Jose Garcia 6/4/47 101 out of the 176 occupants onboard the . Pilots and flight attendants frequently saw Don Repo after that, and always he gave them some valuable maintenance note about the aircraft. Warren Terry 2/16/34 "Hey, what's happening here?" DALLAS - December 29, 2022, will mark a half-century since the fatal crash of Eastern Air Lines (EA) Flight 401. He had promised to show a slight acquaintance, Ray Dickinson, how to gig frogs. Theyre not going to find us, an anxious passenger whispered. By about 3:15 a.m., Raposas flock of survivors had all been rescued. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the, Hospice of Southern Maine 390 US Route One, Scarborough, ME 04074. Renee Joaquin Albert 8/3/36 At first, witnesses reported nothing more severe than standing in the aisles, occupying the galley and cockpit. I probably did too, I'm sure." One time, a working flight attendant insisted that she saw an engineer working to repair an oven. Incredibly, we found a man sitting alone on a small tussock. In 1985, his years as a manual laborer caught up with him. A STEM-focused 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit. Ghosts of Flight 401. In my mind, that makes him a real hero.". The flight, destined for Kyiv, Ukraine, took off on Jan. 8, 2020 from Tehran . document.write(theYear) Flamingo Magazine, This Recent University of Tampa Graduate Just Won the Florida Filmmaker Award. On December of 1972, an Eastern Airlines Tri-Star jetliner, Flight 401, crashed into a Florida swamp. Leonhard happened to be looking southeast across the glades. Marquis waved his headlamp in circles, guiding the pilots to the crash. It's time to change that, say survivors and families of the victims, who hope to raise $15,000 for a granite block containing the names of those who died. Klaus Schenck 9/5/39 The other flight crew members were First Officer John Stockhill, a flight engineer, and Donald Luis Repo, an aircraft mechanic, and flight engineer. They didn't find each other until morning. "I consider the survivors 75 miracles. 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. 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.. Although he was a passenger, he rode in the cockpit with pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer. Ron Infantino woke up in a chill, heart pounding, breath erratic. Bud no longer worked as a game warden - his day job was laying carpet. Colonel. Some believethat Eastern Air Lines cannibalized and reused pieces of the wreckage in other airliners. 18 Jan 2023. "It's 100 degrees in the house, honey," Nancy says, joining him on the porch. 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. Officially, Eastern Air Lines denied anything was wrong with their aircraft or personnel. | Also notable were the Eastern Airlines two-tone blue and white colors on the larger pieces of wreckage. She left Eastern and worked in the travel agency industry. So far, the Board of Directors of the Curtiss Mansion has graciously given their approval to place the Eastern Airlines Flight 401 Memorial on it's grounds. It was the first of the new generation of wide-body "jumbo jets" to crash. 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. Flight 401 - First Response | Air crews reported seeing apparitions of their dead coworkers on board the planes that had Flight 401's spare parts. At first, the VP just assumed that this was the Captain of the flight he was on. 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. Samuel J. Prager 12/23/03 All three of Loft, Stockstill, and Repo were among the unlucky majority who perished. The FAA guy sitting closest to Leonhard yelled, Holy shit!, An airboat doesnt have brakes, Leonhard explained. Eastern Air Lines Flight 401. 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. Survivors, family members, and friends gathered in Miami Springs for the . The warden noted nothing of interest. While all this was very much in the public domain, reports circulated that aircraft engineers quietly removed any materials they had reused from the crash. (3) 2022 TV-14. Flashlights became part of the standard equipment; flight attendants now have shoulder harnesses whether their seats face forward or backward; the acoustic alerts given to pilots to advise them of changes to the autopilot settings were dramatically improved; and the groundwork was laid for what later became the science of Cockpit Resource Management, which aims to minimize human error by codifying communication, leadership, and decision making in the cockpit. Riding with him were two Federal Aviation Administration officials. It's a swamp, a flat swamp. An orange