Eastern Air Lines Flight 401

Eastern Air Lines Flight401 was a regularly scheduled flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, to Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida. On December29, 1972, Flight401 was operated using a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar (registration N310EA), which had been delivered to the airline just a few months earlier on August18. The aircraft was fleet number 310, and the tenth TriStar delivered to the carrier. == Flight crew ==

The flight was commanded by Captain Robert Albin "Bob" Loft, aged 55, a veteran pilot ranked fiftieth in seniority at Eastern Air Lines. Loft had been with the airline for 32 years and had accumulated a total of 29,700 flight hours during his career making him an exceedingly experienced aviator. He had logged 280 hours in the L-1011. His flight crew included First Officer Albert John "Bert" Stockstill, aged 39, who had 5,800 hours of flying experience (with 306 of them in the L-1011) and Flight Engineer Donald Louis "Don" Repo, aged 51, who had 15,700 hours of flying experience (with 53 of them in the L-1011). A company employee—technical officer Angelo Donadeo, aged 47, returning to Miami from an assignment in New York City—accompanied the flight crew for the journey, but was officially an off-duty, "nonrevenue passenger". == Accident ==

report Flight 401 departed New York on Friday, December 29, 1972, at 21:20EST, with 163 passengers and 13 crew members aboard. As Stockstill started another turn, onto 180°, he noticed the discrepancy. The following conversation was recovered from the flight voice recorder later: {{Blockquote|{{dialogue|S=Stockstill|L=Loft Less than ten seconds after this exchange, Flight 401 crashed. The location was west-northwest of Miami, from the end of Runway 9L. The aircraft was traveling at when it hit the ground. With the plane in mid-turn, the left wingtip hit the surface first, then the left engine and the left landing gear, making three trails through the sawgrass, each wide and more than long. When the main part of the fuselage hit the ground, it continued to move through the grass and water, breaking up as it went. Crash sequence The TriStar's port outer wing structure struck the ground first, followed by the number1 engine and the port main undercarriage. The disintegration of the aircraft that followed scattered wreckage over an area long and wide in a southwesterly direction. Only small fragments of metal marked the wingtip's first contact, followed further on by three massive swaths cut through the mud and sawgrass by the aircraft's extended undercarriage before two of the legs were sheared off. Then came scattered parts from the number 1 (port) engine, and fragments from the port wing itself and the port tailplane. About from the wingtip's initial contact with the ground, the massive fuselage had begun to break up, scattering components from the underfloor galley, the cargo compartments, and the cabin interior. At along the wreckage trail, the outer section of the starboard wing tore off, gouging a crater in the soft ground as it did so. From this point on, the breakup of the fuselage became more extensive, scattering metal fragments, cabin fittings, and passenger seats widely. The three major sections of the ‌the most intact of which was the tail ‌lay in the mud towards the end of the wreckage trail. The fact that the tail ‌rear fuselage, number2 tail-mounted engine, and remains of the ‌finally came to rest substantially further forward than other major sections, was probably the result of the center-mounted number2 engine continuing to deliver thrust during the actual breakup of the aircraft. No complete cross-section of the passenger cabin remained, and both the port wing and tailplane were demolished to fragments. Incongruously, not far from the roofless fuselage center section with the inner portion of the starboard wing still attached, lay a large, undamaged and fully inflated rubber dinghy, one of a number carried on the TriStar in the event of an emergency water landing. The breakup of the fuselage had freed it from its stowage and activated its inflation mechanism. == Rescue and aftermath ==

Robert "Bud" Marquis (1929–2008), a local airboat pilot, was out frog gigging with Ray Dickinsin when they witnessed the crash. The two men rushed to rescue survivors. Marquis received burns to his face, arms and legs—a result of spilled jet fuel from the crashed TriStar—but continued shuttling people in and out of the crash site that night and the next day. For his efforts, 35 years after the crash, he received the Humanitarian Award from the National Air Disaster Alliance/Foundation and the "Alumitech – Airboat Hero Award" from the American Airboat Search and Rescue Association. In all, 75 people survived the crash—67 of the 163 passengers and eight of the ten flight attendants. Despite their own injuries, the surviving flight attendants were credited with helping other survivors and several quick-thinking actions, such as warning survivors of the danger of striking matches due to jet fuel in the swamp water, as flashlights were not part of the standard equipment on commercial airliners at the time, Most of the dead were passengers in the aircraft's midsection. The swamp absorbed much of the energy of the crash, lessening the impact on the aircraft. The muddy waters of the Everglades had covered the wounds sustained by survivors, preventing them from bleeding to death. However, it also complicated the survivors' recuperation, as organisms in the swamp caused infection, with the potential for gas gangrene. Eight passengers became infected and were treated with hyperbaric chambers. All the survivors were injured; 60 received serious injuries and 17 suffered minor ones that did not require hospitalization. The most common injuries were fractures of ribs, spines, pelvises and lower extremities. Fourteen survivors had various degrees of burns. == Investigation ==

