93 survive Florida Jumbo Jet Crash

MIAMI (AP) – An Eastern Air Lines TriStar carrying 167 people crashed into the Everglades late Friday night, spilling men and women into the murky waters of the swamp. Authorities said more than half of those aboard survived the crash, the first fatal accident involving the new breed of jumbo jets.
The Coast Guard said 93 survivors were pulled from the wreckage, water and muck by rescuers laboring in darkness in the desolate and virtually inaccessible morass.
The search for the living and the dead continued past dawn today.
The big wide-bodied Lockheed L1011 was en route from New York to Miami when it crashed just before midnight Friday, 17 miles northwest of Miami International Airport. The cause of the crash was not known at once, but an Eastern spokesman said there was no word from the pilot.
Helicopters and volunteer drivers of air-boats – shallow draft that skim over the swamp – were pressed into the difficult rescue effort.
“It's the worst thing I've ever seen in my life,” said BILL HODGES of Miami, a Coast Guard helicopter pilot. “Bodies were all over the place.”
“Just two pieces of the plane were intact, the tail and a section of the cabin,” HODGES said. “The rest of the plane was in a thousand pieces.”
“Everywhere we tried to land there were bodies.”
FRANK BORMAN, the astronaut who is now an Eastern vice president, flew to the scene to help direct recovery work in the knee-deep water. He described the survivors as exceptionally calm as they waited for helicopters and boats to ferry them from the scene.
One passenger said a stewardess led the survivors in singing Christmas carols until the first rescue helicopter arrived, about 30 minutes after the crash.
Rescuers set up a command post at a nearby Miccosukee Indian village. The Indians who live in the alligator infested swamp helped in the rescue, but the tribal council refused to let them bring the injured or dead into the settlement. Police said the Indian leaders explained that their religious beliefs dictate that a building must be destroyed if someone dies in it.
DON TAGGERTY, spokesman for the Dade County Sheriff's office, said the Indians' decision in no way hampered the rescue effort.
Coast Guardsmen, police and volunteers worked through the night, slogging by foot through the muck, wending their way through slashing 5-foot sawgrass to reach the clusters of survivors and recover the dead. Flashlights and calls of distress were the only guide until portable floodlights were set in place.

As he lay on a stretcher at Miami's Palmetto Hospital, one survivor, 32-year-old MICHAEL LAURIE of Syosset, N. Y., recalled his ordeal: a crawl through the slimy waters, the screams and moans of frightened and injured.
“It was completely dark, cold and wet,” he said. “Nothing left of the fuselage. We were in a foot of water. I crawled as far as I could, a long way, 300 yards or so. I could hear people screaming. I yelled for them to get away from the plane.”
LAURIE said he was plucked to safety by a Coast Guard helicopter which could only hover close to the ground because of the wet.
“They drug us up just like you see in the movies,” he said.
Passengers said their was no warning.
MARTIN SIMINERIO, 22, of Long Island, one of the survivors, said there was no word from the pilot, no explosion and almost no warning before the plane hit.
“The plane was flying fine,” SIMINERIO said. “We just went down slightly and then came back up. I thought nothing of it. The next thing I knew we hit.”
The plane slammed into a marsh about 300 yards off the Tamiami Trail, a state highway that cuts across the Everglades from Miami to Florida's west coast.
Despite its nearness to the road, the wreckage was accessible only by helicopter, swamp buggies and shallow-draft airboats driven by airplane propellers.
In Washington, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said the crash was the first fatal accident involving a Boeing 747, Douglas DC10 or an L1011, the new generation of jumbo jets.
Eastern has 10 of the L1011's, which cost $15 million each. The maiden flight of the three-engine craft was on Nov. 16, 1970, and Eastern put the planes into commercial service only last summer.
Flight 401 disappeared from the Miami airport's air-traffic-control radar at 11:42 p. m., EST, the FAA's DON BYERS said. Visibility was 10 miles, and there were only scattered light clouds at 2,000 feet.
A 10-member investigating team was dispatched to the scene within hours of the crash by the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington.
The pilot was Capt. ROBERT A. LOFT, who had been flying for Eastern since Sept. 20, 1940. Of the airline's some 4,000 flight officers, he had seniority No. 50.
All of the 13 crew members were from Miami.
“The pilot didn't say anything before the plane crashed, as far as we know,” said BILL WOOTEN, Eastern's chief spokesman in Miami.
J. C. WALKER, 60, of New York City said he crawled away from the plane through the swamp. “I never crawled so much before,” he said.

The Anniston Star Alabama 1972-12-30
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!