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| The Phantoms of Flight 401 |
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This story was taken from the book
titled Ghost Sightings and
was written by Brian Innes.
This is a true event where a
motion picture was created based
on the facts and experiences of
many people including the ones
mentioned below. We purchased our
hard cover copy at Barnes & Noble
for about $15, but it is also
available at Amazon.com
Place:
Aircraft of Eastern Airlines, USA
Time:
From 1972 onward
Early in
December 1972, a stewardess with
Eastern Airlines told some of her
colleagues of a premonition, in
which she had seen a Lockheed
Tri-Star on approach to Miami
International Airport; she saw the
port wing crumple as the aircraft
hit the ground, and heard the
despairing cries of the injured.
The disaster would occur, she
said, "around the holidays, closer
to New Year". Asked if she and her
colleagues were to be the cabin
crew, she replied: "No, but it's
going to be real close" On
December 29, there was a
last-minute change in crew
schedules: the stewardess and her
colleagues did not take Flight 401
from New York to Miami. Late in
the evening, the aircraft crashed
into the Florida Everglades, all
of the flight crew and many of the
passengers being killed. Among the
fatalities were captain Bob Loft
and the flight engineer, Second
Officer Don Repo. |
The cause of the crash was found
to be a couple of minor design
faults in the controls, and
Lockheed rapidly corrected them.
However, it appears that some
undamaged parts of the aircraft
were subsequently recycled in
other planes. Following this, a
number of mysterious incidents
were reported. One of the
vice-presidents of Eastern
Airlines boarded a Miami-bound
Tri-Star at JFK airport, and spoke
to a uniformed captain sitting in
First Class. Suddenly he
recognized that the captain was
Bob Loft – at which point the
apparition vanished. On another
occasion at JFK, Loft was seen,
and spoken to, by the plane's
captain and two flight attendants.
The captain was sufficiently
disturbed to cancel the flight.
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Bob Loft
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One aircraft, numbered 318, was
particularly affected. A woman
found herself sitting next to an
Eastern Airlines flight officer
who looked pale and ill, but would
not speak; she called a stewardess
but, before the eyes of several
people, the man disappeared. The
woman was later shown photographs
of Eastern Airlines engineers, and
identified Don Repo. On another
flight, from New York to Mexico
City, one of the plane's engines
malfunctioned, and it had to
return to the runway and was taken
out of service. There were other
incidents. A male voice on the PA
announced the usual seat belt and
no-smoking precautions, when the
PA had not been switched on and
none of the crew had made the
announcement. A flight engineer
making the preflight checks found
a man in Second Officer's uniform,
whom he recognized as Repo,
sitting at the control panel. The
apparition said, "You don't need
to worry about the preflight, I've
already done it", and vanished.
One Tri-Star captain said that he
had also spoken to Rep, who told
him "There will never be another
crash (of a Tri-Star)…we will not
let it happen". |
Don
Repo |
Author's Commentary:
These, and many other incidents,
were investigated by John G.
Fuller in his Book The Ghost of
Flight 401. It is an unusually
detailed case of "protective"
ghosts. It is as if the trauma of
the crash, which was part due to
the fact that the flight crew were
unaware of the design faults and
inadvertently overrode some of the
automatic controls, preyed so
heavily on the dead officers'
spirits that they had to watch
over subsequent fate of the
aircraft in which the recycled
pieces had been incorporated.
Fuller also claimed to have
contacted Repo by means of a Ouija
Board. |
By
Brian Innes |
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