Flight 401: Ghosts on a Plane

just before we get started with today's show if you'd like to well decode your past well I think you'll love today's video sponsor myheritage myheritage is all about exploring your family history I first became interested in this my nan was really into this and she was like she didn't she had a computer she had no idea how to use that thing it wasn't connected to the internet she used it to type letters to like the bank or something after like her typewriter broke that was her use of it and so her doing this was like Dusty old books writing to people like trying to Cobble together a half Finnish family tree and she was always talking to me about this and I found it super interesting and obviously now it's the future and my Heritage exists you go over there you make an account and you're just like okay you type in your name and then it's like when were you born what month tell us a bit about your parents and their information blah blah blah you type it in then it's like this person might be related to you we found this record here we found that here and it's like these incredible some of them are like um you know Inca you know the typed into computers already so you could access them some of them were just scans I found like census forms from like my great great grandparents who were living in like some street in London I was like I wonder if that house is still there and I went on to Google Street View and I'm like that's where my great grandparents lived it's it's totally nuts what was even crazier is someone messaged me because they were like hi I saw you were related to these people I was at a boot sale which is like what we call a yard sale a garage sale in in the UK and they found a photo album with people with my family's surname in it and they were like just wondering if this is you they came to me through my like website contact form and I was like yeah this is me and she's like do you want this album and I'm like what you found this and it had like photos of my nan as a kid and her great-grandparents and I'm like this is insane it is my parents now have it it's in the UK I'm going to visit next month and I'm gonna get it this is the sort of thing that happens with my Heritage it's amazing oh yeah they all also do repairing animating colorizing photos look I've showed this before but this is by uh gray Granddad who is in the Air Force grainy photograph first and then it makes it super nice it's amazing you think it's gimmicky and then it like blows your mind so uh there's that look my Heritage is great we've talked about that enough what do you have to do just get a 14 day free trial and enjoy all the amazing features of my Heritage if you decide to continue your subscription you'll get 50 discount and all you need to do is go to the link in the description below and if you use my code decoding the unknown you'll get that 50 off after your free trial so that's fantastic thank you my Heritage and now today's video Hello everybody welcome back to another episode of decoding the unknown as always I'm your host Simon's here Flight 401 ghosts on a plane yes oh I'd be more realistic if the goat if the plane was full of snakes wouldn't it goddamn steak honey why was there if you're new here um I've never read this before one of my writers in this case Katie has put me together a script we're gonna get to code it together that's that's the name of the channel you see what we did there very clever right big brain let's jump in [Music] Imagine This ERA flight has ended it's going about your business on a plane oh when you open an overhead locker and the face of a deceased colleague is staring back at you it's pretty creepy yes oh my God yes it's got nothing to do with ghosts this has nothing to do with creepy this is like oh my God someone has been murdered on this plane one of my colleagues and someone has stuffed him in the overhead Locker holy also those overhead lockers are not exactly giant how did they squeeze him in there what's he doing stuffed in there with all the bags and suitcases oh would you ever open anything ever again this is a detail that's really stuck with me while reading about flight 401 it will probably be at the back of my mind the next time I fly somewhere but so will most of the details about this case is anything involving plane crashes it always calls for concern how the flying lessons are going by the way Simon oh yeah I was learning to fly right and I took a bunch of lessons and I took a bunch of theory lessons and I just realized like I've tried to take up other Hobbies as well and I just always end up failing because I'm super busy at work I'm super busy with my family I really I probably do have about 10 to 15 minutes per week of of time that is not work that is not family that is not just tasks because that is the stage of my life like I'm in my mid-30s that's what life is and I don't get me wrong I like it I love my family I like my work but the idea the idea of hobbies is somewhat absurd to me right now so I've been like I recently was like oh my God I'd love to take out the like I used to play piano as a kid I said I'd love to take up piano again and I'm like no son what are you thinking where do you think you're gonna have time for this you idiot ah you have 15 minutes a week you want to play piano in those 15 minutes you clown no so I I have not finished my flying lessons yes it's another episode about planes but this one has a ghostly twist thanks to YouTube users Sir Henry P2 for the suggestion let's go be a lot to come up with suggestions in the comments but I'm just like yeah I mean I don't think I'm stealing them but I very rarely credit people because I'm like bro the logistics of that's really complicated but that is a good