The engineer and second officer for flight 401 was Donald Louis Repo, a man who had gone to sleep early the night before because he was trying to shake a cold. Before the air conditioning could even be turned on, the flight engineer had to make sure the flight deck is equipped with spare light bulbs, first aid kit, rain repellent, smoke goggles, a hand axe and so on. With First Officer Stockstill at the controls, Captain Loft ran through the approach checklist, followed by the landing checklist. In this mode once the pilot releases pressure on the yoke (control column) the autopilot will maintain the pitch attitude . December 29, 2022 - 50 years to the day of the crash of 401. More significantly, it would turn out, was the fact that there hadn't been any entries in the logs for the past sixty days complaining of trouble with the landing gear. Put power on it first, Bert. We just saw a big explosion, looks like it was out west. You gotta turn it one quarter turn to the left, said Loft. Operated by Air France 1123. Alright, leave it there, said Loft, giving up on the matter altogether. The accident in a nutshell The wide body tri-jet was built with a revolutionary philosophy: that only the best on-board technology was acceptable, and if that technology didnt exist, Lockheed would invent it. After all, if they landed without knowing the nose gear position and the gear collapsed, how would that look in the subsequent safety report? Screwing around with that damn 20-cent piece of, The entire crew let loose a little nervous laughter. When a force of 7 kilograms or more was applied on the pitch axis, the autopilot would stop holding the plane at the selected altitude, and the ALT light on the autopilot display would extinguish, but the autopilot mode select lever would remain in the command position without reverting to CWS. ste se encontraba debajo de la cabina, y no hay indicaciones por los datos obtenidos en la caja negra de que el comandante haya odo el pitido. But despite his rescuers assurances to the contrary, Loft did indeed die of his injuries within minutes, joining First Officer Stockstill, who lay lifeless beside him. You got it sideways, then.. [5] Falleci el 21 de noviembre de 2008, debido a complicaciones por unas heridas causadas por una cada un mes antes. Rescue workers in airboats at the scene. Back row: Pat Ghyssels, Trudy Smith, Adrianne Hamilton, Mercy Ruiz. This wont come out Bob, Stockstill complained. "Who's at the Controls?" When the flight finally departed New York, there were only 163 passengers and 13 crew on board, well short of the expected number. A couple hours later, the L-1011 commenced its approach to Miami. Cuando el cuerpo principal del fuselaje toc tierra continu movindose por la vegetacin y el agua, destrozndose a medida que avanzaba. He decided: Go. The plane was a new Lockheed L-1011, pride of the Eastern fleet. The Safety Board also noted that the FAA was considering requiring ground proximity warning systems, and encouraged the agency to continue with those efforts. While the plane was on the ground at JFK, the tail skid accumulator was serviced and the oxygen bottle replaced. Beneath the cockpit floor was the avionics bay, a cramped room colloquially known as the hellhole, which could be accessed via a hatch in the cockpit floor. On the back of an envelope he wrote the following letter to Samuel L. Higginbottom, who was then the president and COO of Eastern Airlines. The flight had been fully booked, filling the spacious cabin nearly to capacity, but in what would turn out to be a stroke of luck, at least 65 prospective passengers never made it to the airport due to the wintry weather snarling traffic. We did something to the altitude? he said, sounding confused. They almost missed flight 401. All would be dead in a few hours. 2023 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Loft caught sight of their altitude rapidly ticking down toward zero and exclaimed, Hey, whats happening here?. Ethel Jackson, 64, a housekeeper from Liberty City, brought her white uniform in a carry-on bag. For Cuban-born Lilly Infantino and her new American husband Ronald, the trip was a chance to spend a traditional Cuban holiday celebration with her family in Miami. Source: AP, The flight crew of Eastern Air Lines 401 taken prior to the crash. She had brought a camera to preserve the memories of the good times the crew had had with each other. Eastern 401 heavy, roger, said the controller, pull up, climb straight ahead to two thousand, go back to approach control [on] 128.6. The plan was for flight 401 to enter a holding pattern west of the airport at 2,000 feet, where it wouldnt interfere with other planes on approach. This article is written without reference to and supersedes the original. Flight 401 flew south over Norfolk, Virginia, then followed Jet Airway 79 to Wilmington, North Carolina, and thereafter was over water. The fuselage disintegrated, and huge chunks of the L-1011 tumbled through the shallow water, spewing debris and passengers out into the darkness. This lack of knowledge made it unlikely that they could have predicted the autopilots behavior, and consequently they were less likely to notice when it quietly reverted to an intermediate mode. You can see that