glow suddenly lit up out in the marsh toward Miami, he recalled. The aircraft disintegrated, scattering wreckage over an area approximately 1600 feet long by 300 feet wide (NTSB). After the horrendous ear-splitting roar of the crash moments before, the sudden silence was unnerving. Under the command of Captain Robert Albin Loft, an expert navigator rated 50th in seniority at Eastern. Evidently, I wasn't so stupid as to put any regulatory violations in writing in my log book. The captain guessed, correctly, that the wheel was all right and the light bad, but he called off the landing and flew away from airport traffic to make sure -- a responsible decision, after which everything else went wrong. A yellow flash. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 2 | The sightings apparently stopped once this was all done. The crash site of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 into the Florida Everglades on Dec. 29, 1972. An Eastern flight attendant posted this scan (below) from his L-1011 FA manual. The left wingtip banked into the marsh at 227 miles per hour. A Florida plane crash scene became even more disturbing when an alligator was spotted devouring the victim's body. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crashed into the Everglades on a moonless night on December 29, 1972. After about an hour, he saw the first helicopter. However, we had one advantage that members of the general public didn't have - we had access to airplanes. Whenever either Loft or Repo make an appearance, they tend to be life-like and look like just another person. A lot of the people I saw were naked. Stefan Jay Rubin 3/21/49 We've been married going on 18 years now." Source Wikimedia Commons, Jon Proctor March 1972. According to my late mother, she wanted to get back to flying, but she was petrified every time she heard jet noise. So, being the thoughtful brother-in-law he was, unbeknownst to me he had collected some of the wreckage of Flight 401. Combined with numerous anonymous witnesses and countless tales, the rumors spread throughout the aviation community. It was a solemn and sobering return flight. (No one had a camera, so I don't have any personal photos.) Once the crisis was over, respiratory therapist Susan Mefford was assigned to Infantino. Captain Bob Loft was also seen on a few occasions, but never as often as Repo. The captain and his first and second officers had every reason to feel good and confident about flying this particular ship. Born in Arkansas, he grew up in South Florida when everybody seemed to be poor. They were both 26 years old. If he saw legs kicking, he turned the seat over. Flight 401 soared above a primordial swampland filled with poisonous snakes and alligators crawling through razor-sharp sawgrass and open-water sloughs. 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. In the cockpit, the first of six radio altimeter warnings began, signaling an impending crash. Anne Ponte 1/7/16 Ron and Fara Infantino, married for 20 days, were coming home from their honeymoon when Flight 401 crashed. That left two seats open. The cloak of black was made all the more intense by the surreal stillness. Flight 401s chain of problems began on the approach to Florida two hours after departure. May Albury, Verena Bieri, Carl Bolufe, Rigoberto Bolufe, Sandra Burt, Gustavo Cassado, Mrs Xeimara Casado, Miss Christina Casado, Ann Connell, Barry Connell, 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, Allen Weiss, Lorenzo Zetlin. Janice Testa 9/12/52 Trudy Smith - Douglas November 6, 2021, 12:23 pm. 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. Outside of the aircraft, there wasnt much in the way of visual cues and city lights were non-existent. 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. Steve Shippy and Cindy Kaza team up to uncover the horrifying truth about the crash of Eastern Flight 401. She put in 11 more years with United before retiring. Like so many such cases, its exploitation of a tragedy for financial gain and publicity was disrespectful to both the victims and the survivors. There were 75 at the time, 20 years ago tonight. The area I was about to go in was uncharted territory for me, Leonhard said. Eastern used the Bowmar/Calrod brand. Leonhard doesnt remember which one. 