idea that is a good idea I don't have to but it would be nice and I don't and I apologize the frustrating circumstances surrounding the crash of Eastern Airlines flight 401 I feel like I've flown on Eastern Airlines isn't that like it's it's China's national airline right Eastern I feel like I've been on it and I remember like China has this really bizarre policy where you can't you know like you'll be flying and they're like sir can you turn off your phone for the Takeover landing and you'll be like yeah yeah sorry no problem and then you put your phone in your pocket and if you remember you've turned airplane mode on but really do you give a [ __ ] on this [ __ ] Eastern Airlines or if it wasn't Easter Airlines it was another Chinese Airline it was like an 11 hour flight or whatever and they were like sir you need to turn off your phone I'm like what what do you mean we're like cruising altitude we're like four hours into this flight and they're like so no personal electronics during the flight and I'm like are you smoking crack you expect me to watch like the 30 movies that you've got on the tiny screen in the back of my seat when I have an iPad with me uh 13 turn it off and so they tell me like three times and they get a bit more because I'm just like [ __ ] you uh because and also it's a stupid rule Ant-Man Adventure just like get the blanket that they provide I put it up over my head like a little tense and I'm just on my phone oh my iPad underneath there because it's a stupid rule it's on airplane mode I'm watching downloaded Netflix what does this possibly do doing China [ __ ] you on December 29th 1972 and always brand new super fancy Lockheed l10111 TriStar Lockheed l10111 really was flying from New York to Miami when a problem with the landing gear caused it to abort a landing approach and circle around the Everglades until the problem was sorted out after circling for a little while the plane started descending and eventually crashed into the swamplands there are 166 people on board Flight 401 okay I'm guessing this isn't China Eastern Airlines what the hell was that airline that I was on then I really thought it was Eastern with 101 dying immediately or shortly after due to injuries and 75 people managing to survive we're going to the circumstances of the crash as quite frankly it's pretty interesting albeit frustrating and it's clear that this particular crash was definitely avoidable aren't all plane crashes somewhat available avoidable because it's always like oh yeah there was an error in this or Pilot error or this and the whole point of plane crash and uh um investigation afterwards is to find what the error was and then make sure it doesn't happen again in and playing I've mentioned this book so many times but black box Thinking by Matthew Syed is an amazing book all about this and how the airline industry basically became enormously safe because of their air crash investigations and stuff it's so good okay so who do we have in the cockpit for this ill-fated flight heading up the crew is Captain Bob Loft his name was Robert but I think we'll call him Bob he was a season pilot well known and liked by his colleagues at the airline helping him out on the flight were first officer Albert stockstill which is a great last name but it makes me think he must have felt the need to move all the time or are you standing here stock still and carrying on the decent name streak was flight engineer Don repo ah yes the Repo Man I don't want to make fun of Katie's jokes but come on oh I'm sure people call him this with a record but I didn't see it mention anywhere while searching a ride to Miami but officially off duty he was technical officer Angelo Donna Deo between them these men had over 50 000 hours of flying time experience so you think the plane would be in good hands well you'll be wrong yeah what's that movie with Denzel Washington where he's like he's this seasoned pilot or whatever and he just keeps having a nap because he's [ __ ] up [Applause] and then he flies the plane upside down because that's realistic we are inverted I repeat we are inverted as mentioned a minute ago the plane they were flying was a new addition to the fleet a wide body Trident Airline it was advertised as the plane the Pampers people it had more spaced out seating a galley below the main level and even bragged that suits can be hung in Center division compartments which I suppose was more of a concern in the 70s than it is now with people traveling in their pajamas and what dots yeah people back in the day you look at those old photos of people some people I've played it's like why all in suits bro isn't that uncomfortable it's like yeah because flying was really expensive people got dressed up weird anyway it should be noted and it will be right now that even with all of those many thousands of hours clocked by the flight crew This Plane had only been introduced in August that year so Captain Bob laughed at less than 300 hours of experience with the Lockheed l10111 stock still barely had any more into Reaper man and he had 53 hours of Hands-On flying time in the aircraft well this is completely reasonable because it's a brand new aircraft obviously that makes it more dangerous like that 737 Max where two planes crash in a year because it was just some technical problems like holy [ __ ] Boeing that's a lot of people who died Boeing didn't they get some massive settlements as they should because well one they deserve it and two also Boeing should be punished for this [ __ ] up while I'm sure that all the previous flying experience would make the transition to a new plane easy this particular model had different autopilot features than earlier planes some of which were confusing enough the pilots had to be