. [1] As the plane made its way across the marshlands of the Florida Everglades, Stockstill is heard to say, We did something to the altitude. Visually, since it was nighttime and the aircraft was flying over the darkened terrain of the Everglades, no ground lights or other visual signs indicated the TriStar was slowly descending. Captain Loft was found during the autopsy to have an undetected brain tumor in an area that controls vision. She has written articles for several online websites, and had an article published in a Canadian magazine on the most haunted locations in Atlantic Canada. The account of the crash and its outcome was documented inJohn G. Fullers 1976 bookThe Ghost of Flight 401. When she was shown photographs of employees in an attempt to pick out the mystery person, she immediately singled out Repo. After the aircraft had descended 250 feet (76m) from the selected altitude of 2,000 feet (610m), a C-chord sounded from the rear speaker. Death: March 21, 1819 (52-53) Hawkins County, Tennessee, USA. Suddenly the plane plunged 250ft in 70 seconds; an altitude warning went off Cchordchime located under the engineers workstation the same engineer that was down below checking the status of the wheels. Of the cockpit crew, only flight engineer Repo survived the initial crash, along with technical officer Donadeo, who was down in the nose electronics bay with Repo at the moment of impact. However, it also complicated the survivors' recuperation, as organisms in the swamp caused infection, with the potential for gas gangrene. Eastern Air Lines Flight 401was a regularly scheduled flight that connected the Big Apples JFK airport with Miamis wild beach soaked riviera. The individual looked outside to see what the pilot was looking at and after turning to look back at the next seat over, Robert Loft had disappeared. An original floor board from Flight 401 remains in the archives at History Miami in South Florida. Marquis received burns to his face, arms, and legsa result of spilled jet fuel from the crashed TriStarbut continued shuttling people in and out of the crash site that night and the next day. Husband of Sarah Roberts; Sarah Frost (Roberts) and Sarah Frost. The co . The Stranahan House is the oldest surviving building in Broward County, having been built in 1901. [6]:110, Investigation into the aircraft's autopilot showed that the force required to switch to CWS mode was different between the A and B channels (15 and 20lbf or 65 and 90N, respectively). Please check your email and click on the link to activate your account. Some high-ranking employees and pilots would do so only under the cover of anonymity. Resend Activation Email, Please check the I'm not a robot checkbox, If you want to be a Photo Volunteer you must enter a ZIP Code or select your location on the map. The story of the crash and its aftermath were documented in John G. Fuller's 1976 book The Ghost of Flight 401. Perhaps the final conversation heard by the control tower between Captain Loft and First Officer Stockstill is the best place to start when unfolding the tragic circumstances of 29th December 1972. For more tales of the macabre, check out our blog. The pilots of flight 401, from left to right: Bob Loft, Bert Stockstill, and Don Repo. . 2023 Copyright Miami Haunts. The majority of those who passed away were seated in the middle section of the plane. YouTube. The crash was followed by reports of the appearance of apparitions of Flight 401 crew members, including Captain Loft, on subsequent flights. Try again later. JAMES ROBERT ''BOB'' LOFT , 55, of Aurora died Nov. 23. Your Name: Subject: Message: Notify me by email of all message replies. The home is a 2-pen structure with a large sleeping loft running the entire second floor. You can customize the cemeteries you volunteer for by selecting or deselecting below. The man was a hero that ended up saving dozens of lives. But first, lets talk about what happened to Flight 401. The Lockheed L-1011 carried 163 passengers and 13 crew members. Many believe that the piece is cursed. Robert Bain Loft was born circa 1863. This account already exists, but the email address still needs to be confirmed. Quickly see who the memorial is for and when they lived and died and where they are buried. 1 (port) engine, and fragments from the port wing itself and the port tailplane. Cremated, Ashes given to family or friend, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/17211647/robert-albin-loft. One of them had worked with the dead pilot years earlier and positively identified him. Perhaps if we one day can understand the reasons for that, we can understand more of afterlife existence generally speaking. And furthermore, laid in a coffin in the cargo hold. Maybe the salvaged pieces of Flight 401s wreckage also contained the final energies of the crew. Oops, some error occurred while uploading your photo(s). Sits in an upright position, tray tables closed. Their airboat crashing through the marshland at burning debris. This browser does not support getting your location. Back row: Pat Ghyssels, Trudy Smith, Adrianne Hamilton . To view a photo in more detail or edit captions for photos you added, click the photo to open the photo viewer. Comment by dasbaum PvP vendors are currently not selling Season 3 & 4 elite gear (in EU only though, US seems to work). [15][18] The reported hauntings were said to be seen only on the planes that used the spare parts. or don't show this againI am good at figuring things out. The damn light simply wouldnt turn on. The flight was routine until 23:32 when the plane began its approach into Miami International Airport. NPS. Scared but calm, she went to find other colleagues and returned with two other flight attendants. