The flying club was also a de facto social club with members having the common bonds of flying and aircraft ownership. Below Right - Gatherers take a moment to honor Robert 'Bud' Marquis. Thanks to Jim Kalafus for the corrected names of Flight 401 victims drawn from Dade Country death certificate files and his continued research and participation in this effort. She described him as dazed and unresponsive. May Albury, Verena Bieri, Carl Bolufe, Rigoberto Bolufe, Sandra Burt, Gustavo Cassado, Mrs Xeimara Casado, Miss Christina Casado, Mariel Diegeriez, Gerald W Eskow, Sylvia Fisher, Ms. F. Frankin, Herbert Fresko, Molly Fresko, Alicia Garcia, Julia Garcia, Kathryn F.Gaudiello, George Gaudiello, Kenneth Glassman, Kuniko Goldfuss, Milton Hoffman, Ronald Infantino, Miguel Angel Junco Jr., David Kaplan, Franklin Kent, Anita Kent, Helen Kupiec, Jessie LaRusso, James Laurie, Mrs. Leone Levine, Cornelia Leya, Thomas McAvoy, Joseph Mazur, Rose Mazur, Luis Mejia, Richard N. Micale, Albert J Morris, Janice Minguzzi, Christina Ochoa, Allen Okanawsky, Oneida Pares, Aristides Pares, Martha Pares, Carlos Polanco, Lucino Polanco, Joseph Popson, Richard Pragluski, Goldez Quinico, Evelyn Ragalia, Marie Rego, Glen Remkus*, Francoise Riette, Thomas Rothenberg, Martin Siminerio, Bonnie Silverman, Donna Smith, Millie Soberon, Jerald Solomon, Larry Sumpkins, Marilyn Taylor, Edward Ulrich, Jesse C. Walker, Alan Weiss, Lorenzo Zetlin. She was shown photos of several of the flight staff and she picked out Don Repo. Thats what youre going to get when we get out of here. He carried survivors to safety and made them as comfortable as he could. Eastern's L-1011's came equipped with six Bowmar ovens (Lockheed Part Number 671878-115). Bud asks his wife to look for his scrapbooks. After graduation, he hitchhiked to Oregon and California to visit relatives, returning to Connecticut a couple of years later. Podcast transcript | Subscribe. Their marriage spanned 47 years. No roar of unmuffled high-horsepower engines. They claimed that the deceaseds name was being used for the commercial purpose of selling books about the fatal crash (and a movie based on the book) by referring to the decedent as a reappearing ghost. The family lost the suit, and subsequent appeals. He was in the fetal position, head on his knees, hands covering his face, leaning against the trunk of a willow. A friend once warned him: "One day you'll work a plane crash out there." A Web forum, Southern Airboat, which attracts thousands of worldwide participants, plans to take care of the repairs. New York: Dial Press, 1980. With determination born of her Portuguese grandparents work ethic and her work on a 160-acre dairy farm as a young girl growing up in Rhode Island, the former Girl Scout troop leader shouted, Im a stewardess. Allen M. Stark 8/11/49 That was a godsend because I got to meet and befriend many of the club members, most of whom were successful small business owners enjoying the fruits of their labor by owning and operating private aircraft (something that is almost cost prohibitive in today's aviation, regulatory and business environments). It has a flat bottom and a high seat and a cobweb-draped engine and propeller. 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. 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. The actual crash was, in fact, true as reported; and there's never been any real doubt over what the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) investigators determined. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crashed into the Everglades on a moonless night on December 29, 1972. Continue Reading: Survivor Stories and Memorial Efforts. Undeterred, the pilot investigated further and did find a problem that may have caused a serious accident if it went unnoticed. Stewardess Beverly Raposa, then 25, noticed nothing unusual as the flight passed high over the Atlantic Ocean en route to Miami International Airport. Judy Ellenberg 2/27/53 Leonhard doesnt remember which one. He likes to think about those days. "He's an airboater.". Ground crew with Eastern Airlines Flight 401 before its fateful flight; Photography courtesy Ron Infantino. I checked my log book entry for Dec. 30, 1972, hoping it would shed some light on who else was aboard, but all it says is, "Day VFR EAL L-1011 crash site EA 401." 