Speaker 1: Hello, Happy Halloween for yesterday, and welcome to this one's
Speaker 1: a doozy. My name is Mel and I am thrilled
Speaker 1: to have you join me on this very adult version
Speaker 1: of story Time on the Mat, primary school style, where
Speaker 1: I tell you a true tale that is so fascinating
Speaker 1: it'd be a shame if you didn't know about it.
Speaker 1: The story I'm going to tell you today is very
Speaker 1: unique in that it's a real life tragedy that also
Speaker 1: takes a pretty fucking terrifying paranormal twist. So please fasten
Speaker 1: your seatbelts ensure your tray table is secured in the
Speaker 1: upright position while I tell you the sad and spooky
Speaker 1: story of Eastern Airlines Flight four zero one. It's just
Speaker 1: before midnight on December twenty ninth, nineteen seventy two, when
Speaker 1: two forty one three year old mates named Rob and
Speaker 1: Ray are out on their airboat in the Florida Everglades.
Speaker 1: Frog gigging start with the googling even for me, I know,
Speaker 1: but how can you not look up what frog gigging is.
Speaker 1: It's not very nice. It's basically stunning these poor frogs
Speaker 1: with a flashlight, then catching and killing them before selling
Speaker 1: them off for their hind legged meat to what I'd
Speaker 1: assume to be very fancy French restaurants, very seventies. Anyway,
Speaker 1: don't judge the old fellows too harshly just yet, because
Speaker 1: while they're out on the water, they hear a crash
Speaker 1: and see this massive flash of light off in the distance.
Speaker 1: And it's very dark out there because they're out in
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere where there's no homes or street
Speaker 1: lights or anything like that. So the only light source
Speaker 1: that they have are these headlamps that they're wearing, you know,
Speaker 1: to spot and stun poor old Kerman and friends, and
Speaker 1: also to keep an eye out for alligators because they're
Speaker 1: all over the joint in this area. Remember that movie
Speaker 1: Wild Things with Matt Dillon, Nev Camberl, and Denise Richards.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure there was a threesome involved in there somewhere,
Speaker 1: but I think that movie was set in the Everglades
Speaker 1: if you need a visual. Anyway, back to the story,
Speaker 1: Rob and Ray are obviously good men because instead of
Speaker 1: running away from this explosion in the chicken shit fashion
Speaker 1: someone like myself would, they put their airboat into turbo
Speaker 1: mode and just rush towards it and when they get there,
Speaker 1: all they can hear are these cries for help and
Speaker 1: moans of pain, but they can't actually see anything because
Speaker 1: remember it's almost midnight and it's pitch black. So Rob
Speaker 1: switches on his frog murdering headlamp and he and Ray
Speaker 1: freeze when they realize that the crashing sound and burst
Speaker 1: of light that they saw from out on the water
Speaker 1: is a commercial plane and they are taking in a
Speaker 1: real life nightmare scenario because there are people screaming and
Speaker 1: begging for help, and there is wreckage and bodies and
Speaker 1: just shit everywhere. So once they're over that initial shock,
Speaker 1: they spring into action and start rescuing people. So what
Speaker 1: the fuck has just happened? Well, glad you asked, Let's
Speaker 1: rewind back three hours and I'll explain. Hi, Megan, I'm
Speaker 1: just three hours younger. We're at around nine pm, same date,
Speaker 1: twenty ninth of December nineteen seventy two, where Eastern Airlines
Speaker 1: flight four zero one is at New York's JFK Airport.
