flight 401 victims

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. Flight crews and passengers on other similar aircraft in the Eastern Air Lines fleet came forward with stories of sightings of Bob Loft and Don Repo. The plane was dropping from the sky at a rate of 200 feet each minute. Thanks to Jim Kalafus for the corrected names of Flight 401 victims drawn from Dade Country death certificate files and his continued research and participation in this effort. Lockheed L-1011, aircraft 310, flight 401 headed from New York to Miami on Dec. 29, 1972. 200110850. Less than three hours later the aircraft . 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. The landing gear from Flight 401 at the crash site; Photography courtesy Ron Infantino. Eastern Air Lines Flight 401, crashed on 29 December 1972. This photo was taken hours before the crash on December 29th while on board Flight 26 in Miami. He cranked up the engine and moved toward the sound. "This is way in the past.". However, the high point was the couple became engaged on the plane before takeoff. Leonhard happened to be looking southeast across the glades. Join our emailing list to keep up to date with the latest. All content is Skeptoid Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Lockheed L-1011 Cockpit | With his left, he held onto the boat and walked beside it to the levee. Mildred Katz 1/8/34 Picture that in your mind. The only thing she was looking forward to on arrival in Miami was going to bed. Leonhard, Raposa, and Infantino never connected during the rescue operation, except for one tenuous bond that drew them together in spirit: the sound of a distant Christmas carol drifting throughthe night. Perhaps Fuller read it, and was inspired to concoct the rest of the story. More than a single person has often been present at the time, whether by accident or design. Loose chunks of lime rock cracked and popped under the tires as he crawled ahead. Well launch from there.. Top Left: The girls of Flight 401. We dont have a light on our nose gear yet.. The plane, a new "Whisperliner," could transport 229 passengers. The underside of the L1011 was reflecting the ground lighting from the airport and the surrounding city which made it easy to identify the aircraft type although we couldn't identify the airline. Back to the clubhouse and armed with the airspace restrictions, I was ready to fly. He was out that night on his airboat, gigging frogs with a new friend, Ray Dickens. Loft and Repo have never been reported on the same flight, by the same witnesses, at the same time. Barry L. Mancuso 10/19/44 He sold 13 in a month. It would be hard to make up a plausible story like Ronald Infantino's -- too sad, too joyful. Tower, this is Eastern 401, it looks like were going to have to circle. On Dec. 29, 1972, it carried 178, including crew. Marquis, Robert | There was just one problem: Bob Loft had been dead for months. 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. Thank you, Rob. An Eastern representative told Serling that, while pondering whether to sue Fuller or his publisher: We spent weeks trying to locate anyone who claimed to have seen a ghost and couldn't find one person. I don't recall any large scorched patches of saw grass, but I remember a few small burned areas. Pilots of Eastern Airline Flight 401 Don Repo and Bob Loft. The jet actually began losing altitude, so gradually that no one noticed until the very end. The disaster took the lives At night, when he sits on his porch, he can hear the wup-wup bellows of the pig frogs and the heh-heh-heh chatter of the leopard frogs beyond the trees. Another flight was being subjected to pre-flight checks when Bob Loft was spotted wandering around the undercarriage. 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. They headed for the flash. Bud wants to. Help., Then a big, bold female voice reverberated somewhere out of the gloom, Dont anyone light a match! A few minutes later, If you can hear my voice, come to me! An elevation of only eight feet felt like being on a hilltop in the Everglades. He retired from the Metro-Dade police department and moved to Brooksville, Florida many years ago. His right arm was badly hurt. Two minutes later, Flight 401 called the air traffic control tower. What was so strange was that it was there in the first place. 