The Ghost of Flight 401

The true story of an Eastern Airlines L-1011 which crashed in the Everglades while making a long approach on Miami International Airport. It is surmised the pilot while distracted because of nose gear warning, inadvertently disengaged the auto pilot resulting in the plane crashing. Sightings of the dead crew were reported over the next several years by several dozen Eastern employees, who had known them. A true mystery of the supernatural. A film well worth watching.

I remember seeing this movie as a teenager and I was riveted. It's based on a true story, and Ernest Borgnine plays Dom Cimoli, the flight engineer who, in the movie, went into the cargo hold to inspect the landing gear and put it down by hand if needed. The best part was the odd appearances of his ghost in other planes, which the other characters find out have parts salvaged from flight 401. Even his wife, we eventually learn, feels his presence in the bed beside her at night. It's as if he's making sure he keeps taking care of his family and continues his devotion to the airline he loved. As usual, a typically good Borgnine plays even a ghost and makes you like him.

Love these Movies from the 70's and the 80's. You can feel the Love and Joy what they puttet into their Work. Nice Movie. Really nice to watch and worth to watch it.

A couple of F A C T S

This movie about EAL's flt 401 is NOT ONLY a movie,but in 95% of the movie,(some parts of movie were for drama only)it is based on the flt data & cockpit voice recorder,but IT IS 100% TRUE,about the crew member,(2nd officer) Some of the parts that were refurbished & reused on other company aircraft(and on a cple of other airlines where some the parts from 401 were put on,) TRAINED FLT CREWS saw this "ghost", but it was kept very hush,hush,if you mentioned it 99.99% of the time you lost your job.(would you want to be on a flt where a Capt or 1st officer said he had seen a ghost on board) and the "'ghost" was even caught on the CVR,(cockpit voice recorder) giving a warning to a flt crew about a on board fire befor it happened.The L10-was the "Queen of the skies",then but she did have some flaws, unforunately it took one "going in"(a crash) to discovery & correct these problems,I know about this "bird,(plane)& this airline for I & 25,000+ people once worked for this great airline,,,

...and that's make a quality film just for the small screen with a good cast that people have in their fondest memories decades later. I watched the original broadcast of this film in early 1978 when I was still in college and it really moved me, this friendly ghost of the good natured middle-aged flight officer that got the family he thought he'd never have in mid-life only to have that life taken from him in a crash.

This movie was televised several years later in the late 80's and I watched it again and I was surprised at what I did not notice the first time around in 1978 that I did notice ten years later. So many of the people who initially see the ghost are what we now call flight attendants, but in 1978 they were called stewardesses, and they were all female. Initially the reports of Don Repo's ghost were discounted not only because it was bad for business but because it was the stewardesses - or "stews" as they call them in the film - that were seeing the ghost. There were many comments in the film that would be considered very sexist today about hysterical females, and nobody bats an eye at these statements. Only after some of the male members of the crew see the ghost does anyone start to take this phenomenon seriously. It's just funny how standards evolve over time - in this case attitudes towards women - and you don't really notice until you're plunged back into a time capsule and see how much things have changed.

I'd strongly recommend this one if it ever airs again. It's in the same boat as films like "J.T." (1969), "The Great Houdini" (1976), "Coffee Tea or Me"(1973), "The Ballad of Lizzy Borden" (1975), "The Neon Ceiling" (1970), and "Legend in Granite" (1973), also starring Ernest Borgnine. These are all made for TV films that were popular at the networks after studio films became too expensive to televise and before cable fractured TV audiences. They are as good as or better in quality than many feature films that are released today. Sure, some of them are quite dated in many ways, but that is part of the nostalgia for many of us who remember the original broadcast.