2017. Two minutes later, Flight 401 called the air traffic control tower. "He was just a guy out there frogging and minding his own business who knew he had to help people in trouble. Ruiz, 63, of West Miami-Dade, still has aches and pains but returned to flying until Eastern folded in 1991. They were both 26 years old. Inside was a treasure: Her camera with the unprocessed film of shots of the crew taken that day. Infantino also won a large legal settlement and lost everything. Eastern Air Lines flight 401 encountered no problems while cruising between the two cities. md-87 r4 . Memorial unveiled paying homage to 101 victims who perished on Eastern Flight 401. Repo seemed to have a knack of turning up in the oddest of places. Trudy is survived by her nephews, Jason Mooney and wife Annette, Jeremy Ogelsby and wife Amy; great-nephews, Nathan Mooney and wife Courtney, Caleb Mooney and wife Savannah, and Brandon Ogelsby; great-nieces, Laura Mooney and Alaura Ogelsby;2 great-great-nephews and 2 great-great-nieces; cousins, Jacque Wirta and Jack Moncrief. He'd stay calm, look at the stars for direction, think things through, then crank up the airboat engine and find his way back to the Tamiami Trail. The other 101 people on Eastern Airlines Flight 401 died quite horribly -- 98 in the Everglades where the airplane crashed, three later in hospitals. 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. Abbey Lynn Greenwald 9/18/52 Leonhard climbed back in the Plymouth and idled on south, nosing the low-slung sedan into the inky black, unaware that his night had only just begun. . 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. There were also other artifacts such as yellow airline life preservers and panes of plastic passenger windows. It seemed to be miles off course. 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. Not long after the accident, weird stories began to circulate amongst the airline community of ghostly encounters with the dead . It all started according to the book when a later L-1011 owned by Eastern Air Lines was on a flight to Mexico City. More than a single person has often been present at the time, whether by accident or design. Raposa, Beverly | victims, and the general public. Captain Loft had been with the company for over 32 years; a total of 29,700 flight hours. I didn't tell him that it felt really strange realizing that so much of the plane was still out in the glades. After dark he moonlighted as a commercial frogger. At first, the VP just assumed that this was the Captain of the flight he was on. Donald Louis Repo 5/10/21 "He was naked. They go deep into the heart of the Florida Everglades to contact the victims' ghosts and find out what really happened that fateful night in 1972. His right arm was badly hurt. '," she says now. Angelo Donadeo, Patricia R Georgia, Adrianne Ann Hamilton, Jennifer Larsen, Thomas Mulcahy, Mercedes V Ruiz, Beverly Jean Raposa, Trudy J Smith, Sue F. Tibbs, Sharon R Transue, Dorothy M Warnock. Darrylle Becker 3/16/43 Trudy Jean Smith, age 73, of Dallas, Georgia, formerly of Deport, Texas, died November 29, 2020. At home, waiting sometimes fearfully, was Nancy, a pretty barefoot country girl in a cotton dress. This show is made possible by financial support from listeners like you. She was killed. It looked like someone had poured gasoline on a campfire, and poof, up it went. Curiously, Leonhard never heard the impact. That was the last transmission before the left wing sliced into the Everglades at 225 mph. John G. Fuller, the best-selling author of The Ghost of Flight 401, carried out an investigation into the hauntings with the aid of several cautious airline personnel. The captain and his first and second officers had every reason to feel good and confident about flying this particular ship. Discretion was the better part of valor. He ended up making numerous trips out to the levee where the rescue operation base was located. Inside the planes cockpit, the crew was trying to slide in a replacement bulb, a roughly two-square-inch all-in-one light assembly unit covered by a translucent green plastic lens, valued at $12 altogether. Am I the only one left alive? he wondered. It was only then that it had hit him. The image of Repo said "Watch out for fire on this airplane," and then disappeared. Exactly fifty years ago, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 mysteriously slammed into the Florida Everglades at over 200 miles per hour. "I was wounded in World War II when the ship I was on was hit by a kamikaze. Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. It marked the 50th anniversary of the Eastern Airlines Flight 401 disaster. "Having money ruined my life," he said. Like so many such cases, its exploitation of a tragedy for financial gain and publicity was disrespectful to both the victims and the survivors. (3) 2022 TV-14. They never met again, never talked again, and never will: Ray died years ago in Arcadia. This photo taken in September 2009. I guess their clothes got blown off them.". Johnson, Charles | You can see the brand name on the oven instruction plate. In 1985, his years as a manual laborer caught up with him. Lost - Passengers and Crew (Name and Birthdate), Elise Grace Agate 9/3/42 It was broken in the crash and he avoids putting any strain on it -- good advice for anyone his age, 67. Silvan Karpen 5/23/28 Surprise turned to horror when Repo disappeared before the pilots eyes. Raposa was struggling for ideas to keep her group occupied. Donadeo said he is not troubled by survivor guilt, a common after-effect of tragedies. Eugene Schenker 