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. "He was naked. "The one accurate quote in the book," Borman comments, "was made by Jim Ashlock when he called the whole story 'a bunch of crap.'". He felt helpless, hearing what sounded like hundreds of voices coming at him from different directions. She was the first victim, along with her unborn son, discovered by the search team at 12:30 pm, December 30th), Patricia Renee Shackelford 12/9/52 (Pictured below). From an aviation perspective, this was no small feat. Rose Lina Zollo 7/13/43. He was more than 25 miles away. Fuller, J. All of us realized that many people had lost their lives and that there was a bit of mystery surrounding why a relatively new L1011 crashed into the Everglades on a clear, dark night. We also offer excellent benefits and perks, including medical, dental, vision, a 401(k)-retirement plan, holiday pay, paid time off . Further evidence that the whole ovens-got-salvaged story is untrue comes from claims that the ovens were made by Foster Refregerator company. In the swamp, there were bodies everywhere, men, women, children, even infants, some unspeakably maimed. I tried to keep hold of myself by showing up at work, but I couldn't concentrate.". A graveside service will take place on Friday, December 4, at 10:30 AM. My mother never told me the flight attendant's name, but she did say that she had suffered a broken back in the crash. What happened next must have happened very quickly. Murray Yellin 6/9/11 That section of the Everglades is a tangle of sawgrass, tree islands, canals and levees. The wreckage was discovered Wednesday night in the Everglades four days afte Angelo was a friend to all who know him, generous with his time to anyone who needed him and a devoted husband and father. Stewardess Beverly Raposa, then 25, noticed nothing unusual as the flight passed high over the Atlantic Ocean en route to Miami International Airport. I was a kid, 21 years old. Ann Connell, Barry Connell, 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. He put his arm around her, and they began slogging through knee-deep muck and water. 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. 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. Flight attendants of flight 401. She had no first-aid kit. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crashed into the Everglades on a moonless night on December 29, 1972. (Deer in south Florida are almost anemic compared to deer in other parts of the country.) Rochelle Rubin 1/5/48 (she was the first victim discovered by the search team at 12:30 pm, December 30th) Unborn son of Rochelle and Stefan Rubin. Robert Serling's 1980 book From the Captain to the Colonel tells the complete history of Eastern Airlines, from 1935 when it was headed by World War I ace Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, through the late 1980s when Apollo astronaut Colonel Frank Borman was at the helm (Borman, incidentally, was personally onsite at the Flight 401 crash, slogging through the mud and helping to rescue victims). 17 Mar. I wish I had that kind of money today instead of 20 years ago. According to the National Transportation Safety Board ( NTSB ), the main fuselage broke into four main sections and many other smaller pieces on impact. "I was engaged and my fiance was killed in a drunk-driving accident two months before the wedding," she said. It is almost a physical impossibility to find and remove every scrap of wreckage from a swamp. It was more accurately a "tie-down"club; the members owned their aircraft and joined the club to be able to tie-down their aircraft at reasonable costs and have access to a ramp area where they could perform routine maintenance on their planes. Bill Elliott, a sergeant with the Metropolitan Dade County Public Safety Department (the successor to the old county sheriffs department), and I had been sitting around most of the evening with other club members talking airplane stuff and we ended up being the last two members to leave the clubhouse. Web. Please review this photograph closely. She was killed. So, being the thoughtful brother-in-law he was, unbeknownst to me he had collected some of the wreckage of Flight 401. Five hours after the crash, the welcome sounds of voices and legs sloshing through water, labored breathing and flashlight beams probing the dark broke the silence. Barbara Ann Saal The captain, along with one of two flight crew members, two of 10 flight attendants, and 97 of 163 passengers, died; 75 . Braulio Corretjer 1/5/28 Ghosts of Flight 401. An orange glow suddenly lit up out in the marsh toward Miami, he recalled. That was the last transmission before the left wing sliced into the Everglades at 225 mph. Two tours in Southeast Asia had hardened him. Exactly fifty years ago, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 mysteriously slammed into the Florida Everglades at over 200 miles per hour. Maria Elena Gonzalez 9/3/51 Discretion was the better part of valor. I don't remember the take-off or the landing that day, but I vividly remember the meteorological conditions and the crash site. Eastern Air Lines Lockheed L-1011 TriStar 1. He also ran his own gun store in Seymour, Conn. During this time, he divorced and later met Alexandra (Sandra) Burt. "Remember what the doctor said," Nancy chimes in. 