Eastern Airlines Flight 401

**Eastern Airlines Flight 401** was a scheduled flight from New York to Miami which crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing 101 of the 176 people were onboard.

## Incident

Flight 401 departed JFK Airport in New York on Friday, December 29, 1972, at 9:20 PM, with 163 passengers and 13 crew members aboard.

The flight was routine until 11:32, when the airplane began its approach into Miami International Airport. After lowering the gear, First Officer Stockstill noticed that the landing gear indicator, a green light identifying that the nose gear is properly locked in the "down" position, had not illuminated. This was later discovered to be due to a burned-out light bulb. The landing gear could have been manually lowered, nonetheless. The pilots cycled the landing gear, but still failed to get the confirmation light.

Loft, who was working the radio during this leg of the flight, told the tower that they would discontinue their approach to their airport and requested to enter a holding pattern. The approach controller cleared the flight to climb to 2,000 ft (610 m), and then hold west over the Everglades.

The cockpit crew removed the light assembly, and Second Officer Repo was dispatched to the avionics bay beneath the flight deck to check via a small porthole whether the landing gear was indeed down. Fifty seconds after reaching their assigned altitude, Captain Loft instructed First Officer Stockstill to put the L-1011 on autopilot. For the next 80 seconds, the airplane maintained level flight. Then, it dropped 100 ft (30 m), and then again flew level for two more minutes, after which it began a descent so gradual it could not be perceived by the crew. In the next 70 seconds, the airplane lost only 250 ft (76 m), but this was enough to trigger the altitude warning C-chord chime located under the engineer's workstation. The engineer (Repo) had gone below, and no indication was heard of the pilots' voices recorded on the CVR that they heard the chime. In another 50 seconds, the plane was at half its assigned altitude.

As Stockstill started another turn, onto 180°, he noticed the discrepancy. The following conversation was recovered from the flight voice recorder later:

**Stockstill**: We did something to the altitude.
**Loft**: What?
**Stockstill**: We're still at 2,000 feet, right?
**Loft**: Hey—what's happening here?
Less than 10 seconds after this exchange, the jetliner crashed:

**Cockpit area microphone (CAM)**: [Sound of click]
**CAM**: [Sound of six beeps similar to radio altimeter increasing in rate]
**CAM**: [Sound of initial impact]
The location was west-northwest of Miami, 18.7 mi (30.1 km) from the end of runway 9L. The airplane was traveling at 227 miles per hour (197 kn; 365 km/h) when it hit the ground. With the aircraft in mid-turn, the left wingtip hit the surface first, then the left engine and the left landing gear, making three trails through the sawgrass, each 5 ft (1.5 m) wide and more than 100 ft (30 m) long. When the main part of the fuselage hit the ground, it continued to move through the grass and water, breaking up as it went.

### Crash Sequence

The TriStar's port outer wing structure struck the ground first, followed by the number 1 engine and the port main undercarriage. The disintegration of the aircraft that followed scattered wreckage over an area 1,600 ft (500 m) long and 330 ft (100 m) wide in a southwesterly direction. Only small fragments of metal marked the wingtip's first contact, followed 49 ft (15 m) further on by three massive 115 ft (35 m) swaths cut through the mud and sawgrass by the aircraft's extended undercarriage before two of the legs were sheared off. Then came scattered parts from the number 1 (port) engine, and fragments from the port wing itself and the port tailplane. About 490 feet (150 m) from the wingtip's initial contact with the ground, the massive fuselage had begun to break up, scattering components from the underfloor galley, the cargo compartments, and the cabin interior. At 820 ft (250 m) along the wreckage trail, the outer section of the starboard wing tore off, gouging a 59-foot-long (18 m) crater in the soft ground as it did so. From this point on, the breakup of the fuselage became more extensive, scattering metal fragments, cabin fittings, and passenger seats widely.

