flight 401 bodies

The flying club was also a de facto social club with members having the common bonds of flying and aircraft ownership. [5]:13. "It's 100 degrees in the house, honey," Nancy says, joining him on the porch. Marc Leshay 11/28/51 Diane Carol Greenblatt 5/5/52 Frank Borman called it all a bunch of "crap" and considered suing the producers of the 1978 made-for-TV movie about the ghost stories for libel. With the $250,000 legal settlement, Micale thought he had it made. The captain, along with one of two flight crew members, two of 10 flight attendants, and 97 of 163 passengers, died; 75 . I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. We're having legs tonight. She looked into the distance, saw the dim lights of Miami framed against a coal-black horizon and noticed how far away it was. The flight is referenced as part of the Bob Welch song "The Ghost of Flight 401" on his 1979 album Three Hearts. The strange tales of the ghostly airmen of Flight of 401 circulated in the airline community. We could also see a few other aircraft flying into the restricted airspace. By that time, I had also earned a commercial pilot license with airplane single and multi-engine and instrument ratings. This crash also was the basis for the earlier TV movie. (It was later expanded to a much larger area either later that same day or the next day.). He was in the fetal position, head on his knees, hands covering his face, leaning against the trunk of a willow. [5]:9 The landing gear could have been manually lowered, nonetheless. Repo was evacuated to a hospital, but later died from his injuries. Then, on Saturday, December 29, a fleet of over 100 airboats carried survivors, their families and others to the crash site for a special memorial. "Nobody paid him to go out there and try to rescue people," says Ken Pine, who recently fixed Bud's roof. Because of the magnitude of the rescue operation and of the medical emergency caused the study resulted in a . "I was engaged and my fiance was killed in a drunk-driving accident two months before the wedding," she said. Anyway, the statute of limitations has long since passed. He seemed deeply saddened by that fact. It has a flat bottom and a high seat and a cobweb-draped engine and propeller. Rochelle Rubin 1/5/48 (she was the first victim discovered by the search team I was tired and hit the sack as soon as I got home. Instead, it took 35 years. The crash occurred while the entire flight crew were preoccupied with a burnt-out landing gear indicator light. How about we start with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?. Raposa, Beverly | Then the commuter airline folded. View history. That section of the Everglades is a tangle of sawgrass, tree islands, canals and levees. She had nothing. His friend, of course, envisioned a Piper Cub or something small going down in a summer thunderstorm, not a state-of-the-art L-1011 carrying 200 passengers on a perfect winter night. "Hey! The following conversation was recovered from the flight voice recorder later: Less than 10 seconds after this exchange, the jetliner crashed: The location was west-northwest of Miami, 18.7mi (30.1km) from the end of runway 9L. The only thing she was looking forward to on arrival in Miami was going to bed. Ever the good Catholic, she crossed herself in the dark and silently prayed, Oh God, please let that be true.. He has never taken pleasure in talking about what he saw after Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 went down and how he felt about it. Almost 40 years ago, Eastern Airlines flight 401 crashed. Several survivors tracked him down to thank him personally. [11] The swamp absorbed much of the energy of the crash, lessening the impact on the aircraft. 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. Miguel Junco 8/28/42 The cloak of black was made all the more intense by the surreal stillness. Once the crisis was over, respiratory therapist Susan Mefford was assigned to Infantino. Mom apparently worked closely with that flight attendant. I don't recall any large scorched patches of saw grass, but I remember a few small burned areas. In a weak voice, one of them asked, What about the alligators?, Raposa didnt hesitate: We made such a loud noise when we hit. She put in 11 more years with United before retiring. There were also other artifacts such as yellow airline life preservers and panes of plastic passenger windows. He was trapped beneath the water. 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. the passenger manifest) Mama, heat up the frying pan. [22] Eastern considered suing for libel, based on assertions of a cover-up by Eastern executives, but Borman opted not to, feeling a lawsuit would merely provide more publicity for the book. Bud Marquis had experienced better nights of frogging. So, being the thoughtful brother-in-law he was, unbeknownst to me he had collected some of the wreckage of Flight 401. The aircraft was completely demolished, with wreckage, bodies, and survivors strewn over a wide area. in Electrical, Mechanical, Aerospace Engineering, or related subject area It seemed to help. James Yandolino 3/7/52 "That wasn't my first brush with death," he said. Repo, Donald Louis | I don't question what the Lord does.". He rescued some terrified folks - he doesn't know how many - before the regular cavalry of official rescuers arrived in helicopters, directed to the carnage by his head lamp. The next morning, as was my usual Saturday routine, I drove to the Sun Flying club timing it to arrive at approximately 11am. Get the latest flight sales and travel reviews straight to your inbox. "Then I saw this great big fireball and the whole 'glades lit up. He received a $250,000 settlement in a lawsuit, blew it all, got into drug trouble, went back to work and fell off a truck. She left Eastern and worked in the travel agency industry. As I sit writing this 34 years later in December 2006, I can still visualize the events of that night just as if they had occurred yesterday. Nobody, not the pilots nor passengers, knew anything was amiss. "Remember what the doctor said," Nancy chimes in. 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. Her face burned from the jet fuel. No complete cross-section of the passenger cabin remained, and both the port wing and tailplane were demolished to fragments. When he stopped the engine to push the boat back into the water, he heard a chorus of terrified human voices, hollering, moaning, shrieking. ", Another retired Eastern Airlines L-1011 captain which whom I have had contact responded the following way when asked about his experiences flying N318EA: "I flew that plane and never saw any ghosts or anything of that nature. Jerome Becker 6/27/39 Now for the big decisions - who gets to ride with us? Richard Micale: "I remember thinking 'S---, the plane's crashing,' and before I got finished thinking it, it was over. Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 traveled from New York to Miami. Walker's body is still fairly intact. Bill, ironically, as well as being the proud owner of a pristine Cessna 180 was one of the helicopter pilots for the Metro-Dade police department. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The Ghost of Flight 401 (TV Movie 1978) - IMDb, Official Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 - History, Photos, Survivors and Tribute, The Ghost of Flight 401 (TV 1978) - YouTube, Flight 401 - Flight Crew Fatal Photograph, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 - Crash Investigation, Findings and Passenger List - Official Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 - History, Photos, Survivors and Tribute. Someone had seen his frogging light. An original floor board from Flight 401 remains in the archives at History Miami in South Florida. Dummett hopes that the event will inspire a permanent memorial to Eastern Flight 401, similar to the ValuJet Memorial off the Tamiami Trail 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 . It is 12 feet long and 7 feet across. [6]:101 The pilots cycled the landing gear, but still failed to get the confirmation light. He carried survivors to safety and made them as comfortable as he could. Yes, they are, Raposa assured them. He immediately drove to Eastern's Miami offices and decided to charter a helicopter to the crash site, as the swampy terrain made rescue difficult, and Eastern Airlines had not heard any news of progress in rescue efforts. During its descent, the Boeing jet airliner was in a "nose up deck approach" which meant that it was almost next to impossible for its flight crew to see the small Cessna flying directly below it.39 The overhead position of the climbing Cessna 172 Skyhawk's cantilevered wing would have restricted Boswell and Kazy's rear view.40 The left wingtip banked into the marsh at 227 miles per hour. Preoccupation with a malfunction of the nose landing gear position indicating system distracted the crew's attention from the instruments and allowed the descent to go unnoticed. What happened next must have happened very quickly. Flight 401 may refer to: Iberia Airlines Flight 401, crashed on 5 May 1965. Soon after, ghosts from Flight 401 began to haunt the land and other. Charles Camichel 9/9/1899 (we assume this is the "C. Carmichael" on Nery Palma 7/12/34 Photo credit: Don Boyd of Sun Bird Photos. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 7 | [17] Over time, the reporting of ghost sightings stopped. Thomas Ponte 10/24/11 A glance out a window, after all, would have shown nothing but the black Everglades below. Born in Arkansas, he grew up in South Florida when everybody seemed to be poor. The bronze plaques are being donated as well as the granite base. A yellow flash. Two others did not want to be reminded. But we idled back around to double-check on them just in case.. He was born in Pittsburgh, PA and was a 26 year resident of Christmas, FL. 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. Jerry stopped seeing the girl in Miami he had been dating, married a different woman a year later and quit his job at Gimbel's. The television movie The Ghost of Flight 401, which was broadcast on NBC during February 1978, offers a fictionalized depiction of the crash and alleged ghost sightings. 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 shut down the engine again to listen. If one more time he could harvest a mess of frog legs in the Everglades. Above: A piece of wreckage from Flight 401 still visible in the Everglades. His book was later made into a TV movie. Other than those observations, I don't recall much more from that flight. Jerrold Solomon, who had walked away from the crash unscathed, flew home to New York three days later. "Life's played funny tricks on me," said Richard N. Micale, 41, not laughing. Susan Deutsch 10/21/42 If you hear my voice, come toward me. "I was wounded in World War II when the ship I was on was hit by a kamikaze. The fact that the tail assemblyrear fuselage, number2 tail-mounted engine, and remains of the empennagefinally came to rest substantially further forward than other major sections, was probably the result of the number 2 engine continuing to deliver thrust during the actual breakup of the aircraft. The disintegration of the aircraft that followed scattered wreckage over an area 1,600ft (500m) long and 330ft (100m) wide in a southwesterly direction. The flight attendant, Mercy Ruiz, was badly injured, with a broken pelvis and a severe laceration on her forehead. It crashed into the Everglades 18.7 miles northwest of the airport, eight miles north of Tamiami. His doctor warned him not to travel alone, not with his weak heart and lungs and aching back. That's why Hansel wanted me to fly; it would be my license that got revoked if we got caught, not his! The jet bounced once, then hit again. Jana Dedek 6/24/53 Fuller recounts stories of paranormal events aboard other Eastern aircraft and the belief that these were caused by equipment salvaged from the wreckage of Flight 401. They were heading his way. [25] A television movie of the same name was broadcast in October 1978. Chapter II - OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (AVIATION PROCEEDINGS) Subchapter A - ECONOMIC REGULATIONS. Ground crew with Eastern Airlines Flight 401 before its fateful flight; Photography courtesy Ron Infantino. ", PHOTO of Mercy Ruiz and her Samsonite suitcase in May 2009. All 110 people on board died. ValuJet Flight 592 was a domestic passenger flight between Miami International Airport, Miami, Florida, and William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta, Georgia that crashed into the Everglades on May 11, 1996 as a result of a fire in the cargo compartment caused by improperly stored cargo, killing all 110 people on board. 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. 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. It was an easy way to break the monotony of intense study, tour the good old USA and also earn a few bucks and I must emphasize the aspect of the earnings. There were bodies that were naked, which we all figured occurred because they had been flung out of the protected environmental cocoon of the L1011 into 200 mph winds when the fuselage broke up. 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