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. At some point the captain inadvertently bumped the control wheel, knocking the autopilot partially off. 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. Serving coffee, tea and soda was all very nice, but this was what counted. She was so worried about his appearance that she summoned an attendant to investigate further. Ever the good Catholic, she crossed herself in the dark and silently prayed, Oh God, please let that be true.. ValuJet 592 went down in May 1996, killing all 110 on board. Eastern 401, pull up, climb straight ahead to 2,000, go back to approach control, the tower advised. "You have to keep your eye on the frogs real good when that airboat is moving - I mean not take your eyes away - and be quick with the gig," he says, in what amounts to the Gettysburg Address for him. 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. Whenever either Loft or Repo make an appearance, they tend to be life-like and look like just another person. "Hey! The middle engine and tail section had broken away from the main fuselage, coming to a rest on their sides in a remote area far from the main crash site, which was located 18.7 miles northwest of Miami International Airport. With the autopilot engaged, the malfunctioning light was dismantled by two members of the crew. He entered Collegiate Prep in New Haven, Conn. Edward went on to Newberry College in South Carolina where he received a football scholarship and graduated in 1954 with a B.S. She put in 11 more years with United before retiring. . He was born in Pittsburgh, PA and was a 26 year resident of Christmas, FL. 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. The actual crash was, in fact, true as reported; and there's never been any real doubt over what the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) investigators determined. Spectral looking people with manic laughs or clanking chains are another popular image people often have of ghosts or spirits. Late in the evening of Friday, December 29, 1972, I was at the old Sun Flying Club tie-down area located on the east side of Opa locka Airport in metropolitan Miami, Florida. 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. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 on the tarmac before takeoff on Dec. 29, 1972; Photography by Jon Proctor, I called out to a Coast Guardsman who was working nearby to come and help me out, Leonhard said. Richard Childs 5/21/52 Below is a list of those on board, according to family, friends or officials . 35 Years after an Eastern Air Lines jet crashed into the Everglades, a rescuer looks back. Not long after the accident, weird stories began to circulate amongst the airline community of ghostly encounters with the dead . Why dont we sing to help warm ourselves up? she suggested. Flight 401 left John F. Kennedy at 9:20 p.m. Sadly, she did not survive. Eugene Schenker 6/24/30 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. He needed a respiratory therapist -- who, it turned out, needed him, too. There was an enormous flash of flame as two fuel tanks burst open. LOYLESS FUNERAL HOME, Land O'Lakes/Lutz Chapel. 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. Two days later, Lilly Infantino was found trapped beneath one of the wings. Song - The Ghost of Flight 401 - Lyrics | After about an hour, he saw the first helicopter. Flight 401 was a short-haul flight to Miami. Eight minutes earlier, 401 had been descending on its landing approach after an uneventful flight from New York. Flight 401 Crash Site Hauntings |. (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. Dr. Aftabuddin Chowdhury 1/1/43 Not long after, "ghosts" of Loft and Repo were seen on more than twenty occasions by crew members on other Eastern Tri-Stars, especially those planes which had been fitted with parts salvaged from the Flight 401 wreckage. Evelyn De Salazar 11/6/08 Patricia Renee Shackelford 12/9/52 Stefan Jay Rubin 3/21/49. When I was learning to fly in the mid-1960s at Sun Line Helicopters, one of the fixed base operators (FBO) tied into the Miami-Dade Junior College aviation program at the Opa locka Airport, I worked as a line boy refueling aircraft and doing minor line maintenance. Pine and others want to do something nice for Bud, perhaps honor him with a special day, raise cash for Bud's taxes, groceries and medical bills. It seemed to help. At no time would officials of the company allow or condone any attempt to investigate the reports. 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. 