Flight 401 – The Ghost Crew of Eastern Air Lines
Talk to anyone about ghosts or hauntings, and invariably images of abandoned old houses
with dilapidated features or conditions will spring to mind.
Spectral looking people with manic laughs or clanking chains are another popular image
people often have of ghosts or spirits.
A jet airliner is not something that immediately comes to mind: except to those who know about
Eastern Air Lines flight 401.
1972 was drawing to a close when a routine flight from JFK, New York to Miami departed
at 9:20 p.m. with 30-year veteran pilot Captain Bob Loft at the controls.
The other flight crew members were First Officer John Stockhill, a flight engineer, and Donald
Luis Repo, an aircraft mechanic and flight engineer.
There were 10 flight attendants in the main cabin serving 163 passengers.
Eastern Air Lines flight 401 encountered no problems while cruising between the two cities.
Issues Aboard Flight 401 Surface
Flight 401's chain of problems began on the approach to Florida two hours after departure.
The aircraft, a Lockheed L-1011-1 Tristar jet, seemed to have an issue with the front
nose gear.
The signal inside the cockpit had not illuminated as it should have.
Despite the crew's attempts to lower the landing gear, the signal that it was down
and locked failed to appear.
Loft abandoned the landing and informed Air Traffic Control of the issue.
ATC put the plane into a holding pattern over the Everglades.
Onboard the aircraft, all members of the Flight Crew worked solely on their problem.
With the autopilot engaged, the malfunctioning light was dismantled by two members of the
crew.
The third, Repo, used a porthole to try and get a visual on the gear.
It was quite possible that the landing gear was in the correct configuration.
The lack of confirmation from the interior landing light signal so consumed the entire
crew's attention, that none of them noticed that one of them had inadvertently switched
off the autopilot.
Worse, none of them noticed that the jet had been steadily losing altitude.
Perhaps that may not have made much difference.
Outside of the aircraft, there wasn't much in the way of visual cues and city lights
were non-existent.
Impact in the Everglades
The crew did finally notice the situation taking place, but nowhere near in time to
prevent the inevitable.
Flight 401 crash-landed into the Everglades at over 200 mph.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the main fuselage broke into
four main sections and many other smaller pieces on impact.
This killed the First Officer instantly.
Burning jet fuel engulfed the aircraft as it plowed through the swamp.
"The aircraft disintegrated, scattering wreckage over an area approximately 1600 feet
long by 300 feet wide" (NTSB).
The NTSB also reported that 67 passengers survived the carnage and 94 perished, as did
two of the cabin crew.
Captain Bob Loft survived the impact but was so severely injured that he died during the
rescue efforts.
Don Repo survived long enough to reach the hospital, but he also proved to be too badly
injured.
The disaster of this flight still remains as one of the worst in American aviation history.
Sightings of Bob and Don
Not long after the devastating crash, stories began to emerge in the Eastern Air Lines community
of unexplained encounters with some of the crew from flight 401.
Flight crews and passengers on other similar aircraft in the Eastern Air Lines fleet came
forward with stories of sightings of Bob Loft and Don Repo.
At first, witnesses reported nothing more severe than standing in the aisles, occupying
the galley and cockpit.
Reports began to take on much more sinister overtone, at least in the eyes of the witness
involved.
This witness, a female passenger, described an ashen looking person sitting in one of
the seats.
She described him as dazed and unresponsive.
She was so worried about his appearance that she summoned an attendant to investigate further.
The man vanished before their very eyes and those of several other passengers.
The original witness so was distressed that several of the cabin crew had to forcibly
restrain her.
It took a while, but the female passenger eventually calmed down.
She was shown photos of several of the flight staff and she picked out Don Repo.
This was not the only sighting registered.
Another flight was being subjected to pre-flight checks when Bob Loft was spotted wandering
around the undercarriage.
Loft even spoke to the ground crew, insisting that no checks were required as he had already
done them.
The pilot of this flight was so unnerved by all of this that he canceled the flight.
The Mechanic Makes His Rounds
Captain Bob Loft is often earmarked as the notorious subject of this haunting, but the
truth is that Don Repo is far more active and more regularly witnessed.
One time, a working flight attendant insisted that she saw an engineer working to repair
an oven.
When word of this reached the only engineer on board of that particular flight, he denied
ever fixing the oven and went as far to say that it didn't even need fixing in the first
place.
As in other reports, the flight attendant selected Repo's photo from a choice offered
to her.
Another pilot on another flight was seriously concerned when he heard knocking coming from
beneath the cockpit itself.
Worried that something was wrong with the aircraft or one of its systems, the pilot
opened up the compartment trap door.