Speaker 1: Cabin crew are doing their final checks and making sure
Speaker 1: passengers are all buckled in prior to take off. And
Speaker 1: I'm pretty certain that because we're in the glory days
Speaker 1: of the nineteen seventies. They're probably also asking people to
Speaker 1: make sure their ciggies are safely extinguished in the ash
Speaker 1: tray provided in their arm rests. Seems unbelievable even that
Speaker 1: you could take a lighter onto a plane loose. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the flight crew are in the cockpit doing all those
Speaker 1: very important final checklist things, and soon they start taxing
Speaker 1: down the runway. There's one hundred and sixty three passengers
Speaker 1: and thirteen crew on board, and the assumption is that
Speaker 1: most people were probably in good spirits because it had
Speaker 1: just been Christmas. They're escaping New York, which is freezing
Speaker 1: as fuck at that time of year, and gearing up
Speaker 1: to trade their snow boots for Havianas because this flight
Speaker 1: is going to Miami, just like in that ship will
Speaker 1: Smith Song. The head honcho that night was a very
Speaker 1: experienced pilot named Bob Loft. Bob was fifty five and
Speaker 1: a total pro. He was known for being a very
Speaker 1: cool cucumber, with over thirty thousand flight hours under his belt,
Speaker 1: so you know, he's the kind of guy you want
Speaker 1: at the controls. To captain Bob's right was thirty nine
Speaker 1: year old First Officer Bert stock still the co pilot,
Speaker 1: another very experienced flying person. Now a detail that's important
Speaker 1: to this story is that this particular plane was part
Speaker 1: of this new fleet to Eastern Airlines called the Lockheed
Speaker 1: L ten eleven tri Star, which I assume is like
Speaker 1: saying Boeing seven four seven or whatever. And these things
Speaker 1: cost a bomb because not only with a state of
Speaker 1: the ar in terms of technology, they were also massive,
Speaker 1: kind of like a commodore station wagon of the skies,
Speaker 1: a real people mover, because this baby could accommodate up
Speaker 1: to four hundred passengers. To give you a visual, the
Speaker 1: plane was split across two levels, so the top level
Speaker 1: was where all the passengers sat and the cockpit and
Speaker 1: stuff were, and the bottom level, which was staff only,
Speaker 1: was only accessible via these two tiny lifts, which sounds
Speaker 1: extremely scary but also good times, because I reckon it
Speaker 1: would have been like Parties Central. Down there. There was
Speaker 1: a giant kitchen with storage and fridges and ovens to
Speaker 1: warm up your party pies, and then there was a
Speaker 1: lounge area for the crew. And I mean imagine the
Speaker 1: opportunity that set up would have presented for some serious
Speaker 1: workplace shenanigans. Anyway, while some say size does not matter,
Speaker 1: it absolutely does in this story because the spaciousness of
Speaker 1: this aircraft also meant that the cockpit was roomier than
Speaker 1: the ordinarily tight space on the standards smaller planes. So
Speaker 1: instead of the cockpit being a party of two, this
Speaker 1: one was a party of four, So joining Captain Bob
Speaker 1: and First Officer Bird up in the top spot with
Speaker 1: fifty one year old flight engineer Don Repo and forty
Speaker 1: seven year old Eastern Airlines employee Angelo Donnadio. So at
Speaker 1: nine to twenty pm, everyone's buckled in and Captain Bob
Speaker 1: guns whatever the aeroplane equivalent of an accelerator is. I
Speaker 1: believe it's called a throttle and sends that big berth
Speaker 1: of a plane down the runway and up into the
Speaker 1: air yuck. And the entire flight is smooth and everything
Speaker 1: is going swimmingly. That's until eleven thirty two pm when
Speaker 1: Captain Bob lowers the landing gear as part of his
Speaker 1: approach into Miami International Airport. So you know how planes
Speaker 1: have like three sets of wheels that come down, and
Speaker 1: there's one on either side where the wings are, and
Speaker 1: then one up the front near the nose well. Each
Speaker 1: set of Wheels has a corresponding light that illuminates green
Speaker 1: on that giant airplane dashboard that indicates the flight crew
Speaker 1: that the gears are down and locked into place, and
Speaker 1: its first officer, burd that notices that one of the lights,
Speaker 1: the one for the nose gear, is not coming on.
Speaker 1: And while I'm no pilot, I'm pretty sure that all
Speaker 1: of those gears, particularly the nose one, are pretty crucial
Speaker 1: when it comes to landing a plane. So they bring
Speaker 1: the gears back up into the plane and try bringing
Speaker 1: them down again, but no go, that nosegear light is
Speaker 1: still not on. So Captain Bob radio's air traffic control
Speaker 1: and explains what's happening, and they're like, okay, head on
Speaker 1: out to the airspace above the Everglades and just hang
Speaker 1: out up there for a bit so you're out of
Speaker 1: the way of oncoming air traffic until you can figure
Speaker 1: out what's going on. I'm sure they said that much nice,
Speaker 1: ada more professionally, but thanks for nothing. And also I
Speaker 1: wonder how come the air traffic controllers couldn't vision confirm
Speaker 1: whether the gear was down for them or not. I
Speaker 1: reckon a set of km up binoculars could have done
Speaker 1: the trick, but who the fuck am I to say?
