Sue St.Clair and Matthew Didier's Paranormal Blog

From Matthew The Double-Decker Bus Guy Didier...

Betcha didn't know that Sue and I are both aviation nuts.

It's true! We love airshows, books on aircraft, even hanging out at the airport when possible! We just love planes.

That said, it goes to reason that when the two worlds collide (and they OFT do...) of our paranormal studies and aircraft, we're really excited...

Now, this seems like a natural marriage when dealing with Ufological things... but how about ghosts?

Well, apparently, ghosts are no strangers to the "skyways" at all... in fact, everything from ghostly passengers, ghostly crew, and even ghostly aircraft have been reported from flight crews, passengers, and pilots alike.

In fact, above is one of my all time favourite ghost-books as is demonstrated by it's worn look... well written and a lot of fun... and a must for ghost enthusiasts and pilot alike!

The late Martin Caidin, the author, is also author of several excellent tomes I have read... such as Samurai! which is Saburo Sakai's memoirs... Japan's greatest WWII ace and a phenomenal human being.

...but...

In my fave book above, it's all about pilots and aircrews and their dealings with ghosts... and the book is a LOT of fun! (Not the least of which is Caidin probably loathing and being ticked at the NON-science of CSICOP/Crime Scene Investigations more than I do!)

That said, I get more than a few people asking about "ghosts in the air"... and although I shoot them to this book (if they can find it... it's difficult to locate and they'll be prying our copy out of both Sue's and my cold dead hands!!!) I like to tell a story that may be frightening to some... but I see it as bordering on comforting... bear with me here...

Eastern Airlines Flight 401, a four-month old Lockheed L-1011 wide-bodied aircraft, was en route from New York to Miami with 163 passengers and 13 crew... when she crashed into the Florida Everglades killing 77 people... including pilot Captain Robert Loft, a veteran of nearly 30,000 hours of flying and Second Officer Don Repo, a former airline ground engineer.

The cause of the crash was the ever sad "pilot error". They surmise that Capt. Loft had engaged the autopilot... and while conversing with the engineer, leaned on the control steering column ever so slightly, causing a small (but in the long run fatal) decent that was not noticeable until it was far too late.

After the crash, for literally months and years, Loft's and Repo's apparitions were sighted on Eastern's L-1011's.

The story goes that salvaged parts from Flight 401 were always aboard the aircraft they were spotted in. Eastern Air Lines CEO Frank Borman said these stories were, and I quote, "crap"... but many Eastern employees say Borman is full of it too.

In fact, over twenty documented sightings have been recorded of these ghosts...

These weren't the standard "nervous nelly" types either... a vice president of Eastern Airlines claims he spoke with a uniformed captain in the First-Class section he was seated in assuming he was his pilot... only to realise after he had been speaking to the late Captain Loft.

One flight captain and two attendants also saw and briefly spoke to Capt. Loft... and were so freaked out by the experience, they cancelled their flight. (How'd you like to be a passenger on THAT flight... We're sorry, our flight has been cancelled due to a ghost sighting.)

I've read where a female passenger became hysterical because she found an "unresponsive" man in an Eastern Airlines uniform sitting next to her, and the man literally vanished from view to not only her, but several passengers who were "alerted" to his presence by her trying to speak to him. She was shown a picture and identified the late Don Repo as that man.

On another L-1011, a flight engineer, half-way through the standrad pre-flight check when Don Repo suddenly appeared and said, "You don't need to worry about the pre-flight, I've already done it." History, sadly, does not record if he did finish the inspection.

Actually, Repo's ghost seems most helpful... he has been seen fixing galley ovens, repairing things below the cockpit, and otherwise looking after planes as he would in life... one time, he appeared to an attendant in the reflection of a galley oven and was kind enough to wait for two other staff to witness this odd apparition... but sadly, alerted them all by speaking directly to them... "Watch out for fire on this airplane." The plane did meet with bad turbulence, but luckily, no fire... the galley was salvaged from Flight 401.

Effectively, the upshot is that Repo's ghost one told another witness who was a captain of a flight... "There will never be another crash. We will not let it happen."

...by the way, after Flight 401 in 1972 until the airline went out of business in 1991, there was not another crash of an Eastern L-1011...

There's unconfirmed report that after one-too-many sightings, Eastern did have a "psychic" come in and clear it's aeroplanes of the "spirits" of Repo and Loft... and anyone else who might be hanging around... but if that's true, it was officially "unofficial" so whether it worked or was nothing more than a "fable" to quell the staff, it's success is unknown.

Did the two unfortunate crew members of Eastern Flight 401 linger? Are they lingering still wherever salvaged bits of the plane are located?

Who knows...

...but the ghosts of Flight 401 make one of the most interesting and intriguing cases in the realm of our study... multiple witnesses, multiple types of phenomena, multiple occurrences... in different places... with a tenuous tie to bind them together... but still more than a little intriguing.

Before I go, however, it should be noted that with Flight 401's ghosts and the majority of the ghosts in the late Mr. Caidin's books, pretty much all ghosts seen aboard aircraft are, in the long run, very helpful... they give crews sage advice, direct lost flights, avoid collisions... and generally seem to look after things... much like real pilots.

In fact, I'd almost feel safer and more secure if you told me my plane was haunted... an extra set of eyes and hands never hurt anyone and seem... well... most helpful sometimes!