Imagine his surprise when he came face to face with Don Repo.
Surprise turned to horror when Repo disappeared before the pilot's eyes.
Undeterred, the pilot investigated further and did find a problem that may have caused
a serious accident if it went unnoticed.
Repo seemed to have a knack of turning up in the oddest of places.
Staff Encounters
A crawlspace beneath a cockpit is one thing, a galley oven is quite another.
An attendant of Tri-Star 318 was so shocked to see Repo looking back at her, that she
called other members of the cabin crew to confirm the sighting.
The flight engineer on duty during this flight was a personal friend to Repo and instantly
recognized the face as that of his deceased friend.
According to all present, Repo then warned them about a fire on board.
At the time, not much notice was taken.
Later on during the flight though, problems with the engine all stemmed from a fire that
no-one knew about.
The final leg of the flight was canceled as a result of this fire.
An Executive Witness
Witnesses include pilots, various other members of Eastern Air Lines staff and their passengers.
One other witness has also come forward with a similar story that adds validity to the
others simply because of who he was at the time.
Bob Loft appeared before the Vice President of Eastern Air Lines in First Class.
The pair conversed briefly before Loft faded from sight.
At first, the VP just assumed that this was the Captain of the flight he was on.
Many of the accounts share similar characteristics.
Whenever either Loft or Repo make an appearance, they tend to be life-like and look like just
another person.
More than a single person has often been present at the time, whether by accident or design.
One curious aspect to these sightings is that people always saw one or the other.
Loft and Repo have never been reported on the same flight, by the same witnesses, at
the same time.
Recycling Parts From the Aircraft
Another link between the sightings and the aircraft involved could be the corporate decision
to use undamaged parts of Flight 401 on other jets in the fleet.
Some believe that Eastern Air Lines cannibalized and reused pieces of the wreckage in other
airliners.
If this was true, then perhaps they recycled more than just aircraft parts.
Officially, Eastern Air Lines denied anything was wrong with their aircraft or personnel.
At no time would officials of the company allow or condone any attempt to investigate
the reports.
While all this was very much in the public domain, reports circulated that aircraft engineers
quietly removed any materials they had reused from the crash.
The sightings apparently stopped once this was all done.
The company folded in 1991 and is perhaps still better known for some of the more compelling
and credible paranormal encounters to date.
The majority of the witnesses are the most professional of professional people and simply
not really the sort of people to invent the stories that they tell.
With their very careers on the line, each witness must be totally certain what they
saw is what they saw.
That alone adds credibility to their accounts.
Blue Lady Ghost of Moss Beach Distillery
High on a cliff in San Mateo near Half Moon Bay, a restaurant called the Moss Beach Distillery
sits overlooking the ocean.
It is a very popular restaurant, and diners flock to the establishment for good food,
good wine, and spirits…especially the ghostly kind.
You see, although the establishment has a fascinating history all its own, it is most
famous for one of the most notable unsolved mysteries in California.
This is the story about the Blue Lady ghost.
History of Moss Beach Distillery
Moss Beach Distillery dates back to 1927 when Frank Torres built the restaurant bar.
He named it Frank's Place and turned it into a speakeasy (a place that illicitly sold
alcohol) during the prohibition era.
It was frequented by some very influential people of the times, and it was a place for
a variety of underground criminal activities.
Politicians, gangsters and silent film stars ranked among Frank's clientele.
This proved very advantageous to Frank.
You see, Frank's Place was used as a drop spot for Canadian rum runners.
They landed on the beach below, hoisted the rum up the cliff, where it was loaded into
vehicles for delivery to other illegal establishments up and down the coast.
Frank's connections provided protection for the operation and his nightclub was never
raided, even though others in the area were not so fortunate.
But rum was not the only spirit in Frank's place.
Mary Ellen Loved Wearing Blue Dresses
The restaurant is rumored to be haunted by the Blue Lady ghost.
Supposedly, she is the spirit of Mary Ellen, a beautiful woman who loved to wear blue dresses.
The Blue Lady story goes that around 70 years ago Mary Ellen, a married woman with a young
son, fell in love with a piano man, John Contina.
John and Mary Ellen carried on an illicit love affair for quite some time.
They would rendezvous at a hotel right next door to the Moss Beach Distillery and take
romantic walks on the beach below during their passionate encounters.
The affair ended when Mary Ellen was tragically killed.
There are conflicting stories regarding the way in which she died.
One account says that someone attacked her while out on a walk with John at night.
She was stabbed repeatedly, and John was also attacked, but survived.
Another story goes that Mary's jealous husband found out about the affair and took up a fight
with John in which Mary was stabbed.