6/24/30 "I thought I would fall apart," she told a newspaper in 1975. He'd get that look. Christina was the youngest survivor of the accident. The article covered the story of an Eastern L-1011 ferry flight where the jet lost one of the two operating engines and the pilot had a challenging landing. Sometime in midflight, passenger Ron Infantino switched seats with his wife, Lilly, after she returned from the bathroom. One of them attracted . Give or take a word, the announcement is remembered verbatim by virtually every survivor. "He swore that Frank Borman had paid him to come to Miami and perform an exorcism on #318. Good for me! theYear = theYear + 1900 Skeptoid Podcast His required surgery. A Military Burial with Honors will be held at a later date, at South Florida National Cemetery, Lake Worth, Florida. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 3 | The rescuers are picking people up from the nose section of the plane first. Ron closed his eyes, crossed his arms comfortably over his chest and let the gentle engine thrum lull him into a light sleep. I have lost contact with Bill Elliott. It took a while, but the female passenger eventually calmed down. Not long after the devastating crash, stories began to emerge in the Eastern Air Lines community of unexplained encounters with some of the crew from flight 401. Author John G. Fuller claimed the whole book was true . "I think I can still do it. Rochelle Rubin 1/5/48 (she was the first victim discovered by the search team The FAA guy sitting closest to Leonhard yelled, Holy shit!, An airboat doesnt have brakes, Leonhard explained. Many of the accounts share similar characteristics. The apparitions of Loft and Repo were invariably described as being extremely lifelike. . Above (L to R): Martin Siminerio in hospital, two file photos from the Miami Herald of survivor Xiomara Casada at Palmetto General with her infant, Christina, in a Miami hospital. "I guess I was always on the edge without knowing it." Official Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 - History, Photos, Survivors and Tribute. Thank you, Rob. Klaus Schenck 9/5/39. Hansel Meighen died on April 15, 1999, and is buried in Ft. Pierce, Florida. The tall building behind the plane is Building 16 at MIA, the former headquarters of Eastern Air Lines. The pilot Bob Loft and the flight engineer Don Repo were two of the 101 people who perished in the air crash. Instead, he would witness the first jumbo jet crash in U.S. history. No gunshots. Web. It was during one of those sessions on December 29, 1972, that Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crossed paths with me and some of the other club members. He cranked up the engine and moved toward the sound. He'd see the lights and hear the roar as the jets climbed into the black night over the swamp or descended toward Miami International Airport. About Flight 401 | The Department of Technology, Management and Budget supports the business operations of the state agencies through a variety of services including Information Technology project delivery, maintenance and support. It is now known that "Mrs. McAvoy" was Donna Smith, Thomas McAvoy's traveling companion. "You have to keep your eye on the frogs real good when that airboat is moving - I mean not take your eyes away - and be quick with the gig," he says, in what amounts to the Gettysburg Address for him. Fortunately, Bud was an expert. "Life's played funny tricks on me," said Richard N. Micale, 41, not laughing. Mom apparently worked closely with that flight attendant. His 1977 book, Crash, tells the story of many of the passengers, the investigation and aftermath of Flight 401. "Welcome to Miami," the pilot announced during the descent at 11:30. Captain Bob Loft survived the impact but was so severely injured that he died during the rescue efforts. A lot of the people I saw were naked. Im sure they all ran away. She spit the words out quickly, doing her best to sound convincing. 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. Braulio Corretjer 1/5/28 They were all the pieces that had been salvaged from Flight 401, including the oven and elevator, but many other pieces as well. 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. Forty-five years ago, when Officer Gray Leonhard of the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission began a solo night patrol in the Everglades, he was on the lookout for poachers, drug smugglers and maybe even a bullet-riddled corpse. He'd cruise up on the frog, spear the frog with the 3-pronged gig, knock the frog off the gig into a sack, all the while moving forward in the airboat while getting ready to gig another frog. Richard L. Marquis, a carpet-layer, saw it too. Flipping through the pages, Bud smiles for the first time in hours. Nepalese authorities on Tuesday began returning to families the bodies of victims of a flight that crashed Sunday, and said they were sending the aircraft's data recorder to France for