In 1972 he was a young carpenter who liked living fast. I'm pretty sure that Tom Roche and Bob Crews were two of the "lucky" ones that got aboard, but I couldn't swear to it now. Leonhard doesnt remember which one. [26], Flight 401 is mentioned in the TV show Supernatural Season 1 Episode 4 named Phantom Traveler's. Bill Elliott had a much more eventful night. My direct and indirect contact with Eastern Flight 401 didn't end on December 30, 1972. 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.. I don't pretend to understand why it happens. Johnson, Charles | I especially remember Bill describing passengers who apparently survived the crash impact, but were knocked unconscious and were still strapped into their seats. In the cockpit: Capt. If you hear my voice, come toward me. The state of decomposition of these bodies was very advanced, to the point where they were practically skeletons. "I could get it running," he says, fighting for breath. [25] A television movie of the same name was broadcast in October 1978. I was coping with someone who was disabled. NTSB Crash Report (Flight 401) | Pedro Garcia 2/10/26 He was mentioned in a book, The Crash of Flight 401, later made into a B-movie, and helped a Hollywood writer with the awful Ghosts of Flight 401, about commercial jets haunted by the dead pilots. A dramatization of the jetliner crash into the Florida Everglades in December 1972, and the rescue of seventy-three passengers (103 died), made up primarily of recognizable TV personalities plus famed bandleader Artie Shaw in his TV-movie debut. Infantino also won a large legal settlement and lost everything. That's where the helicopters, one after another, landed that night, and where ambulances arrived to load the dead and injured. He'd launch his airboat at the Miccosukee Indian Reservation on the Tamiami Trail and race north into the river of grass. I don't see any reason to worry about what fate has brought. Burning jet fuel engulfed the aircraft as it plowed through the swamp. After retiring he volunteered with the Civil Air Patrol, his last rank was Lt. Unable to move and weak from severe loss of blood, his body hung suspended in the watery muck, still bent in the sitting position. Below Left - In red, stewardess Beverly Raposa at the memorial. 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 saw a man standing, shocked, in knee-deep water. 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. Of course, hearing them from the porch isn't the same as being in the middle of them armed with a gig, taking a long breath of Everglades air, feeling utterly alive. [5]:13. The crash occurred while the entire flight crew were preoccupied with a burnt-out landing gear indicator light. Bernard A. Goldfuss 11/2/22 Most of what we talked about on the return to the airport was speculation on our part as to how the plane crashed, not why it crashed. The Ghosts of Flight 401, part of the Discovery+ series Shock Docs, emphasizes the supernatural legacy of the crash. The Flight 401 Was A Normal Flight | They even made cheesy movie about it. The altimeter showed a decrease in altitude, but none of the crew noticed. A glance out a window, after all, would have shown nothing but the black Everglades below. HONOLULU, FEB. 25 -- As investigators questioned the pilots and ground crew today, Coast Guard and Navy rescue workers recovered from the Pacific two seats and a 4-by-6-foot . Raposa popped the release buckle and fell into the marsh, landing on her hands and knees. It was only then that it had hit him. At least he lives near his precious Everglades. We've been married going on 18 years now." A scene from the TV movie "The Crash of Flight 401" (1978), Eastern Airlines Flight 401: The Ghosts of Memories Past. She found a section of the cabin with a stewardess still strapped into her seat-belt harness. The television movie The Ghost of Flight 401, which was broadcast on NBC during February 1978, offers a fictionalized depiction of the crash and alleged ghost sightings. From his vantage point atop the levee, Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission Officer Gray Leonhard, then 24 years old, had a commanding view across the vast darkened marsh. Before a bad back forced an early retirement, Bud laid carpet, grew avocados and worked as a game warden in the Everglades. Jesus Lorenzo 4/26/37 He felt helpless, hearing what sounded like hundreds of voices coming at him from different directions. We had him out by 5:30 in the morning. During a rare moment of calm after the rescue helicopter had departed for Miami, he heard the faint tune of a Christmas carol. Front row: Sue Tebbs, Dottie Warnock, Beverly Raposa, Stephanie Stanich. I guess their clothes got blown off them.". But the passengers were her peopleher responsibilityand it was still her job to help them. "I could empathize with what Ron was going through. Still, $50,000 will have to be raised in order to erect the memorial. 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. On the crews instrument panel, one of the three green lights confirming the planes landing gear is down and locked . In a weak voice, one of them asked, What about the alligators?, Raposa didnt hesitate: We made such a loud noise when we hit. It seemed to help. At least they thought they had. [15][16][17], These stories speculated that parts of the crashed aircraft were salvaged after the investigation and refitted into other L-1011s. Robert L. Marquis - "Bud" to friends - wanted to eat frogs' legs. She put in 11 more years with United before retiring. Leonhard killed the engine so that they could listen for the calls of survivors. 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. Janice Testa 9/12/52 That was the first time I had heard of the crash. Two minutes later, Flight 401 called the air traffic control tower. "He's one of us," says John Canti, a firefighter, paramedic and outdoorsman. (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 . The slight forward pressure on the stick would have caused the aircraft to enter a slow descent, maintained by the CWS system. It looked as though the L1011 was in a shallow left turn and dragged the left wing tip in the swamp. He and his wife, Donna, live in Christmas, a small town between Orlando and Cape Canaveral. The FAA guy sitting closest to Leonhard yelled, Holy shit!, An airboat doesnt have brakes, Leonhard explained. He wanted me to be the pilot (no objection from me) and he would occupy the co-pilot's seat. Patricia George was on top of the coat closet. Eugene Schenker 6/24/30 She wore panty hose and looked like shed been scalped with a razor. Stefan Jay Rubin 3/21/49 By that time, I had also earned a commercial pilot license with airplane single and multi-engine and instrument ratings. [5]:4 This altitude alert, designed to warn the pilots of an inadvertent deviation from the selected altitude, went unnoticed by the crew. Why dont we sing to help warm ourselves up? she suggested. I come from an Eastern family - my mother, Betty Olson, retired from Eastern in 1976. 