Summary of the Accident:
As reported by the Aviation Safety Network, Eastern Air Lines Flight [Flight Number] carried a total of 176 occupants, including 163 passengers and 13 crew members. The majority of the flight transpired without incident. However, as the aircraft approached Miami, the flight crew became preoccupied with a malfunction indication within the cockpit. Unfortunately, they were unaware that the autopilot had disengaged, leading to a loss of altitude and the eventual crash. While 75 individuals managed to survive, the incident tragically claimed the lives of 101 occupants, including Captain Robert ‘Bob’ Loft and Flight Engineer Donald ‘Don’ Repo. This crash marked the first fatal accident involving the Lockheed TriStar, as well as the first of any widebody aircraft. At the time, it stood as the second deadliest plane crash in U.S. history. However, in contemporary records, it has moved to the 16th position in terms of fatalities. Several days later, the aircraft wreckage was successfully recovered from the swamp, and some salvageable parts, including a galley, were retrieved. These salvaged components were incorporated back into Eastern Air Lines’ fleet, allowing for their continued use. Following this salvage operation, reports began to emerge of sightings of Captain Robert ‘Bob’ Loft and Flight Engineer Donald ‘Don’ Repo. These apparitions were reportedly seen in various areas of the aircraft, including the aisle, cockpit, and galley.
Eerie sightings
These eerie sightings of the deceased crew members persisted over time. For instance, the vice president of Eastern Air Lines once boarded a flight departing from New York and struck up a conversation with a pilot he believed was in charge of that leg of the journey. However, he later came to realise that the pilot he’d been conversing with was, unmistakably, Captain Bob Loft. The perplexing question remained: How could such an encounter have taken place? Nevertheless, this was not the first instance of posthumous appearances by the departed pilot.
On another occasion, a captain was requested to check on a passenger seated in first class, who was donned in a pilot’s uniform. The senior flight attendant reported that the passenger appeared disoriented and unresponsive when engaged in conversation and was not listed on the passenger manifest. To the captain’s astonishment, the unresponsive passenger turned out to be none other than Bob. Flight Engineer Don Repo also reportedly made ghostly appearances on flights in a peculiar, supernatural manner.
Stranger Things
In a series of inexplicable events, flight attendants and crew members continued to have unsettling encounters with the spirits of Captain Bob Loft and Flight Engineer Don Repo:
- Bob’s Overhead Appearance: During a flight from New York to Miami, the same route as the December 1972 crash, a flight attendant opened an overhead locker to discover Bob’s face peering out at her, a ghostly encounter that defied explanation.
- Don’s Oven Door Appearance: On a separate flight, another flight attendant claimed to have seen Don’s face on the oven door. She summoned two of her colleagues to witness this eerie sight, and Don purportedly warned them, saying, “Watch out for fire in this plane.”
- Engine Failure and the Mysterious Engineer: On the return flight, one of the engines experienced a failure and had to be promptly shut down to prevent a fire. Upon returning to the galley, yet another flight attendant spotted an engineer working on the oven. She later inquired with the actual flight engineer about the oven, and he asserted that he had neither worked on it nor found any issues requiring attention. As puzzling as it may seem, she later identified from photographs that the engineer she had seen was none other than Don Repo himself, further deepening the mystifying encounters with these apparitions.
An Unexpected Presence
The spectral presence of Captain Bob Loft and Flight Engineer Don Repo continued to manifest in unexpected and startling ways:
- Don’s Electrical Warning: On a certain day, a flight crew was situated in the cockpit of an aircraft when they claimed to have witnessed Don sitting among them. He provided a warning about a faulty electrical circuit, which was subsequently discovered and replaced due to his intervention.
- Bob’s Pre-flight Checks: There were accounts of Bob being spotted while performing pre-flight checks on the aircraft. He even informed the ground staff that he had already completed these checks, an occurrence that deeply unsettled the pilot to the extent that they decided to cancel the flight.
- Mysterious Knocks and a Potentially Disastrous Discovery: Inside the cockpit, during preparations for a flight, another pilot heard loud knocks emanating from beneath the floor beneath him. Curiosity led him to open a trap door, revealing the apparition of Don gazing at him before swiftly vanishing. Upon further inspection, the pilot discovered a critical issue that, had it gone unnoticed, could have resulted in a serious accident, underscoring the uncanny and potentially lifesaving presence of these apparitions.
Swept Under the Rug?
While sightings of these apparitions were officially documented in a Flight Safety Foundation publication, the CEO of Eastern Air Lines chose to dismiss these claims, and employees were explicitly cautioned against discussing these sightings. It’s worth noting that the airline had previously encouraged its crew to diligently record all flight-related incidents in the aircraft log books, resulting in many of these encounters being logged. However, mysteriously, these log books began to vanish from the aircraft, raising questions about their unexplained disappearance.
Subsequently, all of the salvaged parts, and the lingering presence of Bob and Don, were removed from the aircraft. The truth behind these eerie occurrences remains elusive, leaving us with a haunting mystery. While aviation history has witnessed its share of ghostly tales, this one remains among the most enigmatic.