The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - Ghosts of Flight 401: Unearthing the Eerie Encounters That Followed the Tragedy

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

Ghosts aboard a crashed plane? Flight 401's haunting tale is stranger than fiction. Join us on a chilling exploration of the reported supernatural encounters that followed this tragic aviation disaster. Unearth the eerie reports of hauntings and ghostly sightings connected to Flight 401. Delve into the mysterious aftermath of the crash that continues to captivate and perplex investigators to this day. Do you have a supernatural story to share? Drop me an email at [e-mail] You can check out The Tape Library in video form at www.youtube.com/thetapelibrary Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thetapelibrary Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Tape-Library/100094332411836/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thetapelibrary Archive of the Paranormal, the strange and the unexplained. The Tape Library brings you the creepiest stories, to keep you horror junkies up all night. True scary stories of ghosts, cryptids, UFOs and true crime. CHAPTERS 00:00 The Ghosts of Flight 401 00:58 The Crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 05:57 The Accident 12:42 Psychic Dreams 14:24 Reused Parts 14:57 The Ghost of Bob Loft 23:12 The Ghost of Don Repo 25:40 Aftermath and Flight 401 Memorial Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Emergency exits on the 1011. A life vest is in a container under your seat. If you have any questions on the safety features of the Lockheed 1011. Please ask one of the flight attendants as they pass through the cabin. A woman is awoken from her sleep. She jolts up, shaking, covered in sweat. This isn't the first time she's had this nightmare. All week she's kept having these dark dreams entering her mind. Each time they were becoming more vivid. It was the screams, she said, that stood out for her.

The sounds of screaming, of sobbing. It just felt so real. And then there were the images. One in particular burned into her memory. The image of Christmas presents, sinking into blackness. To say it was a dark night would be an up. understatement. It was just before midnight on December 29th, 1972, when 43-year-old Robert Marquise went out on his airboat with a close friend, Ray Dickinson. The pair regularly headed out into

the Florida Everglades late at night, the perfect time to hunt for frogs. Out in the shallow waters of the Everglades, they were surrounded by the sounds of nothing but frogs, crickets, and the occasional movement in the water of a passing alligator. Robert's headlamp was their only light source, as their boat trundled through the streams. Luckily the pair knew the area like the backs of their hands, and were comfortable navigating the swampy regions in the dark. To some, this might be quite a scary place to be this late at night,

but for Robert and Ray, it was their escape, a place of peace and relaxation, a place to hunt and be at one with nature. Once they had gotten far enough into the Everglades, Robert turned off his boat and the pair sat in silence. Robert guided his headlamp over the grassy areas, hoping to catch a reflection of a frog's eye with it. When suddenly, the pitch-black darkness of the Everglades

was briefly illuminated, by a glowing orange light, about five miles in the distance from where the pair were. Eager to find out what had caused the sudden flash of light, Robert powered up his boat and started heading into the direction of the strange illumination. That was when they started to hear the sounds. They couldn't make out what it was at first. Just a sea of chattering noise that seemed to grow, the further they travelled into the darkness of the swamps.

But the closer they got, the clearer it became. It was screaming, the screams, moans and cries of dozens of people. But mixed in with these cries of pain, appear to be singing. The sound of Christmas carols were being carried on the gentle breeze in the night's air. They arrived at the sight of where Robert believed the light had come from. The noises were now almost deafening, but still they could not see where they were coming from. Robert's head torch being no match for the vast open darkness in front of them. Robert began scanning the torch over the area.

And that's when he started to notice, the body parts, tangled among sheets of broken-up metal. Robert was in shock, still unsure of what he was witnessing, when he saw. Suddenly caught sight of one of the people that was screaming out for help. A man, still strapped into a chair, his clothes burnt almost completely off. What was left of them were singed into his melted skin, face down in the mud, slowly sinking deeper from the weight of the chair on his back. Seeing Robert's lamp, he pleaded for help. They leapt into the water and hoisted him up onto the boat.

It was at this moment the people who were all thrown amongst the darkened corners of the swamp realised that there was someone there and began screaming out to Robert and Ray to rescue them. The pair began getting as many people onto their small boat as they could. As he was hoisting people up however, Robert began to notice a burning sensation on his skin. It was at this point he realized. It was jet fuel. Despite the burdens he was receiving, they continued to rescue as many people as they could fit onto their boat. Within 30 minutes, the Coast Guard arrived, and Robert and Ray continued throughout the night, aiding the rescue team.