analysis as . He had to make a detour of some 50 miles before he would arrive at the boat ramp on the north side of the Tamami Trail. There was an enormous flash of flame as two fuel tanks burst open. Shortly before I pulled up to the clubhouse, I heard a news report on my car radio about the crash of an Eastern Airlines L1011 in the Everglades. Fear of Landing. Salvatore Carfizzi 7/15/15 Marquis, Robert | Leonhard happened to be looking southeast across the glades. To me, it seemed as though the wreckage, still covered in Everglades muck and debris, was part of the humanity that had suffered because of that crash. Later on during the flight though, problems with the engine all stemmed from a fire that no-one knew about. It is almost a physical impossibility to find and remove every scrap of wreckage from a swamp. Not a single usable part was salvaged from the wreckage, and not a single component that crashed with Flight 401 was ever installed in another aircraft. I wouldnt be a bit surprised if the speed hed been traveling was well over a hundred miles an hour., Leonhard added, The guy weighed around 160, but it still took eight of us carrying a stretcher filled with his dead weight to carry him out. An hour or so later, a Christmas carol floated through the air, reassuring Infantino he was not alone. The appearance of the dead flight engineer was confirmed by the flight engineer. Speculation at the club was rampant which is to be expected from a bunch of pilots. It was rare for commercial airliners to fly westbound directly overhead Opa locka Airport at such a relatively low altitude. Flight 401 - First Response | Once you become stuck in the glades, you could be there for a long, long, time.. Please review this photograph closely. Hey! For survivors, the crash has left physical and mental scars. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 4 | "I could empathize with what Ron was going through. Photo credit: Don Boyd of Sun Bird Photos. Lockheed L-1011 Inside the Hell Hole | At the time, not much notice was taken. 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. There were four men in the cockpit, all preoccupied with the light and landing gear. This was not the only sighting registered. But when they took off, one of the two remaining engines flamed out, forcing them to make an emergency landing on just one engine. Soon after, ghosts from Flight 401 began to haunt the land and other airplanes. "I still love to fly; I get on planes and fall asleep like a baby," jokes Raposa. It turned out to be anything other than a routine Saturday! Rights and reuse information. The crash of Flight 401 highlighted a number of deficiencies in flight safety that, I'm happy to say . It was approximately 15 to 20 miles west-southwest of the Opa locka Airport and it was pretty difficult to find at first. Donadeo was back at work three months after the crash, took a transfer from Miami to Atlanta in 1978 and retired in 1983. I have to wonder why the U. S. Coast Guard has never awarded Bud . At no time would officials of the company allow or condone any attempt to investigate the reports. According to the National Transportation Safety Board ( NTSB ), the main fuselage broke into four main sections and many other smaller pieces on impact. That was a miracle that is probably attributable to three factors: (1) the crash site was a soft, wet swamp; (2) there was no significant post-crash fire; and (3) the force of disintegration was directed horizontally and not vertically, flinging many survivors out into the swamp instead of subjecting them to fatal blunt force trauma which is characteristic of most airplane crashes. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. Today, she still has the small, Eastern Airlines-issued cream-colored suitcase she carried the night of the crash. 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. I come from an Eastern family - my mother, Betty Olson, retired from Eastern in 1976. (It was later expanded to a much larger area either later that same day or the next day.). As you may know, the mansion is an historic landmark in Miami, located just north of the airport it served as the location of the NTSB hearings into the crash. Nery Palma 7/12/34 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. Startled, and now fully awake, he wondered, Whats going on here? A former crew chief on a B-52 in Vietnam, he had a keener sense than most passengers about a plane in trouble. So, being the thoughtful brother-in-law he was, unbeknownst to me he had collected some of the wreckage of Flight 401. Back in the day, when he spent so much time in the wilderness, only the airplanes overhead reminded him of civilization. Colonel. ValuJet 592 went down in May 1996, killing all 110 on board. This crux of the story was completely made up out of whole cloth. Bud's heroics were featured prominently a few days later in the Miami Herald. The time was 9:20 p.m. Later that afternoon or evening, Bill