Speaker 1: So Captain Bob flies the plane over to this area
Speaker 1: above the Everglades, sets the plane to autopilot at a
Speaker 1: height of two thousand feet and a speed of two
Speaker 1: hundred miles per hour, which is around three hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty kilometers per hour, which is very fast, and he
Speaker 1: and the three amigos in the cockpit start troubleshooting this
Speaker 1: pretty significant problem. Captain Bob is pretty sure that that
Speaker 1: nose gear is down, but he can't know for sure,
Speaker 1: so he thinks the bulb of that little indicator light
Speaker 1: is broken. So these four men are up there in
Speaker 1: the cockpit fussing around with this globe and trying to
Speaker 1: figure it out, until eventually Captain Bob asks Don Repo,
Speaker 1: the flight engineer, to head down to the area of
Speaker 1: the plane known as the hell hole, where he can
Speaker 1: get visual confirmation as to whether the gear is down
Speaker 1: or not. Now, if I were Don Repo, I would
Speaker 1: have told Captain Bob to stick his gear stick up
Speaker 1: his a norse, because there'd be no fucking way that
Speaker 1: I'd go down there, because the hell hole is like,
Speaker 1: it's like a man hole that sits in the cockpit
Speaker 1: floor and you open it up and it goes down
Speaker 1: into this tiny space where there's this viewing device that
Speaker 1: allows you to see the positioning of the nose gear
Speaker 1: up close and personal, which no, thank you, But because
Speaker 1: Don Repo is professh he agrees and heads down to
Speaker 1: the worst place a human could ever possibly want to go.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Unbeknown to anyone in that cockpit.
Speaker 1: When Captain Bob turned around to ask Don to go
Speaker 1: down to the hell hole, it's believed that he accidentally
Speaker 1: knocked the plane's yoke aka the steering wheel with his leg,
Speaker 1: which switched the plane from autopilot back to manual control.
Speaker 1: I know so now. Because of the distraction of this
Speaker 1: fucking landing gear light bulb, coupled with the fact that
Speaker 1: the visibility was so poor because they're flying above the
Speaker 1: pitch blackness of the everglades and there's no lights around
Speaker 1: to guide them, no one realizes that the plane has
Speaker 1: started very smoothly descending, and because they were all talking
Speaker 1: and stuffing around with the globe, they missed the initial
Speaker 1: warning alert that the plane has dipped below the intended
Speaker 1: two thousand feet that the autopilot was set to. It
Speaker 1: was only when First Officer Bert asked if they'd done
Speaker 1: something to the altitude that the last words were recorded
Speaker 1: on the cockpit voice recorder, which were Captain Bob's saying, quote, Hey,
Speaker 1: what's happening here? I don't know if this is insensitive
Speaker 1: to say, I guess it's a blessing in some way
Speaker 1: that they would have only had a matter of moments
Speaker 1: to register what was happening before the plane hit the ground,
Speaker 1: because I mean, I don't know, maybe it's an even
Speaker 1: bigger blessing that those passengers didn't see it coming, because
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe the terror of knowing it's coming
Speaker 1: is worse. I don't even know. So now we're back
Speaker 1: to around me night with Rob and Ray who were
Speaker 1: trying their best to get in there and pull passengers
Speaker 1: away from the plane. It's all so difficult because this
Speaker 1: is swampy, muddy ground, so bodies are sort of sinking
Speaker 1: into it, and like it's difficult to walk through let alone,
Speaker 1: you know, pick up a body and drag it through,
Speaker 1: and there's like twisted metal and shit everywhere. However, the
Speaker 1: saving grace here is that even though there was an
Speaker 1: initial explosion, because they'd landed in this swampy area. The
Speaker 1: fire burned out quickly because of the dampness, and although
Speaker 1: the plane broke up into several pieces, the impact was
Speaker 1: less violent than you'd expect of a plane hitting the
Speaker 1: ground at a speed of three hundred and sixty five
Speaker 1: kilometers an hour, which was its last indicated speed before
Speaker 1: the crash, because the wet ground was soft, so it
Speaker 1: sort of cushioned the impact a little bit. And it
Speaker 1: was for this reason and the fact that the plane
Speaker 1: was in a gradual descent as opposed to like a
Speaker 1: full on nosedive, that there were way more survivors than expected,
Speaker 1: and around half an hour after the initial crash, emergency
Speaker 1: workers arrived on the scene, and by sunrise on December thirtieth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, there were officially seventy seven survivors and
Speaker 1: sadly ninety nine fatalities. Among the dead were First Officer
Speaker 1: Bert Stockstall, who was believed to have died on impact,
Speaker 1: and Captain Bob Loft, who apparently died at the scene.