In total, they helped save the lives of 77 people that night. 99 others didn't make it. However, for at least two people from that 99, Their story wasn't quite over. Because, according to many witnesses, the two men who were at the heart of this catastrophe, returned. Get yourself a warm drink,

turn down the lights, and get comfortable. This is another entry into the tape library. And tonight we're going into the tale of the ghosts of Flight 401. Flight 401, an Eastern Airlines owned Lockheed Tri-Star Plain, took off from JFK Airport and 920 earlier that evening, carrying 163 passengers on board and 13 crew members. Heading to Miami International Airport, the flight was relatively uneventful for the majority of its trip,

with one passenger even beginning to write a letter while on board the flight to the airline, commending its service. Its flight crew consisted of pilot Bob Loft, a well-respected veteran of the company, first officer Bert Stockstill, and flight engineer Don Repo. Inside the cockpit also sat Angelo Donodillo Donodillo, an Eastern Airlines employee who was simply hitching a ride to Miami that night. At 11.32 p.m., the flight began its routine approach to Miami International. But there was a small issue.

After lowering the landing gear, Bert Stocksteel noticed that the landing gear indicator hadn't lit up. The simple little light was used to inform the crew that the landing gear was locked into position and that it was safe to proceed. While the crew assumed the cause of the issue was the light itself, as opposed to the landing gear, they still needed to confirm this before they could continue with their descent. They attempted multiple times to close the landing gear back up and redeploy it, but still to no luck, the lights would not come on. Air traffic control instructed Bob Loft to fly over the Everglades, circling until they could figure out the problem, and then Miami International would find an available runway for them.

Once in position, Captain Loft set the plane to autopilot, so he could assist his engineer in figuring out the problem. They began messing with the light itself, pulling it out and reinserting it to try and get it to light up. Obviously frustrated that such a small technical issue was causing them to not be able to get its passengers to their destination. Those passengers and most of the flight staff had no idea anything was wrong.

It's not unusual for a plane, to circle the airport for a while if a runway is not immediately available. Seemingly accepting that the landing gear indicator was not going to light up, Captain Lough realised they would need to find some other way to figure out if the nose landing gear had in fact deployed. This fell to Don Repo. He would enter what is often referred to as the hellhole. A small dark section located through a trap door in the plane's cockpit. Once in the hellhole, there is a small circular peephole that Repo would be able to look through and hopefully get a clear view of the landing gear. However, just a simple act of asking Don Repo to head down into the hellhole would lead to the disaster that was about to unfold.

It is believed that as Captain Loth turned to speak to Repo, he nudged the plane's steering wheel, just slightly. But this slight brush of his leg disengaged the autopilot and sent the plane into an extremely gradual descent. The flight crew were all focused on the light situation, and the change in altitude was so minor it couldn't be felt. What made matters worse is this tragic evening above the Florida Riverglades fell on a moonless night. Much like Roberton Ray some 2,000 feet below the plane, the flight crewed The crew's view was total darkness. They had no idea they were slowly plummeting towards a tragic end. While an alarm did sound to indicate they had dipped below their targeted altitude, the crew at the time was so focused on getting lofted down into the hellhole,

and reportedly the alarm on the plane at that time was a quiet, non-consistent beep. This was easily missed over the noise of the crew's conversations and moving towards a wall. the hole. Don Repo entered the hellhole. He would have been able to look out of the peephole, just in time, to see the plane crashing into the swampy grounds of the Everglades. No one on board would have had any idea they were about to crash until those final seconds. The final recorded words of the crew came from Stockstill and Loft. We're still at 2000, right? Hey, what's happening here? The fact that there were any survivors at all was a miracle made up of several factors.

The plane's slow descent meant it almost glided along the Everglades, rather than nose-diving straight down and exploding. The plane broke up instantly into pieces, throwing passengers in all different directions. Apparently some were only saved from bleeding to death, because they were caked in so much mud that stopped the bleeding from their wounds. However, this did cause many to be infected by organisms within the same. swamp land that required serious treatment afterwards. Surviving crew members did their best to help passengers despite being seriously injured themselves, and even suggested singing Christmas carols to keep spirits up and to try and draw any potential rescuers to their location, which it did. Of the cockpit crew, Stockstill was killed

instantly on impact. Captain Loft passed away before the rescue team could get him to a hospital. Don Repo made it to hospital, but succumbed to his injuries while there. Remarkably, the one survivor of the cockpit members was Donodeo, who had climbed into the hellhole with Repo, just as the plane crashed. A faulty light bulb, and the slight brush of a man's leg against the controller, had killed close to a hundred people, and left many more injured and traumatised. Let's go back to that woman from the start, awoken in her bed in New York, night after night

