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. Captain Loft was found during the autopsy to have an undetected brain tumor in an area that controls vision. "I've tried to throw [the suitcase] away many times, but something always holds me back. Theyre not going to find us, an anxious passenger whispered. I do recall that some gremlins were on it though and they kept messing up my landing!!!!". Alina Junco 5/2/44 Leonhard happened to be looking southeast across the glades. Thomas Ponte 10/24/11 The memories don't. In the narrow beam of his head lamp he now saw enormous strips of torn metal. N310EA, the aircraft involved in the accident. It was the first of the new generation of wide-body "jumbo jets" to crash. The most accurate account of the crash of Flight 401 was authored by a journalist from the Miami Herald, Rob Elder. "I could get it running," he says, fighting for breath. "They gave us six months off and then we were expected to be 'over it. Fara Infantino 12/7/46 Silvia Crespo 11/30/32 Colonel. Gas gangrene attacked his lungs. The flight had 163 passengers and 13 crew members. He hoped the circling delay would give them time to fix the problem. The accident in a nutshell According to the Aviation Safety Network, Eastern Air Lines had 163 passengers and 13 members of crew onboard, totaling 176 occupants altogether. At home, waiting sometimes fearfully, was Nancy, a pretty barefoot country girl in a cotton dress. This was the first fatal crash of a wide-body aircraft. Then zip, the light was out.". 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. 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. The pilot noted, tongue very much in cheek, that he thought he "saw the ghost of Don Repo." The majority of this equipment was fitted into Eastern's L-1011 N318EA while it was being assembled in Palmdale. 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. [5]:3, Loft, who was working the radio during this leg of the flight, told the tower that they would discontinue their approach to their airport and requested to enter a holding pattern. He was born in Pittsburgh, PA and was a 26 year resident of Christmas, FL. Sure enough, I recall that the initial restricted area was posted in a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) and set out a no-fly zone that had a one mile radius from the crash site up to 2,000 feet above mean sea level. Flashlights are now standard equipment near jumpseats, and all jumpseats are outfitted with shoulder harnesses. "Welcome to Miami," the pilot announced during the descent at 11:30. In a weak voice, one of them asked, What about the alligators?, Raposa didnt hesitate: We made such a loud noise when we hit. Eventually, the investigations were concluded and most, but not all, of the wreckage was removed or salvaged from the Everglades. What made it so hard was trying to manhandle him up and over the broken willows. Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was a Lockheed L-1011-1 Tristar jet that crashed into the Florida Everglades at 11:42 pm December 29, 1972, causing 101 fatalities (99 initial crash fatalities, two died shortly afterward). Off I went to check with the FAA Flight Service Station. The Ghost of Flight 401 (TV Movie 1978) - IMDb | What was so strange was that it was there in the first place. Wait a minute, he said. The jet bounced once, then hit again. An Eastern Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 crashed at 2342 eastern standard time, December 29, 1972, 18.7 miles west-northwest of Miami International Airport, Miami Florida. Game warden Gray Leonhard in the 70s; Photography courtesy of Gray Leonhard. Eastern management must have taken the stories somewhat seriously, however. LOYLESS FUNERAL HOME, Land O'Lakes/Lutz Chapel. Afterward, folks hope to take the old man into the Everglades, in his own airboat, if he wants. They rushed to rescue survivors. My guess is that the L1011 essentially did a flat or horizontal cartwheel and tore itself apart. Last picture of Paul Walker alive, before getting into the porsche that crashed. She had been recovering from a heartbreak of her own for a year and a half. 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. In 2005, TANS Peru Flight 204 crashed into the Amazonian jungle, leaving a trail of bodies and wreckage scattered across the rainforest. Braulio Corretjer 1/5/28 [9] All the survivors were injured; 60 received serious injuries and 17 suffered minor injuries that did not require hospitalization. Rons eyes blinked open upon hearing the engines roar to full power. The death toll at the time was the highest of any one-plane accident in U.S. civil aviation history. The hull slingshot forward as it dropped a couple of feet down into an open-water slough. He'd stay calm, look at the stars for direction, think things through, then crank up the airboat engine and find his way back to the Tamiami Trail. Telephone number:0208 846 0502 . Front row: Sue Tebbs, Dottie Warnock, Beverly Raposa, Stephanie Stanich. Paquita Carrasquillo 10/4/40 Then a sudden jolt rattled the aircraft. Miami International Airport Sighting | Rosario Messina 2/29/26 Two passing pilots saw it and called the airport. In recent months Canti and others have made pilgrimages to Bud's screened door to hear his story. Above: Flight attendants Beverly Raposa and Mercy Ruiz sit on a patch of ground in the Everglades where their flight crashed 35 years earlier. The temperature is in the low 70s, and its beautiful out there tonight.. 