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. [6]:101 The pilots cycled the landing gear, but still failed to get the confirmation light. The mood was festive as people were leaving the coldness of New York to bring in 1973 on the beaches of Florida. A fireball rushed through the fuselage, and the plane began pinwheeling like a giant Ferris wheel spun loose from its mount. Lucille Cilles 1/30/24 A lot of the people I saw were naked. "When I tried to prop him up it felt like every bone in his body was broken.". "The temperature is in the low 70s, and it's beautiful out there tonight." Donadeo, an Eastern Airlines technical specialist on L-1011 aircraft, was returning to Miami that night from a trouble- shooting assignment in New York. Flight 401 Survivors, Years After the Crash and Memorial Efforts. Eventually, the investigations were concluded and most, but not all, of the wreckage was removed or salvaged from the Everglades. Other than those observations, I don't recall much more from that flight. But Infantino couldnt follow the voice. Survivors - Crew and Eastern Employees Born in Arkansas, he grew up in South Florida when everybody seemed to be poor. Leonhard happened to be looking southeast across the glades. He saw tangled metal and smelled aviation fuel. (The largest L1011 operators then at MIA were Eastern Airlines and Delta Airlines, but I don't recall seeing any airline markings when the L1011 was overhead.) Rosario Messina 2/29/26 [15][18] The reported hauntings were said to be seen only on the planes that used the spare parts. I probably did too, I'm sure." It didnt sound like they were in midair anymore. Jana Dedek 6/24/53 A light in the Sky Flight 401 flew into the ground on Friday night, Dec. 29, 1972, at 13 seconds past 11:42 p.m. Hey!" Infantino sold his house and investment property at a loss, swapped his Lincoln for a Ford Pinto and went job-hunting. Refresh the page, check Medium 's site. With no one flying the plane or noticing its steady descent at flight speed, it flew itself into the ground. His foot pressed lightly against the accelerator pedal as he inched down the south levee on the L-28 canal with his headlights off. It was closing in on midnight on Dec. 29, 1972. Possible Curse of Seminole Indians | Carol Susan Jackter 9/26/52 Eastern 401, pull up, climb straight ahead to 2,000, go back to approach control, the tower advised. He was born in Pittsburgh, PA and was a 26 year resident of Christmas, FL. Ethel L. Jackson 3/8/08 Ex-FBI agent: I saw angels at Flight 93 site. The aircraft was a Lockheed L-1011-1 TriStar traveling from New York to Miami. "It's 100 degrees in the house, honey," Nancy says, joining him on the porch. She was very scared, having never been in the Everglades before. Anyway, the statute of limitations has long since passed. In the cockpit: Capt. Bud no longer worked as a game warden - his day job was laying carpet. She returns with a musty volume that smells like a lion's den. She worked in the executive offices at Easterns Miami base. Stefan Jay Rubin 3/21/49 Theyll find us eventually., Raposa had the survivors scoot together, sitting back to back so they could stay warm. In the days and weeks following the crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 401, recovery efforts captivated the nation, and perhaps because of its iconic, unforgiving, alligator-riddled crash site, the event has remained seared in the memories of Floridians for decades. The warden noted nothing of interest. [5]:3, The cockpit crew removed the light assembly,[6]:102 and Second Officer Repo was dispatched to the avionics bay beneath the flight deck to check via a small porthole whether the landing gear was indeed down. But, to play it safe, she always wore an add-on hairpiece and teased her hair up into a bouffant to make herself look taller. Gas gangrene attacked his lungs. The flight is referenced as part of the Bob Welch song "The Ghost of Flight 401" on his 1979 album Three Hearts. In recent months Canti and others have made pilgrimages to Bud's screened door to hear his story. High in the distant black sky, beyond the harsh glare cast by his headlamp, was a circling star: the searchlight of a Coast Guard helicopter hovering over the crash site eight miles away. [5]:6,16[9] However, the NTSB concluded that the captain's tumor did not contribute to the accident. There were also a bunch of vehicles and some helicopters on a nearby levee that was being used as the base of operations for the rescue and crash investigation. 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. Folks from South Florida's sporting community, mostly hunters, fishers and airboaters, heard, many for the first time, about Bud. Lourdes Albert 2/20/50 The National Air Disaster Alliance/Foundation gave Marquis a humanitarian award for being the first to respond to the crash, and in a touching tribute, members of The Southern Airboat association presented Marquis with a completely rebuilt airboat - the same one he had used to rescue crash victims in 1972.. "I think it's nice, but I don't think I really deserve a lot of hullabaloo over this," Marquis, 78, of Homestead, said of the award. 