The three major sections of the fuselage—the most intact of which was the tail assembly—lay in the mud towards the end of the wreckage trail. The fact that the tail assembly—rear fuselage, number 2 tail-mounted engine, and remains of the empennage—finally came to rest substantially further forward than other major sections, was probably the result of the number 2 engine continuing to deliver thrust during the actual breakup of the aircraft. No complete cross-section of the passenger cabin remained, and both the port wing and tailplane were demolished to fragments. Incongruously, not far from the roofless fuselage center section with the inner portion of the starboard wing still attached, lay a large, undamaged and fully inflated rubber dinghy, one of a number carried on the TriStar in the event of an emergency water landing. The breakup of the fuselage had freed it from its stowage and activated its inflation mechanism.

## Victims

* Jonathan Adam Kaminer, 2
* Nicholas Minguzzi, 4
* Jana Dedek, 19
* Judy Ellenberg, 19
* Janice Testa, 20
* Carol Susan Jackter, 20
* James Yandolino, 20
* Patricia Renee Shackelford, 20
* Richard Danforth Childs, 20
* Diane Carol Greenblatt, 20
* Abbie Lynn Greenwald, 20
* Maria Elena Gonzalez, 21
* Dale Ann Mazzone, 21
* Marc Jeffrey Leshay, 21
* Lourdes Albert, 22
* Alan Michael Nachmias, 22
* Stefan Rubin, 23
* Allen M. Stark, 23
* Rosemarie Mancuso, 23
* Rochelle Rubin, 24
* Stephanie Stanich, 24, crew member
* Sharyn Angela Gatti, 24
* Luis Bancroft, 24
* Jose E. Garcia, 25
* Maureen Chesler, 25
* Carmen Jorge, 26
* Fara "Lily" Infantino, 26
* Michael Ann Kaminer, 27
* Patricia Ghyssels, 27, crew member
* Greta Foye, 27
* Elisa Ruth Romero-Guerra, 28
* Kenneth Mazzone, 28
* Alina Junco, 28
* Barry Mancuso, 28
* Rosa Lena Zollo, 29
* Richard J. Schulleri, 29
* Aftabuddin Chowdhurty, 29
* Darryle Becker, 29
* Miguel A. Junco, 30
* Elise Grace Agate, 30
* Susan G. Deutsch, 30
* Ronald Stanley Jaye, 32
* Paquita Carrasquillo, 32
* Jose Carrasquillo, 32
* Muriel J. Ames, 32
* Klaus Schenck, 33
* Jerome "Jerry" Becker, 33
* Helen Marie Chestnut, 33
* Donald Stanley Casadona, 34
* Jorge Gonzalez, 34
* Jesus Lorenzo, 35
* Warren Terry, 38
* Albert "Bert" Stockstill, 39, co-pilot
* Nery Palma, 48
* Eduardo Jaramillo, 40
* Dennis Gordon, 40
* Caridad Hernandez de Amador, 40
* Silvia Crespo, 40
* Sara Escobar, 41
* Charles Kuchenbrod, 42
* Eugene Schenker, 42
* Susana Luna, 43
* Sylvan Robert Karpen, 44
* Braulio E. Corretjer, 44
* Roberto Palma, 45
* Rosario Messina, 46
* Pedro Garcia, 46
* Varujan Eskihanci, 47
* Julia Lustig, 47
* Glenn Remkus, 47 (died on September 17, 1973 from complications of injuries)
* Isell J. Delgado, 47
* Mildred Katz, 48
* Lucille Cillis, 48
* Moe Lustig, 49
* Henry Nunez, 49
* Lloyd Irving Bearman, 49
* Bernard Goldfluss, 50
* Adelaide Geneve Bearman, 50
* Donald "Don" Repo, 51, flight engineer
* Barbara Ann Saal, 51
* Selma Karpen, 51
* Jose Rego, 53
* Mary Carfizzi, 53
* Adella Cohn, 54
* Elizabeth Pollak, 55
* Captain Robert "Bob" Loft, 55
* Ann Ponte, 56
* Ernest F. Bloodgood, 56
* Rose Kashman, 57
* Shaindel "Sadie" Yellin, 57
* Loretta E. Bloodgood, 57
* Slavatore Carfizzi, 57
* Meir "Murray" Yellin, 61
* Solomon Fisher, 61
* Thomas Ponte, 61
* Ethel L. Jackson, 64
* Evelyn De Salazar, 64
* Samuel Joseph Prager, 69
* Rosa Losano, 71
* Charles Camichel, 73