2h 48m. Wreckage from Eastern Airlines Flight 401 in the Everglades; Photography courtesy Ron Infantino, Buried up to his neck in freezing water and muck, completely naked except for the elastic rims of his socks, severely injured, shivering and in shock, Infantino feebly called into the night: Lilly, where are you? The only thing she was looking forward to on arrival in Miami was going to bed. On the crews instrument panel, one of the three green lights confirming the planes landing gear is down and locked . He wanted me to be the pilot (no objection from me) and he would occupy the co-pilot's seat. Eugene Schenker 6/24/30 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. Lost - Passengers and Crew (Name and Birthdate), Elise Grace Agate 9/3/42 Also in attendance was Ron Infantino, David Kaplan and the Casado family. Were still at 2,000, right? the first officer asked. It has a flat bottom and a high seat and a cobweb-draped engine and propeller. The night was a balmy 72 degrees, the mosquitoes surprisingly sparse. 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. at 12:30 pm, December 30th) He is completely burned. 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. Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was a scheduled flight from New York JFK to Miami.Shortly before midnight on December 29, 1972, the Lockheed L-1011-1 TriStar crashed into the Florida Everglades, causing 101 total fatalities. After a few minutes they saw the lights of rescue helicopters, circling, searching, much too far east and south. 103 passengers and crew members died in the crash or shortly thereafter and 75 passengers/crew survived. At some point the captain inadvertently bumped the control wheel, knocking the autopilot partially off. I guess their clothes got blown off them.". Muriel J. Ames 11/30/40 His foot pressed lightly against the accelerator pedal as he inched down the south levee on the L-28 canal with his headlights off. I was tired and hit the sack as soon as I got home. Although there is no factual evidence to support the claim, legend has it that after the crash investigation, surviving avionics and galley equipment was salvaged from the crash site, returned to the manufacturers and overhauled to help relieve equipment shortages on Lockheed's growing production line. Incredibly, we found a man sitting alone on a small tussock. the passenger manifest) Some of those he saved were there, including flight attendants Mercy Ruiz and Sue Tebbs, as well as Beverly Raposa, the flight attendant who rallied passengers to safety after the crash. The NTSB classified the injuries of one nonrevenue passenger and one other passenger as nonfatal, as their deaths occurred more than seven days after the accident. I diplomatically told James that I couldn't take possession of the large pieces of wreckage. "It needs new points and plugs, maybe a new set of rings. In 1972 he was a young carpenter who liked living fast. 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. According to my late mother, she wanted to get back to flying, but she was petrified every time she heard jet noise. One hundred and one lives were lost that late . Now that the crash site was again open to the public, he had gone out into the Everglades to scout the area on his air boat. Susan Deutsch 10/21/42 Some survivors recovered and adjusted better than others. Based on Fuller's book, it emphasized the ghost sightings. Work toward erecting a permanent memorial for Flight 401 at the Curtiss Mansion in Miami continues under the leadership of survivors Ron Infantino and Beverly Raposa. Am I the only one left alive? he wondered. His writings form the basis for much of this Web site, with permission. Lockheed L-1011 Cockpit | They were heading his way. Susana Luna 8/29/29 Incident at Exeter concerned a series of well-publicized UFO sightings in and around the town of Exeter, New Hampshire in . Carmen Jorge 7/7/46 The crash occurred while the entire flight crew were preoccupied with a burnt-out landing gear indicator light. That subsides. It turns out that the area I was flying over is the well-known stomping grounds for the crew of Eastern Airlines Flight 401: A plane that crashed in 1972 over the Everglades. B738. Dr. Aftabuddin Chowdhury 1/1/43 The four-month-old L-1011 TriStar jet crashed into the Florida Everglades on December 29, 1972 at 11:42 p.m., caused . She wore panty hose and looked like shed been scalped with a razor. Dale Ann Mazzone 5/19/51 They didn't keep score, but Marquis knows they saved a lot of people's lives that night. Passenger List: TWA Flight 800. It was a heart-to- heart bond. Sometime in midflight, passenger Ron Infantino switched seats with his wife, Lilly, after she returned from the bathroom. They turned on the autopilot. Raposa smiled cheerfully while she collected empty drink cups and dishes from the passengers. By that time, I had also earned a commercial pilot license with airplane single and multi-engine and instrument ratings. Theyd been married only 20 days and were returning from their honeymoon. This was only about 12 hours after the L1011 crashed! Varujan Eskihanci 9/7/25 High in the distant black sky, beyond the harsh glare cast by his headlamp, was a circling star: the searchlight of a Coast Guard helicopter hovering over the crash site eight miles away. Refresh