The Ghostly Skies: Eastern Airlines Flight 401

[dannye_chase]

 Hey, y’all, it’s Weird Wednesday! Where on some Wednesdays, I blog about weird stuff and give writing prompts.

Today: The Ghostly Skies: Eastern Airlines Flight 401

Welcome aboard on this Weird Wednesday! Today we’re taking a spooky flight with a ghostly crew member. Sound fun? Then fasten your seatbelts, because this one’s a wild ride.

On December 29, 1972, Eastern Airlines flight 401 was on its way from New York to Miami. But it never reached the runway. Just before midnight, the plane went down over the Florida Everglades: a swampy, flooded area in the southern part of the state. 101 people died and 75 survived, all with injuries. The accident has been explained, the wreckage long cleared. But the urban legend around flight 401 continues to this day. Let’s look at what happened.

Eastern Airlines was a commercial American carrier active from 1926-1991. Flight 401’s captain was Bob Loft, with first officer Bert Stockstill, and flight engineer Don Repo. Before flights were heavily computerized, a flight engineer was required to monitor all the complicated aircraft systems while the pilot and copilot flew the plane.

The plane departed New York around 9 pm, and expected to land in Miami two hours later. But as they were approaching the airport, they noticed a problem with the nose gear. 

Check out the blog post for the whole story and some writing prompts, such as:

Calling all spirits. What would happen if ghost hunters boarded a flight? Say they don’t have access to a haunted plane on the ground, so to do a seance, they have to buy a ticket and do it in the air. And they can’t get caught by fellow passengers or the flight crew, so they’re surreptitiously collecting ghostly voices on tape (EVP), using a makeshift ouija board on their tray table (you don’t need much room to ask yes/no questions), or trying to get psychic visions from touching plane surfaces. What happens if they make contact? How does that affect the flight?

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