Speaker 1: Don Repo was down in the hall hole at the
Speaker 1: time of the crash. He survived the initial impact but
Speaker 1: passed away in hospital days later, and Angelo Donadio, the
Speaker 1: fourth cockpit passenger, was injured, but amazingly went on to
Speaker 1: make a full recovery. Eight of the ten flight attendants survived,
Speaker 1: and despite being covered in jet fuel and having sustained
Speaker 1: pretty serious injuries, they assisted in the rescue of many
Speaker 1: of the passengers and did very touching things like seeing
Speaker 1: Christmas carols to help those who were trapped stay alert.
Speaker 1: So a month after the crash, the death toll had
Speaker 1: risen to one hundred and three. An investigation was carried
Speaker 1: out by the National Transportation Safety Board, which placed the
Speaker 1: fault of the crash down to pilot error within those
Speaker 1: final four minutes of the flight where the flight crew
Speaker 1: failed to detect the plane's descent, all because of this
Speaker 1: faulty light bulb worth twelve dollars, and as a final
Speaker 1: kick in the guts, the nose gear was down and locked. This, friends,
Speaker 1: is why I don't fucking fly. Now here's where the
Speaker 1: story takes a bit of a spooky turn. If that
Speaker 1: whole first bit wasn't terrifying enough for you. So you
Speaker 1: know how when a plane crashes, they take every little
Speaker 1: piece of it and you know, try putting it back
Speaker 1: together in a giant warehouse to try and use it
Speaker 1: to make improvements that will make flying safer. Well, apparently
Speaker 1: there were many salvageable pieces that were still intact from
Speaker 1: this fifteen million dollar aircraft of flight four zero one,
Speaker 1: and it'd be pretty stupid to just chuck them out
Speaker 1: with the recycling. So after being tested for safety, many
Speaker 1: of these parts were used in other Lockheed Al ten
Speaker 1: eleven planes in the Eastern Airlines fleet, and it was
Speaker 1: on those planes that staff and passengers began experiencing some
Speaker 1: very outlandish shit. Allow me to give you a rundown
Speaker 1: of some of them. Four months after the crash, Eastern
Speaker 1: Airlines aircraft number three one eight was in the process
Speaker 1: of doing their final checks prior to take off from
Speaker 1: Newark Liberty International Airport headed to Miami. A senior flight
Speaker 1: attendant does a final passenger headcount and the numbers aren't
Speaker 1: adding up, so she goes through and counts again, and
Speaker 1: still she's coming up with one extra passenger, and she
Speaker 1: soon realizes that the additional passenger appears to be an
Speaker 1: Eastern Airlines captain who was sitting up in first class,
Speaker 1: and she's just like, oh, this must be another captain
Speaker 1: who's dead heading on this flight, which is basically when
Speaker 1: an employee of the airline has to travel to another
Speaker 1: location where they needed on a particular flight, so they'll
Speaker 1: just jump on board one that's headed there. So she
Speaker 1: goes up to him and she's like, hi, captain, just
Speaker 1: checking if you're dead heading on this flight with us today,
Speaker 1: and if I can get your name and add it
Speaker 1: to our list, that'd be great. And then he slapped
Speaker 1: her on the ass and said, get me a cold one,
Speaker 1: sweet cheeks. That's not true. Well, maybe better, but it's
Speaker 1: probably historically accurate, seeing as it was the seventies. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this captain is just staring vacantly ahead, not looking at
Speaker 1: her or acknowledging her, and she asks a couple more
Speaker 1: times and he continues to ignore her, so she eventually
Speaker 1: walks off, probably muttering fucking arrogant prick under her breath,
Speaker 1: and knocks on the cockpit door and explains the situation
Speaker 1: to the pilot and asks him to come out and
Speaker 1: see if this fellow captain will speak to him, because
Speaker 1: maybe he only speaks to penis onus. I don't know. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So there was a group of passengers who were close
Speaker 1: by who'd been sitting there watching this situation unfold, as