the page, check Medium 's site. The TriStar's port outer wing structure struck the ground first, followed by the number1 engine and the port main undercarriage. The crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 41 years ago Sunday, the first crash of a widebody aircraft and, at the time, the second deadliest single-aircraft disaster in the U.S., led to wide-ranging changes in on board safety that continue to positively affect air travel today. Isell Delgado 1/23/25 At 11:32, they aborted the landing, climbed to 2,000 feet and swung west over the Everglades to work out the problem. The unintentional jar apparently caused the planes nose to tilt down a few degrees. My mother never told me the flight attendant's name, but she did say that she had suffered a broken back in the crash. Soon after, ghosts from Flight 401 began to haunt the land and other. Pedro Garcia 2/10/26 We went deeper and deeper, until wed gone about 50 yards. The crash was documented in Rob and Sarah Elder's 1977 book Crash. From a half mile above, it's like an artist's canvas. Bud revved up the engine and headed northwest. That credo seems to be exemplified in every major airplane crash. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 7 | He wants to show them how to gig frogs. Water saturated by jet fuel filled his boots, burning his legs. [5]:6[a], The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation discovered that the autopilot had been inadvertently switched from altitude hold to control wheel steering (CWS) mode in pitch. MIAMI - Thursday marks 50 years since Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crashed into the Florida Everglades. Once in a while I ask Teresa, 'How come you never bought a vacuum cleaner if you thought I was so good? The Ghost of Flight 401 (TV 1978) - YouTube | Flight 401 crash-landed into the Everglades at over 200 mph. With his left, he held onto the boat and walked beside it to the levee. What songs will we sing? one passenger asked. He was out that night on his airboat, gigging frogs with a new friend, Ray Dickens. The mood was festive as people were leaving the coldness of New York to bring in 1973 on the beaches of Florida. Flight 401 flew into the ground on Friday night, Dec. 29, 1972, at 13 seconds past 11:42 p.m. He invested in real estate, too. The flying club was also a de facto social club with members having the common bonds of flying and aircraft ownership. Above: A piece of wreckage from Flight 401 still visible in the Everglades. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew blew the roof of the house across the street through his front windows. Less than three hours later the aircraft reached Florida. Pick up your airboat and meet me at the Twenty Mile Boat Ramp. 12:38PM EST John F Kennedy Intl - JFK. Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was a Lockheed L-1011-1 Tristar jet that crashed into the Florida Everglades at 11:42 pm December 29, 1972, causing 101 fatalities. One gave him money. The crew of Flight 401, taken aboard Flight 26 while on the ground in Miami earlier the day of the crash. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 2 | You could hear the cry of death. Kenneth Michael Mazonne 3/27/44 He butchered their bodies to pieces after his wife threatened him with divorce. The Ghost of Flight 401. Unfortunately it did so as a scattered wreck over the marshes of Florida's Everglades. Loft, Robert Albin | I was amazed at the size of some of the pieces of wreckage he brought home on the air boat. Loose chunks of lime rock cracked and popped under the tires as he crawled ahead. The crash is considered unique in aviation history because of where it occurred: in Florida's Everglades a sprawling . They have two sons and live in Dade City now, near Tampa. 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. "He swore that Frank Borman had paid him to come to Miami and perform an exorcism on #318. James followed all of the rules and more often than not, brought home venison for the family each deer season. Ethel L. Jackson 3/8/08 Instead of landing in . Ernest F. Bloodgood 4/1/16 He was out there gigging frogs when it happened. February 26, 1989. Preoccupation with a malfunction of the nose landing gear position indicating system distracted the crew's attention from the instruments and allowed the descent to go unnoticed. Not shown, Sharon Transue (she was taking the photo). Get Alerts. That area was off limits to hunters and others for a number of months while federal investigators searched the area for clues to the crash. Walker's body is still fairly intact. Marc Leshay 11/28/51 At 820ft (250m) along the wreckage trail, the outer section of the starboard wing tore off, gouging a 59-foot-long (18m) crater in the soft ground as it did so. I lost my boot., Well, Raposa said, Ill help you find it., Thats okay, Raposa said. The Sun Flying Club wasn't really a "flying" club. 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. She had been turned down by Trans World Airlines for a job because she was a half inch under the 5-foot-2-inch minimum height required for all stewardesses. 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. About a year after the crash of Flight 401, she told me that one of the flight attendants who had survived the crash had come back to work at Eastern, but was assigned to the executive secretarial pool while she recovered from her physical injuries and tried to cope with her mental anguish. I was coping with someone who was disabled. 