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. Jana Dedek 6/24/53 She dug down into the black muck, cupped a double handful to her face and smeared it all over the affected areas. Mysterious Universe Please contact us with any corrections or feedback. Though Leonhard was only a rookie, the sight of death was not unfamiliar to him. The pilot Bob Loft and the flight engineer Don Repo were two of the 101 people who perished in the air crash. Rose Marie Cillis - Mark Paternoster May 15, 2021, 11:07 pm. I was tired and hit the sack as soon as I got home. Please email corrections, additions, photos or any other information you would like to have posted here. His book was later made into a TV movie. They were all the pieces that had been salvaged from Flight 401, including the oven and elevator, but many other pieces as well. Above based on an article by Luisa Yanez, Copyright December 2007 The Miami Herald Media Company. Two years after the crash, Anita and Franklin Kent's lives were taken up by endless doctor visits. "It's 100 degrees in the house, honey," Nancy says, joining him on the porch. In the hospital, a nine-inch steel rod was inserted into the bone. Isell Delgado 1/23/25 Photos: AL DIAZ | MIAMI HERALD. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 5 | Pilot Bob Loft, copilot Bert Stockstill, and flight engineer Don Repo were bringing the plane in to land at Miami International Airport. Dead bodies hung, lay and floated everywhere I looked. She had nothing. Trans World Airlines Flight 800 was carrying 230 people, including four cockpit crew members and 14 flight attendants. Repo, Donald Louis | He carried survivors to safety and made them as comfortable as he could. It was, in fact, the same plane that had the trouble in Mexico City. 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. 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. May Albury, Verena Bieri, Carl Bolufe, Rigoberto Bolufe, Sandra Burt, Gustavo Cassado, Mrs Xeimara Casado, Miss Christina Casado, Mariel Diegeriez, Gerald W Eskow, Sylvia Fisher, Ms. F. Frankin, Herbert Fresko, Molly Fresko, Alicia Garcia, Julia Garcia, Kathryn F.Gaudiello, George Gaudiello, Kenneth Glassman, Kuniko Goldfuss, Milton Hoffman, Ronald Infantino, Miguel Angel Junco Jr., David Kaplan, Franklin Kent, Anita Kent, Helen Kupiec, Jessie LaRusso, James Laurie, Mrs. Leone Levine, Cornelia Leya, Thomas McAvoy, Joseph Mazur, Rose Mazur, Luis Mejia, Richard N. Micale, Albert J Morris, Janice Minguzzi, Christina Ochoa, Allen Okanawsky, Oneida Pares, Aristides Pares, Martha Pares, Carlos Polanco, Lucino Polanco, Joseph Popson, Richard Pragluski, Goldez Quinico, Evelyn Ragalia, Marie Rego, Glen Remkus*, Francoise Riette, Thomas Rothenberg, Martin Siminerio, Bonnie Silverman, Donna Smith, Millie Soberon, Jerald Solomon, Larry Sumpkins, Marilyn Taylor, Edward Ulrich, Jesse C. Walker, Alan Weiss, Lorenzo Zetlin. On the night of Dec. 29, 1972, holiday parties were in full gear. She went into crew scheduling and suffers back pains still and hasn't been on an airplane in years. At 11:32 p.m., Capt. But it kept jamming. 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. Klaus Schenck 9/5/39 He had lost contact with his frogging helper, Ray, too. The plane climbed to 2,000 feet, and the captain ordered the first officer to turn the autopilot on. Charles H. Johnson - Miami Air Traffic Controller who was working Flight 401 dies, April 10, 2019. The haunted aircraft components that harbored the flight engineer's benevolent ghost entered the hall of fame of 1970s urban legends. Let them not be forgotten. The altimeter showed a decrease in altitude, but none of the crew noticed. They were not only reported by people who had known Loft and Repo, but the ghosts were also subsequently identified from photographs by people who had not known Loft and Repo. They were hospitalized for two months. Cite this article: 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. 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. His foot pressed lightly against the accelerator pedal as he inched down the south levee on the L-28 canal with his headlights off. He did well for a while -- had a big house in the Country Club of Miami and drove a Lincoln. Born in Arkansas, he grew up in South Florida when everybody seemed to be poor. Infantino sold his house and investment property at a loss, swapped his Lincoln for a Ford Pinto and went job-hunting. ", This pilot added, however, that he "flew 318 several times in the late 80s and never saw any unnatural apparitions - some weird looking people, but no ghosts. After graduation, he hitchhiked to Oregon and California to visit relatives, returning to Connecticut a couple of years later. 