indicator for the nose wheel, theres a place in there you can look and see if theyre lined up, said Loft. The investigation into the crash of Eastern Air Lines flight 401 broke new ground in several areas. Our dedication of the memorial last December 29th serves to prove in a tangible manner that they will never, ever cease to shine within our hearts. [4] Stockstill falleci en el impacto, mientras que el Capitn Loft muri entre los restos del cockpit antes de poder ser transportado a un hospital. Wishing you all a very Happy, Healthy, Blessed and Prosperous New Year!!! Within a short time the helicopter managed to land on a nearby flood control levee, and the rescue began in earnest. By using this site, you agree to its use of cookies. But the altitude hold function of the autopilot worked differently. La velocidad era 365 kilmetros por hora cuando se precipit a tierra. Flight Engineer Don Repo chimed in with a suggestion. All told, of the 176 people on board, 101 died and 75 survived. Seconds later, a huge explosion rose up from the swamp, throwing up a 30-meter-high wall of fire that seemed to continue for the better part of a mile. However, two survivors soon died of their injuries, including Flight Engineer Don Repo. Air Disaster - Volumen 1, Aerospace Publications Pty Ltd, 1994, p. 98-111, Junta Nacional de Seguridad del Transporte, Asociacin Estadounidense de Bsqueda y Rescate en Hidrodeslizador, Anexo:Accidentes ms graves de aviacin (1953-presente), Anexo:Accidentes e incidentes notables en la aviacin civil, How Swift Starting Action Teams Get off the Ground: What United Flight 232 and Airline Flight Crews Can Tell Us About Team Communication, 35 years after jetliner crash, hero gets his due, Press Release Point - Hero of Flight 401 - "Angel of the Everglades Dies, ASN Aircraft Accident Lockheed L-1011-385-1 TriStar 1 N310EA Everglades, FL, The Crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401-Epilogue, ASN Aircraft accident Lockheed L-1011-385-1 TriStar 1 N310EA Everglades, FL, Sumario de la Junta Nacional de Seguridad del Transporte, Sitio de los sobrevivientes del vuelo 401, El accidente del Vuelo 401 de Eastern Airlines, El accidente del Vuelo 401 de Eastern Airlines-Eplogo, https://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vuelo_401_de_Eastern_Air_Lines&oldid=148627666, Accidentes e incidentes areos en Estados Unidos, Accidentes e incidentes de Lockheed L-1011, Accidentes e incidentes areos causados por error del piloto, Accidentes e incidentes areos con vuelo controlado contra el terreno, Accidentes e incidentes de Eastern Airlines, Accidentes e incidentes de Mayday: catstrofes areas, Wikipedia:Artculos buenos en la Wikipedia en japons, Wikipedia:Artculos con coordenadas en Wikidata, Wikipedia:Pginas con enlaces mgicos de ISBN, Licencia Creative Commons Atribucin Compartir Igual3.0, 75 (77 inicialmente, 2 fallecieron despus). They will never be forgotten! Among those found alive were Flight Engineer Don Repo and technical officer Angelo Donadeo, who had been inside the avionics bay at the moment of impact. Directly ahead of them were a row of seats and the first class lounge, where there were several additional empty seats and a buffet of cheese and crackers. The scene they discovered was hellish beyond all imagination. Especially during the holidays, night coaches to Miami were usually filled up. MUC. Mercy and I have carried our 101 passengers and fellow crew members in our hearts for 50 years and will continue to do so until we meet them again. La investigacin de la Junta Nacional de Seguridad del Transporte permiti descubrir que el piloto automtico haba cambiado la altitud sin que la tripulacin lo notara. It would be imprudent to land without the nose gear light illuminated, because its absence could indicate a problem with the locking mechanism that might cause the gear to collapse on touchdown. You want me to fly it Bob?. While the fleet was being built by the Lockheed-California Company, Rolls Royce, the manufacturer of the engines, faltered under the weight of the development costs and went bankrupt. The investigation would paint a picture of a cockpit crew so focused on a burnt-out lightbulb that they forgot to fly the airplane, letting their massive jet slowly descend from 2,000 feet until it struck the ground. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 was on its way from New York to Miami on December 29th, 1972, with 13 crew and 163 passengers onboard. El accidente est plasmado en un episodio de la quinta temporada de Mayday: catstrofes areas, titulado "Fatal Distraction" en la versin original y "Distraccin fatal" en espaol. She initially balked at the idea, but Jerry used one of her own arguments to convince her. But evidently some people had made last minute plans and even with one hundred and sixty passengers on board, when the doors closed, sixty-eight empty seats remained. The intermediate modes, in which the autopilot would hold an attitude inputted via the yoke, were therefore off limits, and the details of how they worked were not covered in training. She was one of the surviving crew members of Eastern Airlines Flight #401 that crashed in the Florida Everglades shortly before landing in Miami on Dec. 29, 1972. 