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Anniversaries Approach for Doomed Eastern Flight 401
By newsguy | December 27, 2007
December 29th will mark the 35th anniversary of the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 in the Florida Everglades. The accident was considered the first accident involving a “jumbo jet”–a Lockheed L-1011. Of 176 on board, 101 were killed.
The accident was caused by pilot distraction. Pilot Robert Loft and copilot Bert Stockstill were circling in a holding pattern over the Everglades, as instructed by Miami air traffic control, while they sorted a problem with their nose gear. The landing gear light was not functioning.
The pair put the plane on autopilot, but a subsequent jostle of a steering column shifted the plane into manual, with neither man noticing. It wasn’t until an altitude warning alarm alerted them to the situation that they began to rectify their descent; by then it was too late. The plane hit the glades at 227 mph.
Photo by Enrique Galeano Morales. Some rights reserved.
The NTSB ruled the cause of the accident to be pilot error, stating “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.” Accident report here.
The cockpit recording of Flight 401’s final moments is haunting to hear—Robert Loft’s last words, “Hey, what’s happening here?” underscore the confusion that prevailed in the cockpit throughout the end stages of the flight. First the pilots struggled with the landing gear, then with the altitude. Neither were novice pilots. Loft was 50th in seniority at Eastern Air Lines.
But if the recording is haunting, the experiences of Eastern crew following the crash are downright paranormal. Sightings of Loft and flight engineer Don Repo (who, at the time of the crash, was busy trying to fix the landing gear indicator) were reported so frequently that the airline issued a warning to employees that any employee found spreading rumors of Flight 401 ghosts would be fired.
Parts of the downed Lockheed L-1011 equipment were salvaged and used in other planes in the fleet. An oven from Flight 401 was placed in another Eastern L-1011, and ghostly specters of 401 crew were said to appear in it. The stories were so well-known the oven was removed from service.
The ghost stories were spread further by the book The Ghost Of Flight 401 by John G. Fuller. 2008 will mark the book’s 30th anniversary; since its publication the U.S. Public has had a fascination with the possibility of supernatural activity surrounding the ill-fated Flight 401. The combination of tragedy and the fright of haunting is potent. The Ghost of Flight 401 was released as a made-for-tv film in 1978, further popularizing the tales of paranormal activity in the aftermath of the 401 disaster.
Several web sites have been created to allow visitors to analyze Flight 401 data and discover the frightening tales associated with its “haunts” and “curse”. Such sites are Eastern Airlines Flight 401 – The Ghosts of… , “Haunted Skies – Ghosts of the Eastern 401 Disaster” , Ghostly Favorites “The Ghost of Flight 401”, and Subversive Element “The Ghosts of Flight 401”.
Topics: What the...? |