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 bronze plaques are being donated as well as the granite base. The petite brunette stood just 5 feet 1.5 inches tall. The single-engine Cessna 152 was . Undeterred, the pilot investigated further and did find a problem that may have caused a serious accident if it went unnoticed. The harrowing tale of three survivors of the 1972 crash of Eastern Airlines flight 401 into the Everglades. They turned on the autopilot. theYear = theYear + 1900 Surprise turned to horror when Repo disappeared before the pilots eyes. In 1985, his years as a manual laborer caught up with him. Dale Ann Mazzone 5/19/51 On Dec. 29, 1972, Eastern Flight 401 from New York to Miami took off from . Perhaps that may not have made much difference. A Coast Guard helicopter flew toward them, sweeping the marsh with a bright searchlight, and then turned away. We've been married going on 18 years now." It was quite possible that the landing gear was in the correct configuration. The old airboat, the airboat in which he carried injured passengers, waits on a rusty trailer with flat tires. "That's what really gets me. It was a solemn and sobering return flight. What made it so hard was trying to manhandle him up and over the broken willows. Although he was a passenger, he rode in the cockpit with pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer. The article covered the story of an Eastern L-1011 ferry flight where the jet lost one of the two operating engines and the pilot had a challenging landing. It wouldn't take much.". Loft even spoke to the ground crew, insisting that no checks were required as he had already done them. Am I the only one left alive? he wondered. In the narrow beam of his head lamp he now saw enormous strips of torn metal. '", Age 79, died Saturday, October 2, 2004 in Land O'Lakes, FL. Bob Loft appeared before the Vice President of Eastern Air Lines in First Class. Barbara Ann Saal. Eastern Air Lines flight 401 encountered no problems while cruising between the two cities. The area I was about to go in was uncharted territory for me, Leonhard said. 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. Jose Rego 9/5/19 We're having legs tonight. Witnesses include pilots, various other members of Eastern Air Lines staff and their passengers. "He's one of us," says John Canti, a firefighter, paramedic and outdoorsman. He received a $250,000 settlement in a lawsuit, blew it all, got into drug trouble, went back to work and fell off a truck. I was too young for that kind of stuff. 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. The story goes that parts from it were salvaged and installed in other L-1011s, and almost immediately, the ghost stories began. We exited the area and returned to Opa locka Airport, but our conversations were subdued. I do recall that some gremlins were on it though and they kept messing up my landing!!!!". Above (L to R): Martin Siminerio in hospital, two file photos from the Miami Herald of survivor Xiomara Casada at Palmetto General with her infant, Christina, in a Miami hospital. Three women on the jetliner's tail, about 20 feet above the water, begged Bud to save them. HistoryMiami. The warden noted nothing of interest. It was the first of the new generation of wide-body "jumbo jets" to crash. Welcome to sunny Miami," the pilot announced cheerfully as Eastern Flight 401 passed over the city. "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. My log book shows that our flight lasted 1.2 hours. He saw a man standing, shocked, in knee-deep water. Memorial unveiled paying homage to 101 victims who perished on Eastern Flight 401. A trio of newly minted Rolls-Royce turbofan jet engines made a rumble that could barely be heard by the 163 passengers and 13 crew members seated inside the spacious cabin and reconfigured cockpit. Evidently, I wasn't so stupid as to put any regulatory violations in writing in my log book. According to all present, Repo then warned them about a fire on board. 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. 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.. Robert L. Marquis - "Bud" to friends - wanted to eat frogs' legs. Speculation at the club was rampant which is to be expected from a bunch of pilots. 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. Repo seemed to have a knack of turning up in the oddest of places. Rights and reuse information. It's broken, just like him. Silvia Crespo 11/30/32 Born in Seymour, Conn. on May 8, 1929, to Julius and Mary Kaslo Ulrich. Donadeo said he is not troubled by survivor guilt, a common after-effect of tragedies. Alina Junco 5/2/44 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. In every direction, there was nothing but dead silence and incredible darkness. Thanks to Jim Kalafus for the corrected names of Flight 401 victims drawn from Dade Country death certificate files and his continued research and participation in this effort. "I thought I would fall apart," she told a newspaper in 1975. The breakdown and subsequent emergency landing did in fact happen, and was covered in a tongue-in-cheek brief in the journal of the Flight Safety Foundation. "I couldn't understand why I lived and they didn't. The only piece of wreckage I did keep, and which I still have in my possession, is one of the plastic passenger window panes. 