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation discovered that the autopilot had been inadvertently switched from altitude hold to control wheel steering (CWS) mode in pitch. In this mode, once the pilot releases pressure on the yoke (control column or wheel), the autopilot maintains the pitch attitude of the aircraft until the yoke is again moved. Investigators believe the autopilot switched modes when the captain accidentally leaned against the yoke while turning to speak to the flight engineer, who was sitting behind and to the right of him. The slight forward pressure on the stick would have caused the aircraft to enter a slow descent, maintained by the CWS system. Museum Investigation into the aircraft's autopilot showed that the force required to switch to CWS mode was different between the A and B channels (, respectively). Thus, the switching to CWS in channel A possibly did not occur in channel B, thus depriving the first officer of any indication the mode had changed (channel A provides the captain's instruments with data, while channel B provides the first officer's). Simultaneous to Eastern 401, another flight in the area, National 607, was also having a landing gear incident, but flight 607's gear was actually jammed. Charles Johnson, one of the air traffic controllers on duty, had been dealing with the incident and aftermath of flight 607 when he was handed ATC control of Eastern 401. Miami ATC had only one three-dimensional radar that could show the height, speed, etc., and Johnson was using that radar. He then received Eastern 401's transmissions. The flight had not declared an emergency. So, Johnson only knew about the so-called "jammed nose gear". He noticed the decrease in Eastern 401's altitude, and made one call to the pilots, asking for their progress. He was told by Loft that 401 was about ready to change course back to the airport. He did not mention their decrease in altitude, as that was not part of the job of ATC at the time, and he did not make further contact before the crash. Another possible cause for Johnson's relaxed attitude regarding the decrease in altitude is that the radar used at the time was known to occasionally report incorrect altitude for brief periods, before correcting. NTSB investigators later determined Johnson was the only person who noticed Eastern 401 descending, but did not fault him, as he had followed all the ATC procedures in place at the time. After Loft bumped the yoke, the aircraft descended from the selected altitude of . A C chord chime sounded from the rear speaker. This altitude alert was designed to warn the pilots of a deviation of at least 250 feet from the selected altitude, and went unnoticed by the distracted crew. This was possibly compounded by the fact the chime only sounded from the rear speaker, located by the flight engineer's seat, which was unoccupied at the time. Visually, since it was nighttime and the aircraft was flying over the dark terrain of the Everglades, no ground lights or other visual cues were available to indicate the TriStar was slowly descending. Loft was found during an autopsy to have an undetected brain tumor in an area that controls vision. However, the NTSB concluded that the tumor did not contribute to the accident. == Cause ==

The final NTSB report cited the cause of the crash as pilot error, specifically: "the failure of the flight crew to monitor the flight instruments during the final four minutes of flight, and to detect an unexpected descent soon enough to prevent impact with the ground. 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." The training is designed to make problem solving in a cockpit much more efficient by delegating tasks to specific crew members, and ensures one pilot is always monitoring the instruments at any given time. Flashlights are now standard equipment near jumpseats, and all jumpseats are outfitted with shoulder harnesses. == Reported ghost sightings ==

In the months and years following the crash, stories began circulating that numerous employees and passengers of Eastern had reported sightings of deceased crew members Loft and Repo sitting aboard other L-1011s, in particular N318EA. These stories speculated that the sightings were connected to the fact that parts of the crashed aircraft were salvaged after the investigation and refitted into other L-1011s. The reported hauntings were said to be seen only on the planes that used the spare parts. While Eastern publicly denied their planes were haunted, they reportedly removed all the salvaged parts from their L-1011 fleet. Pieces of the plane's wreckage can also be found in Ed and Lorraine Warren's Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut. The story of the crash and its aftermath were documented in John G. Fuller's 1976 book The Ghost of Flight 401. 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. According to Robert J. Serling's 1980 book From the Captain to the Colonel: An Informal History of Eastern Airlines, the claim that wreckage from Flight 401 was installed and later removed from other Eastern aircraft was false, and no Eastern employees had ever claimed to have seen or believed in the alleged ghost sightings. Skeptic Brian Dunning claims that the origin for the ghost sightings may have been a joke made by an Eastern captain after an emergency landing in which he quipped that he "thought [Don] Repo's ghost was on the plane". == Memorial ==

The Eastern Airlines Flight 401 memorial in Miami Springs, dedicated on December 29, 2022, is located in the 700 block of the Curtiss Parkway near the Curtiss Mansion. This permanent monument honors the 101 people who perished in the 1972 Everglades crash, featuring a plaque with the victims' names, and was spearheaded by survivor Beverly Raposa. == In popular culture ==

The crash was documented in Rob and Sarah Elder's 1977 book Crash. A television movie of the same name was broadcast in October 1978. Based on the book, it dramatized the crash, rescue efforts, and NTSB investigation. Eddie Albert featured as "Dunn", a fictionalized version of Captain Robert Loft. Bob Welch's 1979 album Three Hearts includes a song titled "The Ghost of Flight 401". Footage of the aftermath appears in the disaster documentary Days of Fury (1979), directed by Fred Warshofsky. 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. It was also featured in an episode of The Unbelievable with Dan Aykroyd. Flight 401 is mentioned in Supernatural episode "Phantom Traveler" (2005). The crash was featured in the Discovery Channel Canada/National Geographic TV series Mayday, in "Fatal Distraction" (2008). It is featured in the 2010 Why Planes Crash episode "Human Error". "The Ghosts of Flight 401", part of the Discovery+ series Shock Docs, emphasizes the alleged supernatural legacy of the crash. The flight was mentioned by Dieter F. Uchtdorf in his 2009 General Conference (LDS Church) talk, "We Are Doing a Great Work and Cannot Come down". ==See also==