Donald Louis Repo 5/10/21 Beverly Raposa switched seats from her regular position in the galley for a flight from New York to Miami. It crashed into the Everglades 18.7 miles northwest of the airport, eight miles north of Tamiami Trail, about 100 yards east of the L-67 canal levee. Then zip, the light was out.". Incongruously, not far from the roofless fuselage center section with the inner portion of the starboard wing still attached, lay a large, undamaged and fully inflated rubber dinghy, one of a number carried on the TriStar in the event of an emergency water landing. Christina (center) was two-months-old at the time of the crash, making her the youngest survivor . The TriStar's port outer wing structure struck the ground first, followed by the number1 engine and the port main undercarriage. With an injured back and a cut foot, she slogged through sucking muck, shredded saw grass and plane wreckage. 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. By about 3:15 a.m., Raposas flock of survivors had all been rescued. Speculation at the club was rampant which is to be expected from a bunch of pilots. This is the story about the night a jumbo jet landed among the pig frogs and alligators, the cottonmouth snakes and yellow-crowned night herons, in the Everglades. His book was later made into a TV movie. That credo seems to be exemplified in every major airplane crash. In December 1972, there was a deadly | by Verity Partington | The Mystery Box | Medium 500 Apologies, but something went wrong on our end. Albert J. Stockstill 6/9/33 The breakup of the fuselage had freed it from its stowage and activated its inflation mechanism. In short, it was a great place to eat (we used to have outstanding club Bar-B-Q, talk airplanes, perform minor maintenance and fly planes. Below Left - In red, stewardess Beverly Raposa at the memorial. Raposa was struggling for ideas to keep her group occupied. The pilot Bob Loft and the flight engineer Don Repo were two of the 101 people who perished in the air crash. Ron Infantino and his late wife, Lilly, on their wedding day; Photography courtesy Ron Infantino. Eastern Air Lines CEO (and former Apollo astronaut) Frank Borman termed the ghost stories about the crash "garbage". In a weak voice, one of them asked, What about the alligators?, Raposa didnt hesitate: We made such a loud noise when we hit. | Two passing pilots saw it and called the airport. [5]:13. Only their bedroom has an air conditioner. Were still at 2,000, right? the first officer asked. "I could get it running," he says, fighting for breath. Several survivors tracked him down to thank him personally. This guy had been hurled from the plane like a human cannonball. Hey, whats happening here? the captain shouted. A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 298 passengers crashed in eastern Ukraine on Thursday while traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. I mean, I was a single person with no family. Ten feet in front of them were what looked like two mannequins to Leonharda partially clothed woman lying faceup in the mud and a naked man lying facedown. Diane Carol Greenblatt 5/5/52 Last picture of Paul Walker alive, before getting into the porsche that crashed. Marquis, Robert | Each year on December 29th, I spend a little time thinking about that silhouetted L1011 heading west over Opa locka Airport. Flight 401 may refer to: Iberia Airlines Flight 401, crashed on 5 May 1965. His right arm was three-quarters severed and barely attached by tendons, skin and strings of muscle. Lets sing Christmas carols, Raposa replied. Donald Stanley Casadona 7/16/38 All 110 people on board died. Instead of landing in . Hey!" During its flight from New York to Miami, an aircraft operating Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashed into the Everglades after the cockpit became so distracted by a burnt-out landing gear indicator light, they neglected to notice the autopilot had disengaged, and that the plane was slowly losing altitude. But the passengers were her peopleher responsibilityand it was still her job to help them. The last thing Raposa remembered seeing before she was knocked out was a waterfall of colors. Below is a list of those on board, according . The area I was about to go in was uncharted territory for me, Leonhard said. Little did I expect to see what he actually had. By 1 a.m., the rookie warden had launched his airboat. Judy Ellenberg 2/27/53 I vaguely remember that we ended up taking a total of five people on that flight. It seemed to be miles off course. All photos by Southern Airboat, who coordinated the event. Her face burned from the jet fuel. "That wasn't my first brush with death," he said. Theyre not going to find us, an anxious passenger whispered. Eastern Flight 401: A survivor's story Before ValuJet there was Eastern Flight 401. They have two sons and live in Dade City now, near Tampa. His 1977 book, Crash, tells the story of many of the passengers, the investigation and aftermath of Flight 401. Evidently, I wasn't so stupid as to put any regulatory violations in writing in my log book. What caused Flight 401 crash? I was a kid, 21 years old. Refresh the page,. Rochelle Rubin 1/5/48 (she was the first victim discovered by the search team The two girls in the photograph that are having the bunny ears (Patricia Ghyssels) and the one jokingly being choked (Stephanie Stanich) were the only two flight attendants who did not survive the crash. Well launch from there.. Rosa Losano 11/1/01 Ruiz, 63, of West Miami-Dade, still has aches and pains but returned to flying until Eastern folded in 1991. The most accurate account of the crash of Flight 401 was authored by a journalist from the Miami Herald, Rob Elder. