Off I went to check with the FAA Flight Service Station. Anyway, the pilots couldn't tell if the wheels were down. Barry L. Mancuso 10/19/44
In another 50 seconds, the plane was at half its assigned altitude. Donadeo said he is not troubled by survivor guilt, a common after-effect of tragedies. Get the latest flight sales and travel reviews straight to your inbox. This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Flight 401. She returns with a musty volume that smells like a lion's den. Passenger List: TWA Flight 800. The middle engine and tail section had broken away from the main fuselage, coming to a rest on their sides in a remote area far from the main crash site, which was located 18.7 miles northwest of Miami International Airport. Jorge Gonzalez 1/16/38
Mildred Katz 1/8/34
My former brother-in-law, James Anderson, was an avid air boat owner and hunting enthusiast. Based on Fuller's book, it emphasized the ghost sightings. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 on the tarmac before takeoff on Dec. 29, 1972; Photography by Jon Proctor, I called out to a Coast Guardsman who was working nearby to come and help me out, Leonhard said. She wore panty hose and looked like shed been scalped with a razor. Allen M. Stark 8/11/49
Richard L. Marquis, a carpet-layer, saw it too. We've been married going on 18 years now." The apparitions of Loft and Repo were invariably described as being extremely lifelike. Greta Foye 3/19/45
The FAA guy sitting closest to Leonhard yelled, Holy shit!, An airboat doesnt have brakes, Leonhard explained. One day, late in 1973, I got a phone call from James telling me to come over to his house; he had something for me. 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. That doesn't haunt me either . The trip to Florida, by official accounts, was pleasantly routine. One gave him money. Marquis, Robert |
The temperature is in the low 70s, and its beautiful out there tonight.. Evidently, I wasn't so stupid as to put any regulatory violations in writing in my log book. AlanNachmias 5/16/50
The TriStar's port outer wing structure struck the ground first, followed by the number1 engine and the port main undercarriage. Captain Loft was found during the autopsy to have an undetected brain tumor in an area that controls vision. According to the National Transportation Safety Board ( NTSB ), the main fuselage broke into four main sections and many other smaller pieces on impact. Bud waved the helicopter toward a nearby levee. His wife said his ashes would be spread over the crash site in the Everglades that ''he loved so much,'' at a later date. The captain, along with one of two flight crew members, two of 10 flight attendants, and 97 of 163 passengers, died; 75 . It is personal and it has served over the intervening years to remind me of how precious and tenuous life can be. Join FlightAware View more flight history Purchase entire flight history for AAL401. The control tower at Opa locka shut down at 11pm each evening back then so the L1011 had to be in contact with Miami Approach Control, since we assumed it was ultimately being vectored for an approach to MIA. 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. Why dont we sing to help warm ourselves up? she suggested. Of the 163 passengers and 13 crew-members aboard, 94 passengers and 5 crew members received fatal injuries. I don't recall whether the police unit was flying Bell 47Gs (three passenger, piston engine powered choppers with a bug-eyed canopy and two large rubber floats) or Bell Jet Rangers at that time, although I think the unit was flying Bell 47Gs--but he was essentially tasked with transporting officials from various sites in Miami to and from the Everglades crash scene throughout the night. 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. With his left, he held onto the boat and walked beside it to the levee. Stefan Jay Rubin 3/21/49
Silvan Karpen 5/23/28
His left knee was dislocated, wrenched sideways at a vicious right angle. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 4 |
Front row: Sue Tebbs, Dottie Warnock, Beverly Raposa, Stephanie Stanich. Jerrold Solomon, who had walked away from the crash unscathed, flew home to New York three days later. The crew of Flight 401 taken aboard the jet earlier on the day of the crash: the flight attendants had gathered at the tail of the plane. Varujan Eskihanci 9/7/25
Then wham! Part 243 - PASSENGER MANIFEST INFORMATION. Work toward erecting a permanent memorial for Flight 401 at the Curtiss Mansion in Miami continues under the leadership of survivors Ron Infantino and Beverly Raposa. Lost - Passengers and Crew (Name and Birthdate), Elise Grace Agate 9/3/42
But we knew our job was to rescue the survivors first. Johnson, Charles |
Patricia Renee Shackelford 12/9/52