Speaker 1: had a fellow flight attendant, and they're all watching as
Speaker 1: the pilot starts walking towards this very uncommunicative captain sitting
Speaker 1: in first class, like what's gonna happen now? So the
Speaker 1: pilot sort of crouches down like they tell you to
Speaker 1: do when you're talking to a little kid, you know,
Speaker 1: like get down on their level so they don't feel
Speaker 1: intimidated by you, blah blah. And when he looks up
Speaker 1: at the pilot, he gasps and falls backwards and he's
Speaker 1: all like stuttering and flustered, and he's like, what the
Speaker 1: fuck because he recognized that captain as his good friend
Speaker 1: Bob Loft aka Bob Loft, the captain who perished on
Speaker 1: Eastern Airlines flight for zero one and Spooky is still apparently.
Speaker 1: Moments later, the pilot of that flight, the two flight attendants,
Speaker 1: and the handful of passengers that were watching this play
Speaker 1: out all reported seeing the seated captain just disappear, yes, disappear, So,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, there was a bit of ensuing
Speaker 1: chaos because people don't just evaporate, but I'll tell you
Speaker 1: who does. Ghosts and so the witnessing passengers are like,
Speaker 1: get me off this god forsaken plane, and the pilot
Speaker 1: and flight attendants, who, despite witnessing this all play out themselves,
Speaker 1: were trying to be rational and they're just telling everybody
Speaker 1: to calm down, and they order for the plane to
Speaker 1: be searched from top to bottom to try and see
Speaker 1: if they can find this disappearing captain who looks exactly
Speaker 1: like Bob Loft. Perhaps it was David Copperfield wearing a
Speaker 1: Bob Loft costume and he was performing a magic trick.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the explanation is, but they're trying
Speaker 1: to find it. So they tell everyone to pipe the
Speaker 1: fuck down and start searching the plane for the disappearing pilot,
Speaker 1: ghost slash magician and spoiler alert. They never find him,
Speaker 1: so eventually the plane does take off, makes it to Miami,
Speaker 1: and the two flight attendants and the captain all go
Speaker 1: and fill out incident reports about what they'd just seen. However,
Speaker 1: the reports mysteriously went missing, with Eastern Airlines denying they'd
Speaker 1: ever seen them. And this is a pattern that will
Speaker 1: continue because over the next couple of years, the hits
Speaker 1: just keep on rolling a flight attendant reported seeing the
Speaker 1: reflection of Don Repo's face in an oven door, and
Speaker 1: this was corroborated by two other flight attendants she'd called
Speaker 1: over in a panic at the time. They all said
Speaker 1: that they saw Don's face and they also heard him
Speaker 1: say the words watch out for fire in this plane.
Speaker 1: And on that flight's return trip back to JFK Airport,
Speaker 1: an engine caught fire and had to be shut down
Speaker 1: mid flight. Don was reported as being seen several times
Speaker 1: by staff on Eastern Airlines flights containing parts from flight
Speaker 1: four zero one, often warning staff about potential problems, like
Speaker 1: the time he was seen sitting in the cockpit and
Speaker 1: went on to warn the flight crew about a faulty
Speaker 1: electrical circuit, which when checked indeed was found to be
Speaker 1: faulty and then replaced. All the time that there in
Speaker 1: the cockpit heard knocking coming from under them in the
Speaker 1: hel hole. Remember that trapdoor of terror that Don was
Speaker 1: sent down to check during the flight. Upon opening it,
Speaker 1: the pilot was greeted with Don's face looking up at
Speaker 1: him before he vanished right before his eyes. And apparently
Speaker 1: because word was getting around about Don's warnings, this pilot,
Speaker 1: who clearly had balls of whatever is stronger than steel
Speaker 1: went down into the hellhole to investigate and discovered a
Speaker 1: fault that very likely could have caused a significant problem
Speaker 1: on that flight. Another pilot actually canceled the flight he
Speaker 1: was on when he found Bob Loft sitting in his
Speaker 1: captain's seat, reporting that he just completed the pre flight checks. Fuck.
