of Flight 401. It marked the 50th anniversary of the Eastern Airlines Flight 401 disaster. Surprisingly, he found that there were large pieces of wreckage still out in the glades. Carol Susan Jackter 9/26/52 "He's an airboater.". That was an unsurvivable crash, but we made it out," she said. 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