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. It is almost a physical impossibility to find and remove every scrap of wreckage from a swamp. Burning jet fuel engulfed the aircraft as it plowed through the swamp. Leonhard pulled his eyes away from the painful scene, lifted his head and slowly swung the stark-white beam of his helmet-mounted lamp across a massive trench carved in the marsh. Everything else was in small pieces spread in a general southwest or south-by-southwest direction for 1,500 to 2,000 feet. theYear = theYear + 1900 Give or take a word, the announcement is remembered verbatim by virtually every survivor. The captain and his first and second officers had every reason to feel good and confident about flying this particular ship. The Lockheed L-1011-1 Tristar was the latest generation of wide-body commercial aircraft and had been put into service only four months before. Because of the magnitude of the rescue operation and of the medical emergency caused the study resulted in a . When Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crashed out of the sky over the Florida Everglades in December 1972 it was without a doubt one of the worst commercial air disasters in American history, with over 100 people losing their lives. Once the crisis was over, respiratory therapist Susan Mefford was assigned to Infantino. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 6 | They didn't find each other until morning. On Dec. 29, 1972, it carried 178, including crew. The area I was about to go in was uncharted territory for me, Leonhard said. Donadeo is still active in aviation, as state vice commander of the Civil Air Patrol. Then he tells the story the best he can. Effectively, we turned the clubhouse into the European equivalent of a weekend pub. Leonhard put the car in park, cut the motor and stepped out. A lot of the people I saw were naked. "Life's played funny tricks on me," said Richard N. Micale, 41, not laughing. Rowdy fans of Notre Dame and University of Nebraska, scheduled to play on New Year's Day at the Orange Bowl, were poised to take over the town. 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. Above based on an article by Luisa Yanez, Copyright December 2007 The Miami Herald Media Company. It seemed to help. To those who survived, the scene must have had an eerie end-of-the-earth feel, with wisps of gray mist swirling, a baby wailing, the groans from the injured and the dying. "You couldn't even say goodbye to each . In the photograph below, here is the listing of who is who. While the Flight Crew tried to troubleshoot the faulty indicator, the steering yoke was accidentally nudged, causing a function of the autopilot to begin a . Branches had been recently snapped off all the way around the opening, all pointing inward. Eduardo Jaramillo 8/2/32 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. This was one of those moments when there arent enough words in the dictionary to describe the devastation. A mass of interesting testimony was produced as a result. "Remember what the doctor said," Nancy chimes in. Oddly, he felt no pain. Flight 401 soared above a primordial swampland filled with poisonous snakes and alligators crawling through razor-sharp sawgrass and open-water sloughs. His doctor warned him not to travel alone, not with his weak heart and lungs and aching back. They were both 26 years old. He saw tangled metal and smelled aviation fuel. Bernard A. Goldfuss 11/2/22 That left two seats open. With the $250,000 legal settlement, Micale thought he had it made. Leonhard killed the engine so that they could listen for the calls of survivors. employees and their immediate families of the Promoter and its related bodies corporate and registered travel companions of employees of the Promoter and its related bodies corporate. I don't pretend to understand why it happens. This killed the First Officer instantly. Picture that in your mind. Shock had taken over. We've been married going on 18 years now." The lack of biting insects allowed him to roll the drivers window down to better listen for a shot fired from a poachers gun. She looked into the distance, saw the dim lights of Miami framed against a coal-black horizon and noticed how far away it was. 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. Born in Arkansas, he grew up in South Florida when everybody seemed to be poor. But Infantino couldnt follow the voice. The following conversation was recovered from the flight voice recorder later: Less than 10 seconds after this exchange, the jetliner crashed: The location was west-northwest of Miami, 18.7mi (30.1km) from the end of runway 9L. Three of the four cockpit crew members, two of the 10 flight attendants, and 96 of the 163 passengers were killed; 75 people survived. in Electrical, Mechanical, Aerospace Engineering, or related subject area In every direction, there was nothing but dead silence and incredible darkness. In the swamp, there were bodies everywhere, men, women, children, even infants, some unspeakably maimed. Judy Ellenberg 2/27/53 Sharon Norene Gatti 3/2/48 It's a swamp, a flat swamp. (AP) PITTSBURGH - A former police officer who retired from the FBI due to post-traumatic stress disorder linked to her role in the aftermath of the . 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