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 departed New York's JFK airport at 9:20 in the evening enroute to Miami International Airport. 29 Dec 1972 (aged 55) Miami, Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA. The film was based on Fullers book, and it concentrated on the ghost sightings that came into being after the incident. Captain Loft died before he could be pulled from the wreckage. The crew didnt react. (Rob and Sarah Elder, "Crash") In command of flight 401 that night were three pilots: Captain Robert Loft, First Officer Albert Stockstill, and Flight Engineer Donald Repo. Captain Loft had been with the airline for 32 years and had accumulated a total of 29,700 flight hours throughout his flying career. Although 75 people survived, the accident still resulted in the deaths of 101 occupants, including Captain Robert 'Bob' Loft and Flight Engineer Donald 'Don' Repo. Captain Bob Loft and Second Officer Don Repo died in the crash, as did ninety-nine other people on board in what was one of the worst commercial air disasters in United States history. [5]:3 This was later discovered to be due to a burned-out light bulb. A TV movieThe Ghost of Flight 401,aired in February 1978. Gossip regarding the sighting of the spirits of Don Repo and Bob Loft spread throughout Eastern Air Lines to the point where Easterns management warned employees that they could face dismissal if caught spreading ghost stories. Captain Bob Loft was also seen on a few occasions, but never as often as Repo. Right after this event, a new turn comes as a consequence. John Stockstill is the first officer and Robert Loft is the captain. The Ghosts of Flight 401, part of the Discovery+ series Shock Docs, focuses on the supernatural legacy of the crash. It turned out that the passenger was Bob Loft, the captain who died on a flight from New York to Miami in December of 1972. . Who shall say where one ends and where the other begins?". Verify and try again. After nodding his head as a greeting, the pilot leaned over to look out of the planes window and thats when his nametag became visible which read Robert Loft. And the damn light It was just a burned-out lightbulb. He had logged 280 hours in the L-1011. The area, an inhospitable and incredibly inaccessible place, proved to be a logistical nightmare for rescue workers. [4] It was also the first hull loss and fatal crash of a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar. The swamp and its critters gobbling up the dead and living alike. Captain Robert Loft and Second Officer Donald Repo survived the crash, briefly. He married Sarah Taylor on 3 October 1614, in Hertfordshire, England. Everything was going smoothly. Flight 401 was under the command of Captain Robert Albin Loft, 55, a veteran Eastern Airline pilot. Investigators concluded the planes lower altitude by saying, the crew was distracted by the nose gear light, and because the flight engineer was not in his seat when the lower altitude warning sounded, so would not have been able to hear it. When Captain Robert Campbell I was born in 1717, his father, Charles Campbell I, was 21 and his mother, Mary Stuart, was 21. The flight departed JFK Airport on Friday, December 29, 1972, at 9:20 PM, with 163 passengers and a total of 13 crew members on board. [5]:6,16[9] However, the NTSB concluded that the captain's tumor did not contribute to the accident. Blood and Blood-Drinking: Paranormal Creatures and (Alleged) Real Vampires, When Ghosts Get Hungry: That's When Things Get Dangerous. chime located under the engineers workstation the same engineer that was down below checking the status of the wheels. Captain Robert Cleveland was born in Virginia around 1744 and moved with his family to western North Carolina around 1766. Parts of the aircraft that had crashed operating Flight 401 were salvaged after the crash investigation and refitted into other L-1011s. Footage of the incident appeared in the film Days of Fury (1980), directed by Fred Warshofsky and hosted by Vincent Price. Robert A.Loft - Capt. Father of John "Captain" Frost, Sr.; Simeon Riley Frost; Nancy Anne Seals; Lucinda Jane Farmer; Robert Ray Frost and 6 others. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Bound for Miami, Flight 401 took off from New York's JFK at 9:20 p.m. Marquis suffered multiple burns to his face, arms, and legs but valiantly continued seesawing people in and out of the crash site that night and the next day. . The final conversation gave investigators enough of a clue to then piece together the timeline that led the pilots to be in the fatal position they found themselves. Robert lived in 1891, at address, Kentucky. 17 Mar 1917. Copyright 2023 UFO Insight, All Rights Reserved. An unnamed female passenger also had a chilling experience during an Eastern Airlines flight. Robert Loft, 55; First Officer Albert Stockstill, 39, and Second Officer Donald Repo, 51, all of Miami-Dade. Robert Albin Loft believed it was just a faulty bulb issue. There were 75 people who survived the crash. Sorry! Robert Malcolm Young's script doesn't contain enough flavor to . Have scientists finally solved the mystery of Europes bog body phenomenon. Real Paranorms. Robert Albin "Bob" Loft. Failed to report flower. It was a gradual descent, little by little the craft lost a couple of meters it was so gradual that not even the well-seasoned Captain noticed anything hinky until all hell broke loose. Captain Roberts is a level 45 Elite NPC that can be found in Dalaran. , musician Bob Welch also recorded a song titled The Ghost of Flight 401. The short video below is a reconstruction of the disastrous incident. And one of the better-documented cases of the existence of something beyond death. This individual was sitting in a window seat with nobody else in the next seat or in front of this person. The flight was under the command of Captain Robert Albin (Bob) Loft, age 55, a veteran pilot ranked 50th in seniority at Eastern Air Lines. [6]:110 Visually, since it was nighttime and the aircraft was flying over the darkened terrain of the Everglades, no ground lights or other visual signs indicated the TriStar was slowly descending. Captain Loft died in the wreck remains of Flight 401 before he could be transported to a hospital. It is certainly a unique case. Year should not be greater than current year. Always up to date. Includes Address (8) Phone (11) Email (2) See Results. They failed to notice that the autopilot had inadvertently been disconnected and, subsequently, the aircraft gradually lost altitude and crashed. It is said that Don Repo would appear only to warn of mechanical or other problems that needed to be checked. Get notified of the best best booming posts weekly. 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. With thirty-two years of seniority, he was ranked fiftieth among the airlines four thousand pilots. The Quiet Before The Storm Of The Modern UFO Era, The Mini UFO Waves And Strange Encounters From The End Of The Second World War, The Surge Of UFO Encounters Before The Second World War: The Final Years Of The Thirties. [8], In all, 75 survived the crash67 of the 163 passengers and eight of the 10 flight attendants. The crash was documented in Rob and Sarah Elder's 1977 book Crash. [23], 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. The film was based on Fullers book, and it concentrated on the ghost sightings that came into being after the incident. Required fields are marked *. On the approach to Runway 9L for landing at Miami, First Officer Albert Stockstill, the pilot When the main part of the fuselage hit the ground, it continued to move through the grass and water, breaking up as it went. As they went through the records of the flight it came to light that an apparent problem in the cockpit had drawn the crews attention. Edit a memorial you manage or suggest changes to the memorial manager. Laser Pointers Can Redirect Lightning - But Don't Try It at Home! Try again later. Aug 09, 2019. In 1635, his occupation is listed as owner of three cranes inn in Charlestown, Middlesex, Massachusetts . Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 was a Lockheed L-1011-1 Tristar jet that crashed into the Florida Everglades at 11:42pm December 29, 1972, causing 101 fatalities (99 initial crash fatalities, two died shortly afterward). Some of Flight 401s equipment was salvaged and repurposed for other crafts of the Eastern fleet. Thanks for your help! [5]:5 The plane was traveling at 227 miles per hour (197kn; 365km/h) when it hit the ground. Flight 401 was west-northwest of Miami, 18.7 mi from the end of runway 9L. COPYRIGHT UNSOLVED MYSTERIES & PARANORMAL ACTIVITIES, 2017-2018. Over time, the reporting of ghost sightings stopped. Which memorial do you think is a duplicate of Robert Loft (17211647)? As for the cargo, the flight was booked solid. You need a Find a Grave account to continue. From Captain Robert McKenzie. Resend Activation Email. The hauntings of Eastern Airlines planes is certainly the most well-known. [21] A television film, also titled The Ghost of Flight 401, aired on NBC in February 1978. On one particular occasion, on Flight Tri-Star 138, while performing her normal duties, she could clearly see the face of Repo in the oven door in the planes kitchen.