Flight 401.
For the third part of this series of haunted or possessed
objects we look into the strange story of Flight 401. Although flight 401 it’s
self was not haunted, the events that followed its crash are strange for sure.
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| Eastern Air Lines A-1011 |
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| Cabin Crew on-board Flight 401 |
The duty of looking after the 163 passengers of flight 401
that night was down to 10 flight attendant crew, Pat Ghyssels, Trudy Smith,
Adrianne Hamilton, Mercy Ruiz, Sue Tebbs, Dottie Warnock, Beverly Raposa,
Stephanie Stanich, Patty George, Sharon Transue.
In total there was 176 people on board the four month old
Lockheed L-1011-1 Tri-Star heading to Miami.
At 23:32 as the flight crew prepared to start the decent
into Miami International Airport, first officer Stockstill reported that the
landing gear indicator had not come on for the nose wheel, this was a green
light which illuminates once the landing gear in down and locked in position.
The crew carried out a series of test to see if they could
identify what the problem was, this involved the light assembly being removed
by one of the flight crew to see if they could see and issues with the
equipment that would prevent the light from illuminating, second officer Repo was
requested to go down to the avionics bay beneath the flight deck, this is a
small area beneath the cockpit where there is a small viewing window through
which can be seen the nose wheel if it is in the down position.
During the time these checks were taking place Captain Loft
had advised air traffic control at Miami that they were going to abort their
approach and requested to enter a holding pattern. The Air traffic controller
liaising with flight 401 confirmed they could enter a holding pattern and cleared
the flight to climb to two thousand feet and hold west over the Everglades.
At 23:43 flight 401 vanished from the radar monitors at
Miami International and no further radio communication were made with flight
401 from that moment. A radio call from another flight that was also in a
holding pattern waiting for their clearance to land radioed in to air traffic
control reporting they had seen a big explosion out to the West, they were not
sure what had caused it but thought they should report this back to the tower.
Flight 401 travelling at approx. 227 miles per hour had
plunged into the marshland of the Everglades, and huge area of swamp which is infested
with alligators.
Of the 176 people aboard the plane, only 75 people survived
the crash. 101 people lost their lives that December night, 99 died at the
scene and a further 2 died shortly afterwards due to injuries sustained by the
accident.
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| Wreckage of flight 401. |
The wreckage was removed from the crash site after initial
investigations into the accident. Once a full investigation of the wreckage had
been carried out, parts of the plane that had not been damaged by the impact
were salvaged Eastern Air lines and were used as spare parts on other EAL Tri-stars.
This is where our story of haunted objects begins.
One of the early reports of something strange happening was
again at JFK Airport in 1973, a then Vice President of Eastern Airways was
catching a flight to Miami, as he was a high ranking person within the company
he was classed as a VIP passenger and as such was able to board the aircraft
ahead of all the other passengers. The gentleman
boarded the plane and made his way to the first class cabin,
as he approached his seat he noticed the aircraft captain in full uniform up ahead,
eager to speak to the captain and introduce himself to another employee of the
company the VIP went over to the pilot. Introducing himself to the other man he
waited for a response, the captain turned around and the VIP immediately recognised
him as Captain Bob Loft, the apparition quickly vanished.
The VIP was well aware of Captain Loft, after all it was
only the previous year that the captain and long standing employee of EAL had
lost his life when flight 401 crashed. The VIP was shaken and rushed off to
find another member of the crew, he was convinced that the sighting of the
captain loft was an omen that something was going to happen to this flight. A
full search of the aircraft took place, but there was no signs of captain Loft
aboard.
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| Evacuating the survivors. |
The crew of that flight were later shown pictures of Captain
Loft and all the crew members said that the person on board the plane who they
spoke to that day was the same man in the picture.
Sightings of Captain Loft and Flight Engineer Don Repo kept being
reported aboard other L-1011’s which were owned and operated by Eastern Air
Lines.
Another multiple sighting took occurred, a lady passenger on
board a flight was getting particularly concerned about the Eastern Air lines employee
who sat next to her, the gentleman wore a smart uniform the same as those worn by
the cabin crew of this flight. The woman was concerned that the man next to her
was not at all well as he was looking practically ill and had become
unresponsive, the lady called over a stewardess who approached and tried to
speak to the gentleman to see if he was OK, the gentleman just vanished right
in front of their eyes.
A similar incident took place on a another flight, again a
lady passenger called over one of the stewardess’s as she had become concerned
about the unresponsiveness of the gentleman next to her, again the gentleman
was wearing a EAL flight crew uniform, the stewardess again approached and
enquired if the gentleman was ok, only to see the man vanish in front of her.
Both of the above incidents were witnessed by multiple
people and afterwards the whiteness’s were all shown photographs of the 3
flight crew members of flight 401 and all whiteness’s identified the man on
board their flight who just vanished in front of them as Don Repo.