Elliott came back to the clubhouse where we were all waiting for him so he could let us know what he did and saw. Fuller, J. The plane crashed into the swamp; fortunately, it was a relatively gentle angle into a soft surface, and that's what allowed so many to survive. As the plane descended on its final landing approach to Miami International Airport, a cheerful voice boomed over the cabins loudspeaker address system: Welcome to sunny Miami, the captain announced. Richard Micale: "I remember thinking 'S---, the plane's crashing,' and before I got finished thinking it, it was over. I told Hansel that we needed to check, before we got into the air, whether there were any flight restrictions over the crash site which seemed pretty logical to me. Leonhard put the car in park, cut the motor and stepped out. Newsroom Ready: Canadian officials, families honour Flight PS752 victims on third anniversary Grieving friends and relatives of victims killed during the downing of Flight PS752 called for justice and accountability from the Iranian regime as Canadians from coast to coast marked three years since the country's military shot the plane down. They married in 1974. Each year on December 29th, I spend a little time thinking about that silhouetted L1011 heading west over Opa locka Airport. "Hey! Crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 401. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew blew the roof of the house across the street through his front windows. Two later died, leaving 75 survivors and 101 fatalities. It's like it's a charm," she said. Reports began to take on much more sinister overtone, at least in the eyes of the witness involved. He saw tangled metal and smelled aviation fuel. Donadeo is still active in aviation, as state vice commander of the Civil Air Patrol. He probed it with his flashlight beam. The breakdown and subsequent emergency landing did in fact happen, and was covered in a tongue-in-cheek brief in the journal of the Flight Safety Foundation. The silence was broken only by the intermittent croaking of bullfrogs and the occasional rustle of tall reeds as an unseen creature passed through them. In a weak voice, one of them asked, What about the alligators?, Raposa didnt hesitate: We made such a loud noise when we hit. document.write(theYear) Flamingo Magazine, This Recent University of Tampa Graduate Just Won the Florida Filmmaker Award. Feel the warmth going down.. One of the world's newest and flashiest airliners, a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, was making one of its first flights for Eastern Air Lines on December 29, 1972. 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 saw a man, sitting in the water with a neck injury, trying to remain upright. No flicker from an air boaters headlamp. "Then I saw this great big fireball and the whole 'glades lit up. The following is a list of survivors and victims of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401. Flight 401 - Possible Explanation | Unborn son of Rochelle and Stefan Rubin Documentary, Unscripted. Anyway, the statute of limitations has long since passed. Back to the clubhouse and armed with the airspace restrictions, I was ready to fly. Ghosts of Flight 401 - 7 | The Ghost of Flight 401 was a book of nearly pure fiction, as was the TV movie that followed it. The story goes that parts from it were salvaged and installed in other L-1011s, and almost immediately, the ghost stories began. 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. Imagine his surprise when he came face to face with Don Repo. Patricia Renee Shackelford 12/9/52 Janice Testa 9/12/52 Outside of the aircraft, there wasnt much in the way of visual cues and city lights were non-existent. I should add that Dorothy R. Loft and her two children, Kimberly and Robert, Jr sued Fuller for invasion of privacy over the book . When I was learning to fly in the mid-1960s at Sun Line Helicopters, one of the fixed base operators (FBO) tied into the Miami-Dade Junior College aviation program at the Opa locka Airport, I worked as a line boy refueling aircraft and doing minor line maintenance. 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At 11:30 | Unborn son of Rochelle and Stefan Rubin Documentary, Unscripted about a plane crash there... And propeller S. Coast Guard has never awarded bud a serious accident it! Caught up with him April 15, 1999, and is buried in Ft. Pierce Florida. Club with members having the common bonds of flying and aircraft ownership is a list survivors... Its fateful Flight ; Photography courtesy Ron Infantino when we get out of whole.. Miami Herald, 63, of West Miami-Dade, still has the small, Eastern Flight... Mental scars with what Ron was going to have a nervous breakdown 's played funny tricks on me ''. West Miami-Dade, still has the small, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 before its fateful Flight ; courtesy!
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