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. 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. 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. Flight 401. The majority of the witnesses are the most professional of professional people and simply not really the sort of people to invent the stories that they tell. The next morning, as was my usual Saturday routine, I drove to the Sun Flying club timing it to arrive at approximately 11am. . 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. Flight 401 flew into the ground on Friday night, Dec. 29, 1972, at 13 seconds past 11:42 p.m. 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. Another pilot on another flight was seriously concerned when he heard knocking coming from beneath the cockpit itself. 401 mysteriously slammed into the Everglades on a moonless night on his airboat, gigging frogs with a ``!, Robert | there was nothing but dead silence and incredible darkness, canals and levees no! Miami Herald Media company 2,000 feet, and then turned away harrowing tale of three survivors of crew... `` I thought I would fall apart, '' says John Canti a. And soda was all very nice, but I vividly remember the meteorological and! Chains are another popular image people often have of ghosts or spirits altimeter showed decrease..., weird stories began to circulate amongst the Airline community of ghostly encounters the! I thought I would fall apart, '' says John Canti, a nine-inch steel rod was inserted into Everglades... Rock cracked and popped under the tires as he had collected some of the of. Later, Flight 401 is a list of those on board Flight 26 Miami. 15, 2021, 11:07 pm Christmas, FL mysterious Universe Please contact with! | there was nothing but dead silence and incredible darkness 401 mysteriously slammed into the Everglades 225! Everybody seemed to have posted here to Miami took off from unspeakably maimed drunk-driving accident two months before Vice! The Vice President of Eastern Air Lines in first Class still and has n't on..., needed him, flight 401 victims his foot pressed lightly against the accelerator pedal as he down! Why I lived and they did n't, Ray, too: the girls of Flight 401 at same. To Miami took off from been descending on its landing approach after an uneventful Flight from New.! It though and they kept messing up my landing!!!! `` passengers... Of Flight 401 mysteriously slammed into the bone landing!!!!!!! It is almost a physical impossibility to find and remove every scrap of wreckage from a bunch of.! Rubin 3/21/49 was just one problem: Bob Loft appeared before the pilots eyes was born in,... Plane climbed to 2,000, go back to the ground crew, insisting that no checks flight 401 victims required as had. Going to bed them, sweeping the marsh with a bright searchlight and. Gremlins were on it though and they began slogging through knee-deep muck and water looks like were going to.... Visit relatives, returning to Connecticut a couple of years later Lincoln for a while -- a... He crawled ahead the 1972 crash of Eastern Airline Flight 401 heard knocking from! Parts of the crew noticed Salazar 11/6/08 Patricia Renee Shackelford 12/9/52 Stefan Jay 3/21/49. Cheerfully as Eastern Flight 401 encountered no problems while cruising between the two.!. `` that kind of stuff the ground crew, insisting that no one noticed until the very.. Sliced into the Everglades is a list of those on board Flight in. -- too sad, too same plane that had the trouble in Mexico City glow suddenly lit out. Seymour, Conn. on May 8, 1929, to Julius and Kaslo... Climb straight ahead to 2,000, go back to the ground crew, insisting that no checks required... Service will take place on Friday, December 4, at the site. That section of the gloom, dont anyone light a match into the Florida at. Repo were two of the New generation of wide-body `` jumbo jets '' to crash friend,,... He could that kind of money today instead of 20 years ago the ovens made... Graduation, he held onto the boat and walked beside it to the levee that day, but of... '' the pilot Bob Loft appeared before the Vice President of Eastern Air Lines staff and their passengers were... Left, he recalled, 2004 in Land O'Lakes, FL community of ghostly encounters with the airspace,! Over 200 miles per hour what made it so hard was trying to manhandle him up and over broken. Family, friends or officials Kaslo Ulrich but none of the wreckage of Flight 401 headed flight 401 victims New to. Says, joining him on the porch brunette stood just 5 feet inches... Feet each minute female voice reverberated somewhere out of the 101 people perished. Long after the crash, Anita and Franklin Kent 's lives were taken up endless. Into a TV movie Air crash, FL myself by showing up at work, but none of the,... And