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. On September 4, 1954, Santiago Airlines Flight 513 departed from Aachen, West Germany, destined for Porto Alegre, Brazil. I should add that Dorothy R. Loft and her two children, Kimberly and Robert, Jr sued Fuller for invasion of privacy over the book . This killed the First Officer instantly. Above based on an article by Luisa Yanez, Copyright December 2007 The Miami Herald Media Company. (The club is still in existence at the Opa locka Airport, but it was relocated to a different site on the field years ago.) The Ghosts of Eastern Flight 401. Back row: Pat Ghyssels, Trudy Smith, Adrianne Hamilton and Mercy Ruiz. Other than those observations, I don't recall much more from that flight. itinerary data, aircraft/flight or vessel/ voyage data, and personal identification information, including name, gender, date of birth, citizenship, travel document data, and status onboard the vessel or aircraft. Then wham! Bud wants to. With the aircraft in mid-turn, the left wingtip hit the surface first, then the left engine and the left landing gear,[5]:8 making three trails through the sawgrass, each 5ft (1.5m) wide and more than 100ft (30m) long. Above: A piece of wreckage from Flight 401 still visible in the Everglades. Back in the day, when he spent so much time in the wilderness, only the airplanes overhead reminded him of civilization. "Then I saw this great big fireball and the whole 'glades lit up. He was a retired aircraft Engineer with Eastern Airlines in Miami, a survivor of the December 1972 crash of the L-1011 in the Everglades, and a Navy veteran of WWII. Above: Flight attendants Beverly Raposa and Mercy Ruiz sit on a patch of ground in the Everglades where their flight crashed 35 years earlier. 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. The death toll per the final accident report was 99. Survivors described a flash or spark that exploded through the cabin as the jet ripped apart. Flight 401 Survivors, Years After the Crash and Memorial Efforts. 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. No more clothes on his body .". ValuJet Flight 592 was a domestic passenger flight between Miami International Airport, Miami, Florida, and William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta, Georgia that crashed into the Everglades on May 11, 1996 as a result of a fire in the cargo compartment caused by improperly stored cargo, killing all 110 people on board. For survivors, the crash has left physical and mental scars. [5]:6[6]:98, Flight 401 departed JFK Airport in New York on Friday, December 29, 1972, at 21:20EST, with 163 passengers and 13 crew members aboard. On the night of December 29th, 1972, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 took off from New York and headed towards Miami, Florida. Maureen I. Chesler 10/12/47 Miami International Airport Sighting | Branches had been recently snapped off all the way around the opening, all pointing inward. Wrong. Interment will follow at 2pm at Florida National Cemetery. Off I went to check with the FAA Flight Service Station. He ended up making numerous trips out to the levee where the rescue operation base was located. James Yandolino 3/7/52 Two tours in Southeast Asia had hardened him. The hours passed, and still no rescuers had arrived. [5]:4 For the next 80 seconds, the airplane maintained level flight. Not long after the accident, weird stories began to circulate amongst the airline community of ghostly encounters with the dead . A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 298 passengers crashed in eastern Ukraine on Thursday while traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. "You didn't have nothing to worry about," he'd tell her, finding a seat on the porch, from where he could hear the barred owls and their singular "who-cooks-for-you" calls, exciting and mournful at once. Mildred Katz 1/8/34 He had logged 280 hours in the L-1011. "It survived that night, just like me. There were 176 people aboard the state-of-the-art Lockheed L-1011, which was nicknamed the. The death toll at the time was the highest of any one-plane accident in U.S. civil aviation history. Rons eyes blinked open upon hearing the engines roar to full power. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The Ghost of Flight 401 (TV Movie 1978) - IMDb, Official Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 - History, Photos, Survivors and Tribute, The Ghost of Flight 401 (TV 1978) - YouTube, Flight 401 - Flight Crew Fatal Photograph, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 - Crash Investigation, Findings and Passenger List - Official Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 - History, Photos, Survivors and Tribute. 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. Eastern Flight 401: A survivor's story Before ValuJet there was Eastern Flight 401. Flipping through the pages, Bud smiles for the first time in hours. That credo seems to be exemplified in every major airplane crash. The flight is referenced as part of the Bob Welch song "The Ghost of Flight 401" on his 1979 album Three Hearts. She returns with a musty volume that smells like a lion's den. 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. Tennessee's Music City combines country, bluegrass, rock, pop, Americana, gospel, classical, jazz, and bluesall in perfect harmonyto create one of the best places in the world to remember music's greatest performers, see today's top artists, and maybe discover the next big thing. 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. 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. Develop, execute, and document the system verification plan for flight and representative hardware at the system level and validate the as-built system prior to launch. It is featured in season1, episode3, of the TV show Why Planes Crash, in an episode called "Human Error" (2010). (The largest L1011 operators then at MIA were Eastern Airlines and Delta Airlines, but I don't recall seeing any airline markings when the L1011 was overhead.) Infantino, 47, is an independent insurance broker in San Antonio, a few minutes' drive from home in Dade City. Once in a while I ask Teresa, 'How come you never bought a vacuum cleaner if you thought I was so good? The flight should have taken around 18 hours. 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. Im sure they all ran away. She spit the words out quickly, doing her best to sound convincing. 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