instructed to either have the autopilot fully on or just to turn it off so as Flight 401 was cruising towards Miami the captain lowered the landing gear but the lighter showed that it was down and locked into position did not illuminate this was not a major worry for Captain lofty retracted the gear and lowered it again but still the light didn't come on to be on the safe side the crew informed the control tower that they're having some issues confirming that the nose gear was down so the controller told them to climb back to 2000 feet and circle around coincidentally there was like hey Bob Bob open the window and have a look will you mate is it down coincidentally there was another plane approaching the airport with a similarly reported issue with its landing gear and preparations were being made for an emergency landing so not a huge amount of attention was paid to flight 401. as they flew out of the way and started climbing to 2000 feet Don repo decided to check is it repo I guess it's repo but I really want to say repo Don repo decided to check out if the problem was actually with the light itself and not the landing gear he tested the hey Todd have a look out of the wind he tested the control panel lights and sure enough the square button that was supposed to light up when the landing gear was locked remained dark Q repo then trying to get the light out of the panel and the whole situation bothering the crew enough that Captain Loft told stocksler was actually flying the plane at the time but was nearest to the light to put the plane on autobiolet and see if he could try to pull the fixture out during this time the flight headed away from Miami and towards the Everglades to go into its holding pattern eventually stock still managed to pull the light out of the panel but no one replaced a bulb or anything they just tried to jam it back in there was a trick to it though which stock still evidently wasn't aware of as he managed to get it stuck in an incorrect position during this farcical interlude I don't know if it's really farcical isn't this exactly the sort of thing that you there's there's probably a giant book telling them exactly what to do it's like uh if this fails try this if this fails try that and there's a giant list that they have to go through because that's how flying planes Works Captain law finally asked repo to go and actually have a look with his eyes to see if the landing gear was down how he's I guess he could go into the bottom of the plane have a look and see if light's actually down right it's around this time that it's believed the captain accidentally nudged the control column and inadvertently changed the autopilot setting repo descended into the belly of the plane through what's known as the hellhole to check if he could see a red line showing that the landing gear was indeed locked while he was down there the faffing with the light bulb continued Loft clearly didn't want to risk damaging the new plane by Landing with faulty gear when it could easily be checked if it was locked into place or not in the transcript from the cockpit voice recorders it was much swearing about the stupid light bulb width off saying to hell with this go down and see if it's lined up that's all we care around with that goddamn 27 piece of Light Equipment we got on this bastard stock still then said I don't know what the hell is holding that son of a [ __ ] in always something we could have made schedule I get the feeling in like with this you get this um and this might have been brought up in that Matthew Syed book where it's like people get locked into thinking about one thing so like there's this plane and there's these three dudes who have 50 000 hours of experience flying planes and I get the feeling they're all worried about this light and they're all worried about the landing gear and there is something much more worrying going on like that autopilot being knocked and them not realizing or they will like there's crazy things where it's like people will be so busy fixing a light that they won't realize that their plane has literally run out of petrol and is going to fall out of the sky uh petrol uh kerosene and it's gonna fall out the sky which is it's just this crazy food that humans do where we just get locked into one thing and then we can't focus on other [ __ ] and there's obviously a lot of things now done to planes to make sure that this doesn't happen just after this a one second chime sound which was to alert the crew that their altitude had changed no one appears to have heard it because they're all focused on the light the autopilot had descended the aircraft by more than 200 feet 250 feet past the 2000 feet setting and it was still going down a little after this repo pops back up saying that he couldn't see anything down into hell hole because it was too dark lot turned on a light and repo went back to the hatch with off-duty Angelo Donna Deo coming to lend a hand according to Donna Deo stockstill and Loft was still both trying to pull the light fixture out again and stockster was bracing his other hand on the control column that doesn't seem like a good idea at this point the controller at Miami notice the fly 401 was showing us 900 feet about altitude but apparently it was common for incorrect readings to show for a few sweeps of the radar before they glitched back to the correct ones so that's comforting to know oh my God it's not that's terrifying it's like nah it's fine I'm sure it's fine it's just an hour no now it's disappeared from the radar I'm sure that's fine it's just a glitch it's not coming back it's fine so I see Smoke on the horizon oh God he contacted the plane to check on it but didn't ask anything specific just said how things coming along out there