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. He'd cruise up on the frog, spear the frog with the 3-pronged gig, knock the frog off the gig into a sack, all the while moving forward in the airboat while getting ready to gig another frog. [5]:4 Fifty seconds after reaching their assigned altitude, Captain Loft instructed First Officer Stockstill to put the L-1011 on autopilot. He did well for a while -- had a big house in the Country Club of Miami and drove a Lincoln. The mud of the Everglades may have blocked wounds sustained by survivors, preventing them from bleeding to death. On December 29, 1972, Eastern Air Lines flight 401 left New York's JFK airport and crashed on its approach to Miami, killing 101 of the 176 people on board. by Gary Leff on December 29, 2022. 103 passengers and crew members died in the crash or shortly thereafter and 75 passengers/crew survived. Visitation: Thursday, October 7, from 6pm to 8pm at Loyless Funeral Home Chapel, with a Funeral mass at Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church on Friday at 10am. Instead of landing in . On a moonless night, in the beam of his head lamp, the frog eyes would glow like rubies. It crashed into the Everglades 18.7 miles northwest of the airport, eight miles north of Tamiami. There was a lot of activity on the ground, but we couldn't see much detail from 3,000 feet. The captain had ordered that the landing gear be lowered in. On December 29, 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was the first jumbo jet to crash and the second worst single-plane disaster in America up to that time. Bud saw bodies strapped into seats upside down in the water. On his 1979 album Three Hearts, musician Bob Welch also recorded a song titled "The Ghost of Flight 401". I'd be able to do the right thing today.". Why dont we sing to help warm ourselves up? she suggested. . They headed for the flash. Patricia A. Ghyssels 3/31/45 That was a godsend because I got to meet and befriend many of the club members, most of whom were successful small business owners enjoying the fruits of their labor by owning and operating private aircraft (something that is almost cost prohibitive in today's aviation, regulatory and business environments). Leonhard hit the gas as he toggled on the blue light and siren. These and other requirements are imposed for the purpose of meeting the collective objectives of the Aviation and February 26, 1989. They also told me that Bill had been called shortly after he got home by the police department helicopter unit to come back to the airport (the police helicopter unit was based at Opa locka) for emergency flight duty. Folks from South Florida's sporting community, mostly hunters, fishers and airboaters, heard, many for the first time, about Bud. Stephanie Rae Stanich 11/10/48 Jerome Becker 6/27/39 They were heading his way. A Web forum, Southern Airboat, which attracts thousands of worldwide participants, plans to take care of the repairs. You could hear the cry of death. Sharon Transue was a replacement crew member out of reserve, didn't feel as much a . Flight 401 left John F. Kennedy at 9:20 p.m. Then a sudden jolt rattled the aircraft. The trip to Florida, by official accounts, was pleasantly routine. Mom apparently worked closely with that flight attendant. Rodas, meanwhile, is "badly burned" as well, the source says. Infantino also won a large legal settlement and lost everything. That credo seems to be exemplified in every major airplane crash. (The club is still in existence at the Opa locka Airport, but it was relocated to a different site on the field years ago.) Leonhard doesnt remember which one. Above: A piece of wreckage from Flight 401 still visible in the Everglades. Survivors - Crew and Eastern Employees Of the cockpit crew, only flight engineer Repo survived the initial crash, along with technical officer Donadeo, who was down in the nose electronics bay with Repo at the moment of impact. 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. When the main part of the fuselage hit the ground, it continued to move through the grass and water, breaking up as it went. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 is coming in for a landing in Miami. [6], The flight was commanded by Captain Robert Albin (Bob) Loft, age 55, a veteran pilot ranked 50th in seniority at Eastern Air Lines. After the crash, a . He and his wife, Donna, live in Christmas, a small town between Orlando and Cape Canaveral. Flight 401 - Possible Explanation | Eastern had overlooked the half inch, whether by design or error she didnt know. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 7 | The disintegration of the aircraft that followed scattered wreckage over an area 1,600ft (500m) long and 330ft (100m) wide in a southwesterly direction. "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. The FAA guy sitting closest to Leonhard yelled, Holy shit!, An airboat doesnt have brakes, Leonhard explained. He hoped the circling delay would give them time to fix the problem. What happened next must have happened very quickly. She was very scared, having never been in the Everglades before. Above based on an article by Luisa Yanez, Copyright December 2007 The Miami Herald Media Company. He seemed deeply saddened by that fact. Old and sick now, he lives in near poverty on the edge of the Everglades. Isell Delgado 1/23/25 Lockheed L-1011 Inside the Hell Hole | Investigators believe the autopilot switched modes when the captain accidentally leaned against the yoke while turning to speak to the flight engineer, who was sitting behind and to the right of him. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 4 | 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. [11] The swamp absorbed much of the energy of the crash, lessening the impact on the aircraft. Im a tough Portuguese girl from Rhode Island.. She dug down into the black muck, cupped a double handful to her face and smeared it all over the affected areas. Johnson, Charles | Diane Carol Greenblatt 5/5/52 Renee Joaquin Albert 8/3/36 [5]:13. Anyway, the statute of limitations has long since passed. His book was later adapted into a made-for-tv movie starring William Shatner as an NTSB investigator. She put in 11 more years with United before retiring. 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. It seemed to help. 