by terrible dreams. She was an airline attendant for Eastern Airlines. Each night in early December, she was being plagued by these horrible dreams. As we'd already stated, they were filled with screams of pain of unseen voices, and she kept seeing the images of Christmas presents and reefs, floating on a sea of black liquid. But as her dreams became more vivid, more details began to emerge. The consistency of the dreams led to her believing these weren't just your run-in-the-mill nightmares. She began to be convinced that specifically, a Locky Tri-Star-style plane was going to crash

at some point, somewhere near Miami, around Christmas. She told several colleagues about this, but obviously no one higher up took this too seriously. Just one day before the crash, a notice went out to all-on-staffed cabin crew. A few spots had opened up for Flight 401, JFK to Miami International, on the 29th of December. As she read this, a chill went down her spine. She had no way of knowing if this was the flight from her dreams. that something told her to not take the chance. She didn't go to work that night,

and another flight attendant that she had told about her dreams also declined, seemingly saving both of their lives. For its time, the TriStar L-10-11 was a fairly cutting-edge and expensive plane. Due to the nature of the crash, large sections of the plane were recovered intact, and surprisingly with only minor damage. It is said, supposedly, that due to the fact the accident hadn't been caused by any major faults with the aircraft itself, that recovered parts of the plane would be used for construction on its fleet of TriStar Plains. Months later, in the summer of 1973, Eastern Airlines was trying

to put behind them what was at the time, of the worst air disasters and history. The senior vice president of the company had a meeting down in Florida that day, so he boarded a Lockheed Tri-style plane from JFK, taking his seat in the first-class cabin. He got himself comfortable and was about to pick up a magazine. When a man, dressed in a pilot's uniform, asked his seat next to him, was free. The vice president suggests and gestured for the pilots to take a seat. Assuming he was a pilot from the airline, making use of their privilege

of being able to hop on any flights that had available seating. Maybe he too had a meeting at the Eastern Airline headquarters, down in Florida. They began to talk about work as the plane slowly filled up with passengers. The vice president couldn't shake the feeling

that he knew the pilot. But that obviously wouldn't be unusual. However, the pilot, seemed to be fixated on something outside his window. Barely looking back at the vice president, when the subject of the tragic flight accident from the previous year was brought up, the pilot turned away from the window and looked directly at the vice president. It was at this moment it hit the vice president.

His face went white, blood draining from it. He began to shake. Unable to get any words out. He was sure of it. It was definitely who he thought it was. But that very idea made his entire perception of reality come crumbling down in an instant. There, sat next to him on this plane.

Having a casual conversation about work was Captain Bob Loft. Loft noticing that his new friend, had come to the realization of who he was, looked directly at him, and before the vice president's eyes, he slowly vanished. The vice president leapt up from his seat and began forcing his way past the boarding passages, demanding to be let off the plane as he hysterically tried to get away from what he had just witnessed. He even rushed to the ticket desk when off the plane to try and find out the identity of the pilot in the hope he had. had been mistaken. But no pilot had been boarded onto the flight. A crazy story, especially from

someone as senior in the company as this. But this was not an isolated incident. Far from it. The delayed flight from Albany to Miami was facing further disruption when an air stewardess was trying to complete a headcount of the passengers on board. When she kept finding a discrepancy, seemed to be one extra passenger than they had on their flight manifest. After a few recounts, she spotted someone who she thought might have been their mystery extra. Sat in the front row was a man in a full pilot's outfit. As I've already said, it wasn't unusual for flight crews to do this. They were often needed to head to different parts of the country

and would hop on a flight last minute if there was a seat available. The flight attendant approached the captain to welcome him to the flight, and just check in on where he was headed. But strangely, he didn't respond. He didn't even acknowledge the flight attendant's presence. He just stared, blankly forward. The flight attendant tried a few more times to speak to the pilot, but his gaze never moved. Nearby passengers were starting to murmur with curiosity. They couldn't quite tell what was going on, but something was off between this flight attendant

and the man dressed in the pilot's uniform. Growing concerned and not wanting to cause a further scene, the stewardess went to get her supervisor, worried that there was maybe something wrong with the pilot. But still, he would not engage with any of the crew. Now equally concerned, the supervisor began to doubt if this man was in fact, to pilot with the company at all. He decided to go and get the one person on the flight that would hopefully recognize him and be able to help the pilot of their current aircraft.