Pin. He was 79. Photos: AL DIAZ | MIAMI HERALD. It was somewhere between 11:30 pm and 11:35 pm, a fact that I specifically remember because I took the time to look at my wristwatch and comment to Bill. Lockheed L-1011 Inside the Hell Hole |
Game warden Gray Leonhard in the 70s; Photography courtesy of Gray Leonhard. An Eastern flight attendant posted this scan (below) from his L-1011 FA manual. A Web forum, Southern Airboat, which attracts thousands of worldwide participants, plans to take care of the repairs. [16], While Eastern Air Lines publicly denied their planes were haunted, they reportedly removed all the salvaged parts from their L-1011 fleet. [6]:108 The most common injuries were fractures of ribs, spines, pelvises, and lower extremities. Mr. Elder later became an Editor at the San Jose Mercury News. All of us realized that many people had lost their lives and that there was a bit of mystery surrounding why a relatively new L1011 crashed into the Everglades on a clear, dark night. 09:23AM EST Miami Intl - MIA. The left wingtip hit first. At least they thought they had. The flight attendant, Mercy Ruiz, was badly injured, with a broken pelvis and a severe laceration on her forehead. James Hall, Flight Operations and Safety, Miami office, had the task of notifying all the families of the crash victims. Donadeo, an Eastern Airlines technical specialist on L-1011 aircraft, was returning to Miami that night from a trouble- shooting assignment in New York. They headed for the flash. "I consider the survivors 75 miracles. "You couldn't even say goodbye to each . He survived, barely, with his right arm nearly severed, his left knee broken and his chest crushed. Lourdes Albert 2/20/50
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. Ron Infantino and his late wife, Lilly, on their wedding day; Photography courtesy Ron Infantino. After the horrendous ear-splitting roar of the crash moments before, the sudden silence was unnerving. That's why Hansel wanted me to fly; it would be my license that got revoked if we got caught, not his! It is almost a physical impossibility to find and remove every scrap of wreckage from a swamp. Grand Canyon Disaster + . After dark he moonlighted as a commercial frogger. Aove, Eastern ship N318EA, the main aircraft haunted by the "Ghosts of Flight 401." When he stopped the engine to push the boat back into the water, he heard a chorus of terrified human voices, hollering, moaning, shrieking. Roberto Palma 6/10/27
The time was 9:20 p.m. "We consider it the day our second life began," Christina Casado-Acorn, said of Dec. 29, 1972. Sure enough, I recall that the initial restricted area was posted in a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) and set out a no-fly zone that had a one mile radius from the crash site up to 2,000 feet above mean sea level. A yellow flash. [5]:4 This altitude alert, designed to warn the pilots of an inadvertent deviation from the selected altitude, went unnoticed by the crew. Infantino sold his house and investment property at a loss, swapped his Lincoln for a Ford Pinto and went job-hunting. 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. Mom apparently worked closely with that flight attendant. 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. It was only then that it had hit him. We had a habit of informally gathering at the clubhouse on Friday and Saturday evenings to down a few beers and catch up on all the news that had any impact on us. Afterward, folks hope to take the old man into the Everglades, in his own airboat, if he wants. Then came scattered parts from the number 1 (port) engine, and fragments from the port wing itself and the port tailplane. Eduardo Jaramillo 8/2/32
In 1972 he was a young carpenter who liked living fast. 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. The aircraft was destroyed. If cities had soundtracks, none would sound quite like Nashville. In the cockpit, the first of six radio altimeter warnings began, signaling an impending crash. The cruel facts of this disaster only reinforced my observation that you won't die unless it's your time to die. 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. At 11:32, they aborted the landing, climbed to 2,000 feet and swung west over the Everglades to work out the problem. Leonhard discovered a hole in the bushes, roughly circular in shape and a little larger than the mouth of a culvert pipe. Back in the day, when he spent so much time in the wilderness, only the airplanes overhead reminded him of civilization. Henry Nunez 8/18/23
In December 1972, there was a deadly | by Verity Partington | The Mystery Box | Medium 500 Apologies, but something went wrong on our end. Carmen Jorge 7/7/46
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