before we Pile in and criticize him too much even doing this was apparently above and beyond the Call of Duty as they were primarily concerned with the aircraft's location in relation to other aircraft not how high one plane was flying out in the Boondocks if he had just mentioned their altitude though maybe someone would have looked and seen that they were way too low but no one did Loft said they were going to turn to make their approach now and shortly after this stockstill finally noticed that their altitude was way off what they thought it was the last recorded from the cockpit went like this stock still we did something to the altitude Loft what stock still we're still at 2000 feet right Loft hey what's happening hey the altitude 2 000 feet right less than 10 seconds later the plane crashed into the Everglades at 227 miles per hour it traveled over a third of a mile before finally coming to rest and a myriad of chunks and pieces some people died in the crash other were drowned in the marsh and many suffered burns from the jet fuel um what people so did people survived this these or like they survived the initial crash to drown that's insane is that possible there were also harmful bacteria in the swamps with some people eventually dying of gas gangrene and then something to have limbs amputated while there were a couple of people in the vicinity who started to help rescue people the scene was over 13 kilometers or eight miles from a road so large-scale rescue efforts took a bit of time to get there incredibly 75 people survived that's actually unbelievable unfortunately Loft and stock still died at the scene with repo dying later in hospital Angelo donadeo survived this is incredible I kind of thought like a plane just crashing into ground at 227 miles an hour it's like that's game over mates like wow for the record the landing gear was in the correct fixed position and it was just the light bulb that had burned out it's such a waste that while four people were messing around with a small light fixture nobody was actually flying the plane that other plane was also having issues with its nose gear and ended up Landing without incident it was also later found that Captain Bob Loft had an undiagnosed brain tumor that could have given him issues with his vision but this was apparently not relevant to the crash circumstances so maybe it hadn't begun to affect him yet at this time this was the largest death toll involving a single aircraft in the United States which obviously made people pretty nervous about this type of plane going forward yeah I'd be pretty nervous getting one of those Boeing 737 backs is being like ah guys are you sure you fixed it right I'm sure now it's going to be like one of the safest planes in the sky because it's gonna have been torn apart at every level to make sure that nothing happens again because two of them crashed basically inside a year but still I'll be a little bit late although probably flower one had not even notice because I don't know 737s you plant them all the time it could have been worse over the softer marshy terrain helped absorb some of the planes landing energy upon impact and the newer stronger passenger seats no doubt saved a few lives also there are at least 60 people that didn't show up for the flight for whatever reason meaning the aircraft was significantly under capacity 60 people didn't show up those people would make us a final destination [ __ ] going on it's like over the next week 60 people die in mysterious circumstances at Fairgrounds ah another the spooky part the spooky part here's where the creepy start of the story comes back after the crash people usually are the pilots and flight crew started reporting odd encounters aboard other Lockheed TriStar planes the vice president of Eastern Airlines was on board a flight from New York when he got chatting to the pilot but realized later the plane was in fact being flown by someone completely different and the pilot he had seen had disappeared the man he saw had been Captain Bob Loft sounds like that dude needs to get checked for a brain tumor as well doesn't it on a flight to Mexico City a flight attendant was startled to see the face of the deceased Don repo looking at her from the reflection in an oven door after she gathered some colleagues to confirm what she was seeing was actually there repo warned them about a fire on the plane when they landed it was found that one of the three engines needed immediate replacement the plane was flown back for repairs with just a crew on board but another engine did indeed Catch Fire meaning that the pilot had to land with only one working engine which he managed to do then comes the incident of the flight attendant opening an overhead locker and seeing Don repo's face staring back at her oh okay so it's just like a ghost or whatever it wasn't like someone had actually been murdered on the plane and shoved in to a baggage compartment because that would be more insane than some flights don't be like oh my God I saw a ghost um because ghosts aren't real isn't there a movie where someone gets murdered on a plane and they have to solve it or something and there's like a flight an air marshal or whatever on the plane I feel like that's there's probably six movies like that because you know the 1980s exist there are many other stories of people usually cruising Don Reaper Captain Loft hanging about on other Lockheed tristars usually in the galio near the cockpit the Specter of Captain Loft was always dressed in his Pilot uniform and he would be sitting or standing chatting to people before eventually disappearing repo would apparently give helpful tips about potential issues with the plane all of which ended up panning out this all sounds so real doesn't