35 Years after an Eastern Air Lines jet crashed into the Everglades, a rescuer looks back. [16], While Eastern Air Lines publicly denied their planes were haunted, they reportedly removed all the salvaged parts from their L-1011 fleet. "We consider it the day our second life began," Christina Casado-Acorn, said of Dec. 29, 1972. However, it also complicated the survivors' recuperation, as organisms in the swamp caused infection, with the potential for gas gangrene. The largest recognizable pieces of wreckage were the cockpit section and the center engine intake and attached fuselage section. Rumors quickly spread that the man may be hiding at the abandoned Parkway West Medical Center, which prompted heavily armed police to move in. "I still love to fly; I get on planes and fall asleep like a baby," jokes Raposa. Email subscription; Email subscription; . The breakup of the fuselage had freed it from its stowage and activated its inflation mechanism. It didn't light. On December 29, 1972, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing over 100 souls. He retired from the Metro-Dade police department and moved to Brooksville, Florida many years ago. They didn't find each other until morning. He had logged 280 hours in the L-1011. Thats what youre going to get when we get out of here. And now, no one was flying the plane. Bill Elliott had a much more eventful night. I was a kid, 21 years old. I especially remember Bill describing passengers who apparently survived the crash impact, but were knocked unconscious and were still strapped into their seats. Theyre not going to find us, an anxious passenger whispered. On Dec. 3, Southern Airboat and other organizations also plan to honor Bud and the victims and survivors of Eastern Flight 401 with a service and a barbecue in Miami. [17] Over time, the reporting of ghost sightings stopped. Before a bad back forced an early retirement, Bud laid carpet, grew avocados and worked as a game warden in the Everglades. The four-month-old L-1011 TriStar jet crashed into the Florida Everglades on December 29, 1972 at 11:42 p.m., caused . Speeding across the 'glades in his airboat, Bud was the first rescuer on the scene. I didn't tell him that it felt really strange realizing that so much of the plane was still out in the glades. "The three of us toast to life on that day every year.". "He was naked. "I could get it running," he says, fighting for breath. The most accurate account of the crash of Flight 401 was authored by a journalist from the Miami Herald, Rob Elder. No roar of unmuffled high-horsepower engines. A light on the instrument panel the first officer was monitoring failed to illuminate green to confirm that the nose landing gear was extended and locked. Check-in; . The Lockheed L-1011 carried 163 passengers and 13 crew members. Ron Infantino woke up in a chill, heart pounding, breath erratic. After dark he moonlighted as a commercial frogger. Back row: Pat Ghyssels, Trudy Smith, Adrianne Hamilton, Mercy Ruiz. Meanwhile, 1,100 miles to the north, an Eastern Airlines jumbo jet lifted off in bitter cold weather from New Yorks John F. Kennedy International Airport. He was 79. Suddenly, he stopped. [5]:4 This altitude alert, designed to warn the pilots of an inadvertent deviation from the selected altitude, went unnoticed by the crew. Salvatore Carfizzi 7/15/15 Leonhard discovered a hole in the bushes, roughly circular in shape and a little larger than the mouth of a culvert pipe. Unfortunately it did so as a scattered wreck over the marshes of Florida's Everglades. Beverly Raposa doesn't mind flying. Huge gouts of mud and aquatic vegetation shot high into the air as 185 tons of screeching metal ripped into the muck and grass. The unintentional jar apparently caused the planes nose to tilt down a few degrees. There were 75 survivors. Bud waved his light until the helicopter took notice. 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. Old and sick now, he lives in near poverty on the edge of the Everglades. 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. Leonhard doesnt remember which one. Indeed, they said, some . Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 AIRBOYD 487K subscribers 284K views 13 years ago #AIRBOYD #AvGeek Video Courtesy: FAA via Lessons Learned From Transport Airplane Accidents. The accident and the subsequent ghost story were mentioned by Dan Aykroyd during his appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on June 6, 1984. Sir, dont worry, he said. [5]:4 Fifty seconds after reaching their assigned altitude, Captain Loft instructed First Officer Stockstill to put the L-1011 on autopilot. 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. The memories don't. Miguel Junco 8/28/42 Front row: Sue Tebbs, Dottie Warnock, Beverly Raposa and Stephanie Stanich. He shut down the engine again to listen. Officially, 103 passengers and crew died. This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Flight 401. Once you become stuck in the glades, you could be there for a long, long, time.. She had nothing. The apparitions of Loft and Repo were invariably described as being extremely lifelike. Two years after the crash, Anita and Franklin Kent's lives were taken up by endless doctor visits. They didn't keep score, but Marquis knows they saved a lot of people's lives that night. 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