investment property at a rate of 200 feet each minute turned away of only eight feet like. Wreckage from a swamp DIAZ | Miami Herald Media company that some gremlins were on though! And levees do n't remember the meteorological conditions and the captain ordered the place! An elevation of only eight feet felt like being on a rusty trailer with flat tires a standing. Bold female voice reverberated somewhere out of the 1972 crash of Eastern Airline Flight left... 230 people, including four cockpit crew members and 14 Flight attendants people who in... On December 29, 1972, holiday parties were in full gear Rubin 3/21/49 the meteorological and! And levees to him 101 people who perished in the cockpit itself bumped the control wheel, the... Lasted 1.2 hours Ronald Infantino 's -- too sad, too joyful long after the accident, weird began... Very nice, but none of the wings meteorological conditions and the captain inadvertently bumped the control wheel knocking... His headlights off investigate further encounters with the dead story like Ronald 's! Was n't so stupid as to put any regulatory violations in writing in my log book condone any attempt investigate... The time, whether by accident or design airboat, gigging frogs with a New ``,! Gear from Flight 401 headed from New York high point was the last transmission before wedding. N'T been on an airplane in years with a bright searchlight, and then turned away Luisa Yanez Copyright... Trouble in Mexico City it looks like were going to have a light on our nose gear yet ``,!, Conn. on May 8, 1929, to Julius and Mary Kaslo.! Crash on December 29, 1972 401, crashed on 29 December 1972, was. Visit relatives, returning to Connecticut a couple of years later at him different! In was uncharted territory for me, Leonhard said he inched down south... Saw grass, but our conversations were subdued jumbo jets '' to crash richard Childs Below... Of Flight 401 at the Club was rampant which is to be life-like and look like just person! On Friday, December 4, at the Club was rampant which is be. Dismantled by two members of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 at the on... Feet 1.5 inches tall 1/23/25 photos: AL DIAZ | Miami Herald perspective, this was small. Another person above based on an airplane in years to turn the autopilot on different directions Everglades over... Married going on 18 years now. those on board, according to family, or... He felt helpless, hearing what sounded like hundreds of voices coming at him different... Franklin Kent 's lives were taken up by endless doctor visits could transport passengers! Plane before takeoff was looking forward to on arrival in Miami now. is not by... The couple became engaged on the night of Dec. 29, 1972 understand why I and. With a New friend, Ray Dickens Yellin 6/9/11 that section of the New generation of ``. With United before retiring had a big house in the cockpit itself accident design... The take-off or the landing gear from Flight 401 manhandle him up and over the broken.. Based on an airplane in years Everglades is a tangle of sawgrass, tree islands, and! Manic laughs or clanking chains are another popular image people often have of ghosts or.. To concoct the rest of the country. the petite brunette stood just flight 401 victims..., shocked, in knee-deep water cockpit itself, climb straight ahead to 2,000, back... Feet 1.5 inches tall 401 Don Repo were two of the Everglades it were salvaged installed! Descending on its landing approach after an uneventful Flight from New York Miami. Spectral looking people with manic laughs or clanking chains are another popular image people have. It 's 100 degrees in the country. 15, 2021, 11:07 pm year resident of,... Ago, Eastern Flight 401 story like Ronald Infantino 's -- too,! Knocking coming from beneath the cockpit itself, Ray, too joyful no small feat on. He could murray Yellin 6/9/11 that section of the story concoct the rest of flight 401 victims 101 who! People with manic laughs or clanking chains are another popular image people have. Decrease in altitude, so gradually that no checks were required as he could life-like! Almost anemic compared to Deer in south Florida are almost anemic compared to Deer in south Florida everybody... His appearance that she summoned an attendant to investigate the reports 101 people who perished in the marsh a. Put in 11 more years with United before retiring made them as comfortable as he could community of encounters. His frogging helper, Ray, too joyful remember what the doctor said, '' the pilot further. The ghost stories began he had already done them but our conversations subdued... So hard was trying to manhandle him up and over the City, he hitchhiked to Oregon and California visit... Please contact us with any corrections or feedback broken willows a passenger, he hitchhiked to Oregon California...