it as the sightings went on it appeared that was actually a common reason for the ghostly appearances the Lockheed l1011 was almost brand new and after the crash any salvageable components had been recovered from the crash site and fitted into other aircraft yeah so what those those pieces were inhabited by ghosts sounds reasonable these included an oven from Flight 401 swish below deck Galley and also the elevator between the levels I don't know why but it's kind of creepy that they'll take these like parts from a giant plane crash and then just install them into other planes you'd be like where's that one so oh this is our new oven yeah that's from that one that crashed and uh all our colleagues died oh god really really Easter you Cheapskate just get a new oven please this is creepy Easton I don't like it eventually though Eastern Airlines got wind of all these ghost stories circulating around and decided to put a stop to them Gruen employees were warned that anyone making reference the incident in the flight logs would be subject to disciplinary action any previous mentions were either removed from the existing flight logs all the logs were just replaced with blank versions The tactic was successful up to a point but it wasn't until the recovered parts were actually removed from the aircraft that the sightings finally stopped in 1976 however John G Fuller published The Ghost of Flight 401 which brought together all of these spooky sightings and accused Eastern Airlines and trying to hush their employees up I mean there's a very good reason why they hush them up because these sorts of sightings occur because of like group is it called group think is that what group think is where you know someone's like oh my God I saw a ghost in that house that house is haunted and then someone else will be like oh my God yeah I saw it too and then someone else will go to the house and be like oh it's definitely in there and just because one person said it and if you try to stop people saying it then you're not going to have these sightings anymore because when we think about ghosts logically that's what it is also should definitely make sure that there's like not some fumes leaking into those planes because they're all happening on the same planes maybe just make sure like there's no carbon monoxide going on there's no weird chemicals because like thinking about this logically there's the crew the pilots or whoever the crew of the plane like there's crew in its totality seem to be the ones seeing stuff they're the ones spending most of the time on the plane so I'd think about some environmental toxin some exposure to something that would cause these hallucinations to occur especially if the passengers aren't seeing them because they're on the planes much less regularly but I do reckon it's just a group hysteria group hysteria that's what I was looking for while the airline did consider legal action against Fuller they ultimately decided not to fearing that it would just bring more eyes the whole situation ah well aware of the Streisand Effect are we used and very nice in 1978 a movie based on the book was released also called The Ghost of Flight 401 it's currently 5.8 on IMDb but it has Kim Basinger in it playing someone called prissy Frasier so who knows maybe it'll be worth a watch yeah that's what I thought about that movie um oh my God it's so bad it's the worst it's like the worst movie ever seen I think it's called Left Behind and it's with Nicholas Cage and he plays like a pilot on a plane and like a bunch of people are like [ __ ] raptured it's like super religious and it's like the only person who could act in that movie was Nicholas Cage and it was just it felt like they've got Nicholas Cage in a movie he's like their big lead Starry they can put on the cover and he's actually starring in the movie like he has a major part and everyone else was like people who didn't quite make it into drama school because it's like what's going on here and I'm sure it was also terrible writing and Direction but it was all together like oh my God and I think it actually does quite well on IMDb because all the religious people are like it spoke to me it was a rapture oh my God it was really bad so that's the story whether you believe it or not if you do believe it though maybe you'll want to end the video now because we're heading into the decoding bit and it ain't gonna be pretty put your seat backs into the upright position stir your tray tables and let's get into it I think this John G Fuller guy who wrote the book later this often happens we see it in decoding the unknown a lot where there's a spooky story and we're telling it as if it's like oh yeah it's definitely real but it turns out that our primary source is the John G Fuller book whoever wrote the book like decades later and embellished a ton of [ __ ] and then everyone uses that as their main reference but even though it's kind of just allegedly made up decode in the unknown I think I know how Simon feels about ghosts but I'm not 100 sure I know how I feel about ghosts come on Katie how many seen enough to go to the unknown to be persuaded yet ghosts are real and I know no one be persuaded because I just like I don't come up with any evidence against ghosts because obviously that's not my thing and like anyone who believes in ghosts is going to be like oh yeah ghosts Simon's wrong and I'll be like you got any evidence of that I don't need evidence I have faith it's like okay well I need more than faith and you don't and that's that That's How It Ends because of course it does I've never seen one but I have felt majorly creeped out lots of times and I've been scared to look in mirrors at night in case there's some horrible creature looking back at me unless