Subsequently, John disappeared and then washed up dead on the beach.
The second account of Mary's death reports that she died in a car accident during a bad
storm.
To add to the drama, John was supposedly having an affair with another woman at the same time
as Mary.
This woman, Anna Philbrick, jumped off the cliffs and drowned after she discovered John
was involved with another woman.
Parapsychologists indicate that such emotionally charged tragedies often lead to hauntings.
This seems to be the case at the Moss Beach Distillery.
Blue Lady Ghost Haunting at Moss Beach
Some of the reported activity attributed to the Blue Lady ghost include, objects moving
on their own, whispered voices and taps on the shoulder when people are alone.
A couple who once owned the place said that they were locked out of their rooms on several
occasions and furniture would inexplicably move around.
Some female patrons have claimed that their earrings disappeared.
Those earrings would later reappear along with a bunch of others that had been previously
reported missing.
There are a large number of stories from children who say they have seen the lady in the blue
dress.
One really crazy story that employees tell has to do with the computerized cash register.
For reasons that no one, including the computer tech, could explain, all the dates in the
system changed to 1927, the year Frank built the place.
Other employees claim to have heard her whispers, been physically touched by the spirit, or
called via cell phone.
A few years ago, a popular paranormal show conducted an investigation at the Moss Beach
Distillery.
They discovered many contrived paranormal effects that were the work of the most recent
owner.
It appears that the restaurant intentionally plays up the hauntings to create a dining
experience somewhat like a Disneyland attraction.
Although this has cast some doubt with the skeptical, many personal stories still abound.
The number of people who have had strange experiences lend for a very intriguing, if
not convincing, narration.
Who can resist a Shakespearean tale of tragic love affairs, broken hearts, murder, suicide,
and ghosts?
Emails from the Dead – The Jack Froese Story
For literally thousands of years, the human race has asked if there is such a thing as
an afterlife.
Plenty of stories abound with regards to visions of heaven or hell or meeting with long departed
ancestors or relatives.
Messages from murder victims with details of the crime that took their life.
One of the most convincing examples of possible messages from the afterlife is the story of
Pennsylvanian Jack Froese.
In June 2011, Froese suffered a fatal arrhythmia that left all of his friends and family devastated
by his passing.
He was just 32 years of age.
Five months on and the grieving process was beginning to settle down when it was suddenly
regenerated by a series of emails sent from the Froese's email account.
Tim Hart considered himself to be among Froese's closest friends and was the target of one
of the first emails to be sent.
Titled "I'm Watching", this email outlined a conversations the pair shared several months
before Froese's sudden passing.
The short email read as follows:
Did you hear me?
I'm at your house.
Clean your fing attic!
Hart did admit to feeling concerned when he initially read the email.
He almost felt the color drain from his cheeks.
During an interview conducted by the BBC, he also revealed that he replied to it but
never got an answer back.
Hart firmly believes that there was very little chance that anyone outside of the pair would
know of the private conversations between the best friends.
It would appear unlikely that neither would really share the experience to a third or
even fourth party.
Tim Hart was not alone in receiving an email from Froese.
Jimmy McGraw was Froese's cousin and was also a recipient of an email from the same
account.
This time the message was even stranger and potentially more unsettling.
After Froese's death, McGraw suffered a broken ankle that became the basis of this
email message.
This time the message read:
"Hey Jim, how ya doing?
I knew you were going to break your ankle.
Tried to warn you.
Gotta be careful."
While Tim Hart was less than enthused with the email he received, Jimmy was much more
so.
Far from considering it as some kind of ill-omen, McGraw took it in a much more positive manner.
He wanted to believe that his cousin was still keeping an eye open on his behalf, but concedes
that the chances that Froese sent the email was slim.
McGraw felt like he was being coerced into moving on with his life.
On the whole it looks like a sincere message and nothing like the banter that was sent
previously.
The big question is who is sending these emails?
None of Froese's friends believed that anyone other than Jack knew the password to his email
account and there were no signs of the account being hacked.
There is one logical answer and that is a service known as Dead Man's Switch.
This site allows users to send emails on a regular basis after death occurs.
These emails, sent at regular intervals which could range from 30-52 days, are automatically
sent to predetermined email addresses.
There are problems with this possible solution though.
Nobody knows for certain whether or not Froese actually signed up for this service.
His death was a sudden one and chances are that Froese did not anticipate it and cater
for his passing.
Even if he did, then he would have had to written them himself.
But how could he have possibly known that weeks after his unforeseen passing that his
own cousin would break his ankle?
Are these really messages from beyond the grave?
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