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. A computer-stored flight plan would bring the great white Whisperliner inland over West Palm Beach, and then south to Miami - a long, dense galaxy of lights glittering on a north-south axis between two black voids, the Atlantic ocean and the Everglades. . Eastern 401, Ive lost you on the radar there, your transponder, he continued. In fact, there would be 160 on board. Although the term crew resource management did not yet exist, the NTSB specifically mentioned one of the key symptoms of poor CRM: a failure to delegate. Loft and Stockstill set about trying to pull the light out and put it back in to see if they could get it to turn on. Even though the NTSB made no recommendations in this area, and no sweeping FAA initiatives explicitly cited Eastern 401, the crash undoubtedly led to the recognition that change was needed, a critical progenitor of progress which is often overshadowed by the catalysts of its eventual implementation. The systems first entered service in 1977 and were installed at major airports across the United States by the end of the 1980s. Survivors - Crew and Eastern Employees But when Loft attempted to lower the landing gear, there was an immediate problem: the light indicating that the nose gear was down and locked did not illuminate. Okay, going up to two thousand, one twenty-eight six, he said, reading back the command. Information about your use of this site is shared with Google. Loft switched on the wheel well lights and said, Now try it. Repo shuffled his way back down the ladder into the hellhole, and Donadeo followed him down to render assistance. Having engaged the autopilot, tasks such as monitoring airspeed and altitude were compartmentalized away in some inconspicuous realm of thought where they were subordinated to the apparently more urgent task of confirming the status of the landing gear. Front row: Sue Tebbs, Dottie Warnock, Beverly Raposa, Stephanie Stanich. Imagen computarizada del vuelo 401, segundos antes de estrellarse en el pantano. Despus del accidente, se reportaron supuestas actividades paranormales en aviones donde se haban utilizado partes recuperadas y reutilizadas de la aeronave siniestrada en otros aviones similares; Eastern Airlines termin eliminando todos los fragmentos recuperados. Now he and the same crew would fly back to Florida as flight 401.At 7:43 that evening, operating as flight 164, the Whisperliner N310EA touched down at JFK after flying in from Tampa. Two-month-old Christina slept in her mother's arms wearing a pink dress. Warren Terry, a co-pilot, and Angelo Donadeo, a maintenance specialist. Note: this accident was previously featured in episode 14 of the plane crash series on December 9th, 2017, prior to the series arrival on Medium. MU1676 Flight Tracker - Track the real-time flight status of China Eastern Airlines MU 1676 live using the FlightStats Global Flight Tracker. Among the general public, Eastern Air Lines flight 401 is best known not for its safety lessons, but for an alleged haunting which became one of the most widely shared urban legends to emerge from the aviation industry. The weather was perfect - a sunny day with a strong breeze as we all gathered 1/2 mile from the runway at Miami International Airport! The scenes in this video are from the documentary series Air Crash Investigation.None of them belong to me.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines_. On flight 401, an unexpected factor made it seem even larger than it was. She flew out on flight 401 on Thursday and Jerry would follow 24 hours later on Friday night's Flight 401. Por sus esfuerzos, recibi el Premio Humanitario otorgado por la Alianza/Fundacin Nacional de los Desastres Areos de los Estados Unidos y el Premio Alumitec por "Hroe de hidrodeslizador" por la Asociacin Estadounidense de Bsqueda y Rescate en Hidrodeslizador. En 2007 se le otorg una placa honorfica. It found the preoccupation with a malfunction of the nose landing gear position indicating system distracted the crew's attention from the instruments. In the days after Christmas, this flight was often filled with New Yorkers looking for a mid-winter getaway in warmer climes, and certainly this was the case on the 29th of December 1972. For the first time, the National Transportation Safety Board would highlight such modern mainstays as poor crew resource management and overreliance on automation, conclusions which are self-evident today but were unheard of in 1972. That-a boy! said Captain Loft. [6], En total, 77 personas sobrevivieron al accidente: 69 de los 163 pasajeros y ocho de las diez auxiliares de vuelo, con 99 muertos durante el choque. Bert Stockstill, thirty nine years old, was a former Air Force flier. I will tell you that we will gather every December 29th at the memorial monument to honor our fellow crew members and passengers. We can tell if that son of a bitch is down by looking at our indices, said Loft. Bob, this piece of crap just wont come out!. This flight had been booked solid. To that end, he had brought computer print outs on his trip to Miami. As the plane came apart, some passengers were thrown out into the swamp as far as 100 meters away from the plane, mostly with fatal results. 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