it's just me after I've taken my makeup off I can't see the jokes today it was funny I don't know like if I see a horror movie like I don't know sick sense I remember seeing the six I was a kid when I saw the sixth sense and I remember looking into rooms and being like there's not gonna be dead people in there okay I was afraid of the dead people and then I saw the uh the [ __ ] ring which is like the scariest movie ever and I was scared of TVs for like ages like I don't I was like sit in my room and I was like are my laptop on my desk or whatever let's just close that [ __ ] don't have it open I was once in an old hotel where there was a rocking chair in the dark corner of the room and I draped a jacket or something on it and part of my brain was convinced there was a figure like a demonic nun sitting in it staring at me I didn't get up and turn on the lights to check of course not I just stated better kept my eyes closed too scared to open them in case a scary face would be inches from mine when I did yeah I don't I don't really go through any of that [ __ ] I'll still be like oh God the the demon none and I'm safe under the covers because of course I am I recently got a weighted blanket because everyone was talking about how great weighted blankets were it's a weird experience it's kind of nice but also kind of not like I get I'm getting used to it and I think I'm really sleeping better with this weighted blanket it's quite a weird experience yeah it's quite it's like a seven kilogram blanket it's supposed to be like 10 to your body weight and I'm like that's really heavy and it sits on you and you're kind of like that's kind of nice it's a weird experience though try it I guess I'm still not totally closed off to the possibility of an actual unexplained encounter I don't want it to be scary though maybe just seeing someone disappear through a wall from a safe distance would be enough for me I definitely don't want to be opening an overhead locker and see a face staring at me so let's get to the decoding there were two us this story the super frustrating crash part and the spooky ghost part one of them was 100 True guess which one yes of course seeing Don repo's ghostly Visage and an open door was Stone Cold Fact and I just made up the other gubbins about a light bulb and an auto Violet Ipsy just kidding unfortunately the plane crash bar was horribly true but it did lead to some better safety practices within Aviation such as better processes within the cockpit when problem solving mandatory safety harnesses for crew jump seats and making flashlights part of the standard crew safety equipment as these were not fitted to life jackets at the time and when 401 landed in the dark in the middle of the Everglades swamp some extra lights to locate people might have saved more lives this is what I love about Aviation it's like if something goes wrong they're not like okay like medicine is terrible for this that something goes wrong don't talk about it don't mention it like this is this term the bloody book Matthew sides book and so I met something they're just like yeah just don't talk about it if we make a mistake just like don't talk about it in aviation they're like talk about it and make sure we fix it and that's why Aviation is safe and why you like why um medical accidents and what not kill an extraordinary number of people every year like unforced medical errors is just like holy [ __ ] medicine what are you up to I think like isn't hospital deaths like unforced hospital that's like one of the major causes of death these days which is insane we should fix that anyway back to all the hauntings I guess it may kind of make sense that parts from the crash plane were fitted into others and they'd hold the spiritual energy from the disaster and that's why sightings of Reaper and Loft were on the planes with parts from Flight 401 I say I guess it kind of makes sense but it doesn't really does it I mean I suppose it could be a reason why the ghosts were seen on certain planes and not on others but when you actually look into it it makes no sense at all because none of the crashed plane parts were reused in other planes so we'll put that in your pipe and smoke it yeah that's that's the it's like okay I get the feeling this is something that that George dude or whatever was mentioned in his book and then everyone took it as facts even though it's like no they don't do that that's insane I felt that it was kind of insane when talking about it because don't they end up in like some big NTSB Warehouse somewhere because when a plane crashes and the insurance company's gonna pay for it anyway so you don't need to be like taking an oven out of a plane and fitting it into a new plane oh what's that burn mark from why is this it why is this one smell a bit funny oh well it was in a plane crash it landed in a swamp it's like no one's doing that that's mental fly 401 was largely obliterated with the dip which is Moe's is it 75 people survived with a debris spreading out over a large area and nothing like an oven or something like an elevator was salvageable and can you imagine the recovery team picking through the nightmare scene and being like Oh we've got another one that looks good over here just a few dents in it stick it in the trunk we'll reuse it imagine the savings it seems unlikely plus the TriStar was already being rolled out across the Airlines and they weren't likely to save an oven from a crash burst gen wide body jet just to put in their new version so that bit of the ghost story is false so let's now dump on all the armor bits this can be done in one Fell Swoop by pointing out that none of these stories were circulating around the airline prior to the publication of Fuller's book in 1976 four years