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. Nicholas Minguzzi 8/5/68 Flight Safety Foundation, 29 Dec. 1972. Imagine his surprise when he came face to face with Don Repo. The bent, white-haired man in the mirror has a bad heart and breathes from an oxygen machine, hasn't been frogging in a coon's age, and hasn't been in his airboat since, well, he can't remember. That was an unsurvivable crash, but we made it out," she said. Donald Stanley Casadona 7/16/38 Rose Lina Zollo 7/13/43. Murray Yellin 6/9/11 Varujan Eskihanci 9/7/25 2017. Of five survivors The Herald located this week, three talked freely about Flight 401. Clutching his walking stick, Bud shuffles past a mango tree into the backyard. Surprisingly, he found that there were large pieces of wreckage still out in the glades. And so, with no actual ghost reports having been made by any actual people, and no haunted components from Flight 401 having been installed in other planes, it follows that the alleged orders from Eastern Air Lines management to remove said components never happened either; as didn't the mechanics who performed the work and made cautious reports of it to Fuller. The cruel facts of this disaster only reinforced my observation that you won't die unless it's your time to die. You know what would make Bud Marquis happy? If you hear my voice, come toward me. None of them realized in the dark that they were gradually descending, as their attention was on debugging the landing gear indicator. Ruiz, 63, of West Miami-Dade, still has aches and pains but returned to flying until Eastern folded in 1991. Flight 401 crash-landed into the Everglades at over 200 mph. 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. Lockheed L-1011 Inside the Hell Hole | He was out that night on his airboat, gigging frogs with a new friend, Ray Dickens. . 2017. Steve Shippy and Cindy Kaza team up to uncover the horrifying truth about the crash of Eastern Flight 401. Repo, Donald Louis | Hey!" Yetta Cohn 3/17/16 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. This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic. Marc Leshay 11/28/51 Fuller's claims that Eastern executives tried to bully their employees into silence about the ghosts led them to nearly file suit against the publisher, but Borman nixed the plan, rightly feeling that doing so would give the book even more publicity. "We consider it the day our second life began," Christina Casado-Acorn, said of Dec. 29, 1972. It became his navigation beacon. Picture that in your mind. This photo was taken by Al Diaz for The Miami Herald special section on the 35th anniversary of the crash. Not a single usable part was salvaged from the wreckage, and not a single component that crashed with Flight 401 was ever installed in another aircraft. Then, on Saturday, December 29, a fleet of over 100 airboats carried survivors, their families and others to the crash site for a special memorial. Flight 401 - Flight Crew Fatal Photograph. He needed a respiratory therapist -- who, it turned out, needed him, too. Onboard the aircraft, all members of the Flight Crew worked solely on their problem. Two later died, leaving 75 survivors and 101 fatalities. The Ghost of Flight 401 was a book of nearly pure fiction, as was the TV movie that followed it. The problem had consumed all their mental energy. He is survived by his daughter in law Lynn Johnson and grandsons Kurtis and Kyle Johnson, all of Florida. He saw bodies of people who appeared to be completely unaffected, who were fully clothed and yet they were dead. A fireman, panting from the exertion of wearing full bunker gear while breaking a trail through the dense vegetation of the swamp, shined his light on Infantino. Web. Infantino, 47, is an independent insurance broker in San Antonio, a few minutes' drive from home in Dade City. Eventually, the investigations were concluded and most, but not all, of the wreckage was removed or salvaged from the Everglades. 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Ponte 1/7/16 ron and Fara Infantino, married for 20 days, were coming from! Walking stick, bud shuffles past a mango tree into the backyard intense the... Blue and white colors on the larger pieces of wreckage still out in dark... This disaster only reinforced my observation that you wo n't die unless 's... But we made it out, '' Nancy says, joining him on the porch only my! J. Prager 12/23/03 all three of Loft, an expert navigator rated 50th in seniority at.! Area approximately 1600 feet long by 300 feet wide ( NTSB ) fully clothed and yet were... Eastern Airlines Flight 401 access to airplanes were two Federal Aviation Administration officials him were two Federal Administration. Realized in the aisles, occupying the galley and cockpit pains but to. Is survived by his daughter in law Lynn Johnson and grandsons Kurtis and Kyle Johnson all... Wide ( NTSB ) passenger, he found that there were large pieces of wreckage out! 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