The reports of sighting continued.
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| Wreckage of flight 401. |
A flight engineer aboard an L-1011 was preparing to carry
out his routine pre-flight inspection before everyone else was allowed to board
the aircraft. He approached his position he was stunned to see another Eastern
Air lines officer sitting in his seat, the officer turned to face the engineer
he immediately recognised him as Don Repo, the officer looking at the engineer
said “You don’t have to worry about the
pre-flight, I’ve already done it” the officer then vanished.
Very soon afterwards another sighting of Don Repo was
reported, this time by another captain of EAL, the captain was inspecting the
flight instruments in front of him and he was surprised to see clearly staring
back at him was the face of Don Repo, the captain claims that he not only saw Don
Repo’s face in the instrument panel but he also distinctly heard his voice, he
says Repo said to him “There will never
be another crash on a L-101, we will not let it happen.”
Another reported incident was on a flight from Atlanta to
Miami, the flight was well under way and was cursing at approx. 39,000 feet.
The flight crew had settled down to enjoy their in-flight meal, suddenly there
was loud knocking sound coming from the avionics bay, reluctantly a member of
the flight crew opened up the hat to the avionics bay to investigate what the
knocking sound was and was alarmed to see the face of Don Repo staring back at
him. The avionics bay was the last reported location of Don Repo on board
flight 401.
A further report was made, this time by a flight attendant who
spotted the flight engineer repairing the on board oven, thinking nothing more
of it the attendant went about her business, until later on the flight she had
a chance to talk to the flight engineer and asked him what had been wrong with
the oven, the engineer looked confused and replied that he had not repaired the
oven at all, the stewardess said that she had seen someone repairing the oven
and asked how many engineers were on the flight, the engineer reported that he
was only one engineer on board and that he had not carried out any repairs to
the on board oven. Later the stewardess identified the engineer she had seen
fixing the oven as Don Repo.
More and more people started to report encounters with the
deceased air crew.
A aircraft which was being prepared for its next flight was
waiting on the ground, on board where several caterers who were stocking the
in-flight meals, not long after they had entered the air craft to carry out
their duty they were seen rushing from the plane, when questioned by they were
fleeing the aircraft they all said they had seen a flight engineer standing in
the forward galley and as they looked at him he just vanished.
On a flight from JFK en-route to Mexico City, shortly after take-off
one of the stewardess’s Fay Merryweather was in the forward galley when she
spotted a reflection in the oven door, she looked around expecting to see
someone behind her but there was no one there, she looked again and was amazed
to the reflection was the face of Don Repo looking back at here. She did not
wish to cause a panic on board the plane so she quietly made her way to the
flight cabin and asked the flight engineer to join her in the galley, she also
requested one of the other stewardess’s to accompany them, on arriving back at
the galley they were all amazed and shocked to see the face of Don Repo still
clearly visible looking back at them from the oven door. Suddenly all 3 present
heard the apparition say “Watch out for
fir on this flight.”
The flight reached Mexico without any fires or problems, but
just before take-off on the return journey problems started to occur with the a
starboard engine, engineers on the ground at Mexico carried out an inspection
of the engine and it was given the OK and the flight was cleared for take-off.
As the aircraft climbed higher the starboard engine backfired a couple of times
and then failed, the flight crew remembering the warning about a fire quickly
shut down the engine and returned the aircraft back to
Mexico safely. Had the crew failed to act in shutting down
the engine so quickly, there would have been a big chance that the engine may
have caught fire and the fate of that aircraft may have been doomed.
There were many more sighting to follow.
The above reported incidents all happened on A-1011 flights
that had been fitted with parts that had been salvaged from wreckage of flight
401. Was it possible that the deceased members of the flight crew of flight 401
attached themselves to these salvaged parts, and as such were able to manifest
themselves aboard the aircraft that they had been fitted to them?
What is most important in case is that the sighting are not
only made by individuals, but multiple people having witnessed the same
sighting at the same time and they have identified the sighting as the same
person. Also many of the people who reported the sightings knew both Captain
Loft and second officer Repo, they worked for the same company and had been on
the same flights in the past.
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| Captain Loft and Second Officer Repo. |
A further point to make here is that many of the people who
reported encountering the late Loft and Repo were people of standing and
influence, a VIP of Eastern Air Lines, Captains and other flight officers of
the company, who had a lot to lose by going public with what they had witnessed,
after all, flight crew could be grounded or even suspended on grounds of mental
health if they were to make statements that they were seeing apparitions of
their late work colleagues. The fact that so many people witnessed Loft and
Repo and were able to identify these two men as the people they had seen vanish
or talk to them, makes this whole case much more credible.
© UK Paranormal Events
www.ukparanormalevents.com
© UK Paranormal Events
www.ukparanormalevents.com
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