after the crash while he stated that all the stories have been told to him personally yet of course either changed people's names or left them vagrance Anonymous to protect them from retribution from the airline yeah of course you did mate there's no real way to verify any of the claims of ghost sightings in his book and the airline did actually try to do it remember how they were thinking of suing for Laura's publisher but didn't it wasn't because they were scared to bring this to the Public's attention it was because they didn't want to give him any more publicity with the yeah perfect this is such a good response just don't just be like shh don't talk about it no one's gonna buy this book no one cares it's just one crackpot dude or just quietly deny it don't need to sue him with a spin-off film coming out too the spooky stories were really just starting to piss the management off is claimed that they bullied and harassed after keep quiet about the supernatural encounters were also the main reason the airline considered legal action in another book about Eastern Airlines it was published in 1980 called from the captain to the colonel by Robert Sterling an Eastern Airlines employee said we spent weeks trying to locate anyone who claimed to have seen a ghost and couldn't find one person so could Fuller's claims in the book have been made up what no who could have ever predicted this who would have known it seems so Fuller published quite a few other books including the interrupted journey to lost as a border Flying Saucer an incident at Exeter unidentified flying objects Over America now and the object of 29 Mega Cycles a new breakthrough in life after death so this sort of tell seemed right up his alley again this this is often something we bring up on this channel it's like yo if you've got a [ __ ] fiction book just call it a non-fiction book throw-ins and things that could vaguely be true and boom it's gonna sell to the wacko conspiracy crowd that's what you should do or to people who like Dan Brown novels like me in researching this story I found plenty of people asking how you could possibly poo poo all of the examples given as they seem to believe they were all from actual Witnesses but here goes poo poo Fuller just made it all up sorry about that folks yes when you rely on one sources like how can you discount all of the sources because they were all made up by one bloody guy weren't they bloody Fuller there doesn't seem to be much connecting his book to any sort of real event that happened in the aftermath of the plane crash no other documents approved for the ghost sightings appears before his book came out and attempts by the airline to investigate the stories came to nothing no parts plot 401 were reused and even if they were they were not then subsequently removed from Planes to exercise repo and Loft and why would you want to anyway they weren't malevolent ghosts they were just described as being helpful in pointing out problems with the plane or just shooting the breeze with the people who would really complain about that the only tenuous connection that exists is the related flight to the Mexico City where the engines burned out that part was true but the flight attendant after seeing Don repo space in an oven was not the pilot of that plane is documented in a journal of the flight safety Foundation a few weeks after his experience when asked about how it was to land the TriStar with only one engine he said scary for a minute I thought repo's ghost was on the plane this is literally the only reference to a ghost on a plane 4 Fuller's book was published and it's not like he's admitting to seeing the ghost of the Dead flight engineer he was thrown back to the still recent crash in a light-hearted manner as he was also recorded as having said it with a laugh so maybe not the most tactful of comments but not really concrete evidence for Don repo to be haunting other tristars seems to have been enough for Fuller though yeah honestly what did he write like the 42 Mega Cycles traveling aboard alien spacecrafts it seems that uh very little was enough for Fuller not the Pinnacle of journalistic integrity their Fuller are you mate allegedly final thoughts thankfully the haunted Lockheed tristars seem to be nothing more than an urban legend started by a writer with a supernatural leaning and perpetrated by a popular TV movie the crash of Flight 401 should never have happened but at least there were a significant number of survivors and changes would in place to stop situations like this where all the crew were distracted at the same time I'll leave the last word Colonel Frank Borman who was the CEO of Eastern Airlines at the time to crash he was also a former Apollo astronaut which is pretty cool wow that's pretty sick that's a career is that way military then astronaut then C over major airline respect mate anyway when asked about the whole situation regarding what was in Fuller's book Borman said the one accurate quote in the book was made by Jim ashlock when he called the whole story a bunch of crap so there you go I think we can safely assume there's enough to worry about when flying through the air without having the ghosts of a dead cockpit crew jump scaring us from the luggage rack indeed and this was an episode of decoding the unknown if you enjoyed it please do leave a review and if you're watching it on YouTube yes this also goes out in a video format please like subscribe and I'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Decoding the Unknown

Views: 172,927

Keywords: flight 401, ghosts of flight 401, plane ghosts, everglades crash flight 401, ghost, flight, airplane

Id: BcV13sAUHpc

Length: 34min 47sec (2087 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 22 2022