Disgruntled by the already significant delay, the captain followed the stewarding supervisor to the seat. As soon as he locked eyes with the man in the pilot uniform, he realized this was not a waste of his time. Much like the vice president, he was there. staring directly at the deceased, Bob Loft. By this time many passengers were watching intently, as this strange incident played out. Once again the moment someone clearly recognised him,

the apparition of Captain Loft vanished into nothingness before their very eyes, causing panic amongst the passengers. The pilot convinced there must be some kind of rational explanation this, demanded his staff searched the entire plane, including the lower decks before they could take off. They could find no trace of the man in the pilot's uniform. The exact same type of incident would then take place a fur time, all within the time span of a few months. When a female passenger was spotted in floods of tears in her seat on yet another Locky TriStar flight to Miami,

She claimed that a man dressed in a pilot uniform had sat down next door to her and engaged in pleasant conversation before suddenly vanishing before her very eyes. After landing, a member of the Eastern Airlines staff showed her a few pictures of their pilots. The recent stories had started to get around amongst the crews, so he included a photograph of Bob Loft in there. Sure enough, the woman identified Bob Loft as the man she had seen on the plane. Although in some recountings of this story, it is said she actually identified another member of the Flight 401 crew. These weren't just isolated incidents. Many people claimed to see Loft on their flights,

including Eastern Airlines staff members who had worked with the man for years. supposedly becoming so frequent that the airline had to start telling their staff to stop discussing it. The visual appearances of Bob Loft were not the only strange events taking place on these planes. It would always be on the same type of aircraft, on eastern airlines, and always on a similar flight path. Rumors began circulating amongst the flight staff. Several of them reported feeling like they were not alone when preparing food down. on the craft's lower decks. Others heard odd noises with no apparent source, but as I've already hinted at, Bob Loft wasn't the only member of the 401 crew to be sighted. Flight

318 in particular, the same type of aircraft as 401, seemed to be the centre for a lot of the unexplained events that would take place. One night a crew of caterers were loading food into the lower deck, when they all abruptly be left and refused to get back on the plane. They claimed they had seen a flight engineer, standing in the corner of the lower deck, silently watching them. When they tried to approach the man, he vanished into thin air. On another flight between Atlanta and Miami, the crew in the cockpit had noticed a consistent banging sound coming from within the cockpit. After some time, time they began to realize the sounds were in fact coming from underneath in the hellhole.

The flight's engineer opened the trap door and shined his torch down into the hole to see if he could make out anything before actually descending down. He claimed that there, in the darkness below, was a face staring back at him just for a moment. He was convinced that it was the face. of Don Repo. As one Lockheed TriStar was flying over the Everglades, a man's voice came over the in-flight tannoy, instructing people to fasten their seatbelts. There was some confusion amongst the flight crew,

while they were getting ready to land. None of them had recognized the voice. There was even further confusion from the pilot in the cockpit crew, as none of them had made the announcement. Some claim that the appearances of Repo and Loft would often come with a warning, as if they were on the lookout for malfunctioning parts. In one of the last reported incidents, Repo apparently appeared before a staff member, warning of a fire.

While no fire happened on that flight, on its return journey, a small electrical fire broke out in the cockpit, but was promptly put out. The final reported appearance of either man apparently saw Don Repo appearing before another Eastern employee to say that there would never be another TriStar crash. They would ensure it would not happen again. It is said that this was the point when all the reused parts from Flight 401 were gutted from the TriStar Fleet, and neither Don Repo or Bob Loft were ever seen again.

Sure enough, up until the time Eastern Airlines closed its doors for good in 1991, there was never another TriStar accident. The official line from the airline was that there were never any reports of ghosts from their flights, and that it had simply been a joke amongst a few staff members. They claimed no parts of Flight 401 were ever reused, although multiple sources refute this fact, including the book, The Ghosts of Flight 4101 were ever reused. Although multiple sources refute this fact, including the book, the Ghosts of Flight Flight 401 by John Fuller, which was released just four years after the accident. In 2022, 50 years later, the remaining survivors of Flight 401 banded together to have a memorial put up in Miami Springs for the victims of the crash. This was spearheaded by a woman named Beverly Raposa, one of the flight attendants responsible for saving so many lives

on that fateful night. Thank you for joining me on this episode of the tape library. If you enjoyed this one, then please, do hit the like button and leave me a comment below. It's a really easy way to support the channel and help me to keep bringing you these creepy tales. Be sure to subscribe if you haven't already. My analytics tell me the majority of you watching this haven't subscribed. and I'd really hate to have to put a curse on you. Until next time, pleasant dreams.