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. Robert Albin Loft 3/17/17 His fishing and hunting skills helped put supper on the family table. Henry Nunez 8/18/23 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. During a rare moment of calm after the rescue helicopter had departed for Miami, he heard the faint tune of a Christmas carol. Thomas Ponte 10/24/11 '," she says now. Thirty minutes later, Leonhard and his passengers suddenly burst out of a thick patch of 12-foot-high sawgrass. After we visually established where the crash site was located, we could see the initial ground contact point and the distribution of the wreckage quite clearly. Even though I didn't own an airplane, the club members considered me one of their own, a privilege that I treasure and respect to this day, despite the fact that I haven't had any involvement with the club since the late 1970s. On May 11, 1996, the ValuJet Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9 operating the route crashed into the Everglades about 10 minutes after taking off from Miami as a result of a fire in the cargo compartment caused by mislabeled and improperly stored hazardous cargo. There was an enormous flash of flame as two fuel tanks burst open. 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. Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 left New York's JFK airport, bound for Miami International Airport, on December 29, 1972. [5]:4 For the next 80 seconds, the airplane maintained level flight. What made it so hard was trying to manhandle him up and over the broken willows. In its first three hours aloft, Flight 401 had been uneventful. They never met again, never talked again, and never will: Ray died years ago in Arcadia. Eastern Air Lines CEO (and former Apollo astronaut) Frank Borman termed the ghost stories about the crash "garbage". Sharon Norene Gatti 3/2/48 Follow my voice. Within minutes, six to eight passengers crawled out of the dark and were seated on the scrap of flooring, shivering, afraid and in shock. Unable to move and weak from severe loss of blood, his body hung suspended in the watery muck, still bent in the sitting position. Above: Flight attendants Beverly Raposa and Mercy Ruiz sit on a patch of ground in the Everglades where their flight crashed 35 years earlier. 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. Loise Shackelford attended. Last edited on 22 February 2023, at 02:18, intentional infliction of emotional distress, "Airliner carrying 167 crashes in Everglades", "Giant jetliner goes down in 'gator infested swamp", "Eastern Airlines, Inc. L-1011, N310EA, Miami, Florida, December 29, 1972", "Robert "Bud" Marquis's Obituary on San Francisco Chronicle", "PART TWO: THE CRASH "It felt like a wild rollercoaster ride", "A Lesson on the Importance of Crew Resource Management", "Lessons Learnt from the Crash of Eastern 401", Eastern Flight 401 The Story of the Crash, The Crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401-Epilogue, ASN Aircraft accident Lockheed L-1011-385-1 TriStar 1 N310EA Everglades, FL, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eastern_Air_Lines_Flight_401&oldid=1140849286, This page was last edited on 22 February 2023, at 02:18. Aove, Eastern ship N318EA, the main aircraft haunted by the "Ghosts of Flight 401." As I recall that December night, it was a relatively cool evening for south Florida with a moonless night sky. She had nothing. Mama, heat up the frying pan. Little did I expect to see what he actually had. His last prospect, Teresa Trapnell, listened to his pitch, didn't buy, but told her insurance executive husband, Bob, what a swell salesman she had met that day. But Infantino couldnt follow the voice. Laying on the coat rack, Patty George. No complete cross-section of the passenger cabin remained, and both the port wing and tailplane were demolished to fragments. Eddie Albert featured as "Dunn", a fictionalized version of Captain Robert Loft. Mr. Elder later became an Editor at the San Jose Mercury News. This guy had been hurled from the plane like a human cannonball. We've been married going on 18 years now." "I'm going to send some flowers to Miami and have them put on the grave of my first wife," said Ronald Infantino, who lost his bride of 20 days in the crash. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. The 52-year-old flight engineer was one of 101 people who'd died Dec. 29, 1972 when Eastern Flight 401, packed with holiday travelers, slammed into the Everglades 19 miles northwest of Miami. Then he tells the story the best he can. When he stopped the engine to push the boat back into the water, he heard a chorus of terrified human voices, hollering, moaning, shrieking. its related bodies corporate and their respective officers, employees, contractors and agents (Promotion Parties) will not . 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. She was killed. 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. Then the commuter airline folded. The plane descended out of the sky as pilots were distracted over a landing gear warning light. Pedro Garcia 2/10/26 He butchered their bodies to pieces after his wife threatened him with divorce. Mary Carfizzi 11/3/19 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. Janice Testa 9/12/52 Thank you, Rob. 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. Mildred Katz 1/8/34 Welcome to sunny Miami," the pilot announced cheerfully as Eastern Flight 401 passed over the city. The single-engine Cessna 152 was . Footage of the incident appeared in the movie Days of Fury (1980), directed by Fred Warshofsky and hosted by Vincent Price. The crew of Flight 401, taken aboard Flight 26 while on the ground in Miami earlier the day of the crash. Sometimes, back when there were no cell phones or GPS electronics to help navigate, he'd get lost at night. 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. How about we start with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?. At approximately 2340R 29 December 1972, Eastern Airlines Flight 401, a Lockheed 1011, with 178 persons on board, crashed in the Everglades 18 miles west of Miami International Airport. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew blew the roof of the house across the street through his front windows. "He's an airboater.". Some survivors recovered and adjusted better than others. 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