Speaker 1: A passenger on a flight to Phoenix had to be
Speaker 1: removed in a fucking straight jacket, which hands down one
Speaker 1: hundred percent would have been me because she was so
Speaker 1: hyspi y call when a man materialized out of thin
Speaker 1: air in the previously empty seat next to her, and
Speaker 1: when she started screaming, it disappeared just as quickly, and
Speaker 1: she described him as a captain with the hat and everything.
Speaker 1: And when she was shown a picture of Bob Loft,
Speaker 1: I want to say, Bob's your uncle, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound right. I mean, I don't know how your nipples
Speaker 1: are varing right now, but I wouldn't be exaggerating to
Speaker 1: say that might have torn a hole through my bra
Speaker 1: This is terrifying. Now. Eastern Airlines denied all of these accounts,
Speaker 1: and word on the street or up in the air
Speaker 1: was that they pretty much put a gag order on
Speaker 1: all of their employees, and they were all forbidden from
Speaker 1: talking about these sightings, both publicly and amongst each other.
Speaker 1: Good luck with that. But despite all of these denials,
Speaker 1: apparently they had all parts that were used from Flight
Speaker 1: four zero one removed from all of their planes in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, and since then the sighting stopped. However,
Speaker 1: things didn't pan out so great for Eastern Airlines, with
Speaker 1: three major crashes in nineteen seventy four, seventy five, and
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five. And how's this. On September eleventh, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four, Oh my god, which was just gone fifty
Speaker 1: years shit, Flight two one two crashed just short of
Speaker 1: the runway at Douglas Municipal Airport in North Carolina, killing
Speaker 1: seventy two of the seventy eight passengers on board, and
Speaker 1: three of those passengers were James, Peter and Paul Colbert,
Speaker 1: the father and older brothers of Stephen Colbert. You know,
Speaker 1: the guy that's got I don't know if it's one
Speaker 1: of those late shows or his a comedian, lovely guy.
Speaker 1: How tragic. One hundred and thirteen passengers and crew died
Speaker 1: on flight sixty six when it crashed into the runway
Speaker 1: at JFK Airport in June of nineteen seventy five, and
Speaker 1: ten years later, in January of nineteen eighty five, flight
Speaker 1: N nine eight zero crashed in Bolivia, killing all nineteen
Speaker 1: passengers and ten crew on board. Eastern Airlines took their
Speaker 1: last flight in January of nineteen ninety one before they
Speaker 1: went couput. Look, things are different. We all know that
Speaker 1: air travel is the safest form of travel. I'm still
Speaker 1: not doing it. I always feel weird saying I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed that story when they're always such a bummer. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm off. I always enjoy doing these stories, and I
Speaker 1: hope that you enjoy listening to them. Please do not
Speaker 1: forget to rate, review, and subscribe. It seems like such
Speaker 1: a tiny thing, but it's those things that help bump
Speaker 1: us up in the charts, helps other people discover us,
Speaker 1: and it's also an extremely cost effective way of supporting
Speaker 1: us because it costs nothing other than maybe two minutes
Speaker 1: of your time. So we would appreciate it so much.
Speaker 1: So Monty and I will be back on Tuesday for
Speaker 1: Lucky Dip, and also keep your eyes peeled for fortnightly
Speaker 1: episodes with mon Tea and Beautiful Brook who are doing
Speaker 1: their new series on chronic health. So that is a
Speaker 1: very special and important one to listen to, whether you
Speaker 1: are suffering from chronic health problems or someone you love is.
Speaker 1: But until then, as always, take care of yourselves. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. Love you,