Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 departed New York for Miami on December 29, 1972. The Lockheed L-1011 crashed into the Florida Everglades. Both pilots and the flight engineer died, along with 2 out of 10 flight attendants and 96 of the 163 passengers on board. There were 75 survivors.
While the crew dealt with an inoperative landing gear indicator light, the plane’s auto-pilot was accidentally disconnected. Flight crew didn’t realize the plane was descending (“We’re still at 2000, right?”).
Most of the passengers who died in the crash were in the midsection of the aircraft. Crashing into the Everglades, much of the force of impact was absorbed and the mud from the swamp helped prevent injured passengers from bleeding out though it also caused infections in many of the survivors.
Equipment salvaged from the wreckage was reportedly used in other Eastern Air Lines L-1011 aircraft, and John Fuller’s 1976 book The Ghost of Flight 401 recounts stories of paranormal activity on board airframes that received those parts.
L-1011 N310EA Crashed Into The Florida Everglades, credit: Jon Proctor via Wikimedia Commons
According to lore, one flight was cancelled after the ghost of Captain Bob Loft appeared and disappeared in front a three members of the flight’s crew. Another flight’s captain reported seeing flight engineer Don Repo in his cockpit. Repo told him there would never be another crash of an L-1011. (Sadly this was not to be the case.) Repo was also reported spotted in the avionics bay of another L-1011 ,the same place he’d been – checking on the landing gear – when flight 401 went down.
A TV movie was made from the book in 1978, the full video of which is available online:
The ghosts of Eastern 401 were reportedly seen last year as well, so sightings certainly do continue.
Only weak-minded people believe in ghosts.
Can always count on somebody announcing the equivalent of “Santa isn’t real!” instead of just enjoying the story and/or skipping over it if it truly offends their sensibilities/intellect to endure listening to the story.
“If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all” was a nice guideline for human interaction while it lasted.
Can always count on many people today preferring to believe outrageous baloney over common sense.
What’s interesting is Frank Borman is still alive. After retiring from NASA after going around the moon on Apollo 8, he went on to become a senior VP at Eastern and flew in a helicopter from the Miami offices to the swamp crash site to help with recovery efforts. He retired as CEO. All 3 from Apollo 8 are still around.
Yeah, and Elvis sat next to me on my last flight to Vegas.
Ah yes, “the Ghost of Repo” revisited. According to the lore associated with the crash, from the paranormal he conveyed that an “L-1011 would never crash” and he is floating around to ensure that prophesy….at least until another one did crash.
It is still a great ghost story frim my childhood. Still fun to hear ghost stories as an adult.
It’s all true. The people who don’t believe it’s true fall under an easy classification: jet fuel can melt steal, steal frame buildings can fall from fire (9/11), there was one magic bullet in Dallas and no conspiracy on Nov. 22,1963, Bill Gates is a qualified doctor so better get my experimental gene therapy clot-shot to stop a patented fake virus, Masks stop illnesses, Big Pharma the WHO, CDC, NIH, all have my best interests at heart…to name a few.
Fix my typos please, no post comment editing… Thanks, my eyes are bad.
It’s all true. The people who don’t believe it’s true fall under an easy classification: jet fuel can melt steel, steel frame buildings can fall from fire (9/11), there was one magic bullet in Dallas and no conspiracy on Nov. 22,1963, Bill Gates is a qualified doctor so better get my experimental gene therapy clot-shot to stop a patented fake virus, Masks stop illnesses, Big Pharma the WHO, CDC, NIH, all have my best interests at heart…to name a few.