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 7 | "The three of us toast to life on that day every year.". "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. After the wreckage is removed, salvageable parts from the plane are used to repair other aircraft. She was whipped. The final NTSB report cited the cause of the crash as pilot error, specifically: "the failure of the flight crew to monitor the flight instruments during the final four minutes of flight, and to detect an unexpected descent soon enough to prevent impact with the ground. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 5 | That was the last transmission before the left wing sliced into the Everglades at 225 mph. They failed to notice that the autopilot had been disconnected inadvertently and, subsequently, the aircraft gradually lost altitude and crashed. It wouldn't take much.". Lost - Passengers and Crew (Name and Birthdate), Elise Grace Agate 9/3/42 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. However, we had one advantage that members of the general public didn't have - we had access to airplanes. Ron Infantino woke up in a chill, heart pounding, breath erratic. After lowering the gear, First Officer Stockstill noticed that the landing gear indicator, a green light identifying that the nose gear is properly locked in the "down" position, had not illuminated. 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. "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. Flight 401 - Autopilot indicator | 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. Unable to move and weak from severe loss of blood, his body hung suspended in the watery muck, still bent in the sitting position. Bernard A. Goldfuss 11/2/22 Refresh the page, check Medium 's site. [5]:5 The airplane was traveling at 227 miles per hour (197kn; 365km/h) when it hit the ground. Robert Loft, 55; First Officer Albert Stockstill, 39, and Second Officer Donald Repo, 51, all of Miami-Dade. Two minutes later, Flight 401 called the air traffic control tower. One gave him money. On September 4, 1954, Santiago Airlines Flight 513 departed from Aachen, West Germany, destined for Porto Alegre, Brazil. 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. "Life's played funny tricks on me," said Richard N. Micale, 41, not laughing. He saw a man standing, shocked, in knee-deep water. I had initially intended to fly a little above 2,000 feet to avoid the restrictions, but I ended up closer to 3,000 feet to avoid the other aircraft. The bronze plaques are being donated as well as the granite base. [5]:3, The flight was routine until 23:32, when the airplane began its approach into Miami International Airport. [6]:101 The pilots cycled the landing gear, but still failed to get the confirmation light. There was a lot of activity on the ground, but we couldn't see much detail from 3,000 feet. Eugene Schenker 6/24/30 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. The Miami News, Dec. 30, 1972. Adapted from Bad Guys, Bullets, and Boat Chases by Bob H. Lee. [5]:22[6]:109, The final NTSB report cited the cause of the crash as pilot error, specifically: "the failure of the flight crew to monitor the flight instruments during the final four minutes of flight, and to detect an unexpected descent soon enough to prevent impact with the ground. Jesus Lorenzo 4/26/37 Standing by the open door, he carefully scanned the unbroken horizon with a pair of wide-lens binoculars. Lucille Cilles 1/30/24 Bud asks his wife to look for his scrapbooks. Possible Curse of Seminole Indians | Once in a while I ask Teresa, 'How come you never bought a vacuum cleaner if you thought I was so good? This quote, which was obviously a joke, was presented in the Ghost of Flight 401 as fact. The captain, along with one of two flight crew members, two of 10 flight attendants, and 97 of 163 passengers, died; 75 . Instead, he would witness the first jumbo jet crash in U.S. history. Front row: Sue Tebbs, Dottie Warnock, Beverly Raposa and Stephanie Stanich. Picture that in your mind. [5]:4 In the next 70 seconds, the airplane lost only 250ft (76m), but this was enough to trigger the altitude warning C-chord chime located under the engineer's workstation. Jonathan Adam Kaminer 8/22/70 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. "I guess I was always on the edge without knowing it." "This is way in the past.". [4], Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was a regularly scheduled flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, to Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida. "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. Clutching his walking stick, Bud shuffles past a mango tree into the backyard. The Ghost of Flight 401: Mystery Files | [5]:23 Investigators believe this was due to the crew being distracted by the nose gear light, and because the flight engineer was not in his seat when it sounded, so would not have been able to hear it. Stefan Jay Rubin 3/21/49 The crash was documented in Rob and Sarah Elder's 1977 book Crash. The night was a balmy 72 degrees, the mosquitoes surprisingly sparse. The hours passed, and still no rescuers had arrived. The tall building behind the plane is Building 16 at MIA, the former headquarters of Eastern Air Lines. Flight 401 was a short-haul flight to Miami. The general public did n't have - we had access to airplanes had freed from... 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