'About Half' Survive Crash Of Jetliner in Everglades

MIAMI (UPI) – About half of the 171 holiday travelers aboard an Eastern Airlines Lockheed L1011 escaped with their lives Saturday when the jet plunged without warning into the Everglades on its landing approach in the first superjet crash.
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman JOHN M. REED, who flew here to head the investigation into the crash of the New York-to-Miami flight, said the fact that it was a “jumbo” wide-bodied jet contributed to the number of survivors.
“We have long felt that with the bigger aircraft there would be a higher survival rate,” said REED, a former governor of Maine. “The nature of the terrain, with water, shallow water, obviously cushioned the impact.”
More than 18 hours after the crash, which came at 11:48 p. m. Friday 18 miles northwest of Miami International Airport, officials still had no sure idea of how many died and how many lived.

Eastern Airlines released a list of 79 names of persons it said survived the crash and were in area hospitals. However, Eastern spokesman JERRY FULL said, “We believe a number of people were brought in from the crash scene who simply walked out of the hospital without being identified because they did not require treatment.”
REED said he understood 93 persons survived.
As darkness fell over the eerie swamp, searchers turned on the floodlights they used to locate survivors and continued the search for bodies. FULL said bodies were “still being brought in” to Jackson Memorial hospital for identification.
There were 13 crewmen on the flight, which was piloted by Capt. ROBERT A. LOFT of Plantation Key, Fla. A rescuer said he found a man he believed to be left in the wreckage but that the man died before he could get him out.
Helicopters, flat-bottom air boats and ambulances worked throughout the night retrieving the injured from the murky waters of the trackless swamp.
Some, though mud-caked and bloody, were able to walk out under their own power, but others were carried out on stretchers crying and screaming incoherently.
One little boy wandered through a hospital emergency room where some of the injured were taken crying: “Is my daddy alive? Is my daddy alive?”
Some mothers, reunited with their children, wept and cuddled them. Others searched in vain for their loved ones.
Survivors aboard the flight, Eastern's No. 401 out of Kennedy International in New York, said there was no advance warning of the crash.

“Nothing seemed wrong,” MICHAEL LAURIE, a 32-year-old New York private detective, said. “But just before landing when he (the pilot) made the approach, he poured on the coal and went around again.”
“I saw the city lights fade away and then bang, fire and then bang, the plane broke.”
“It was completely dark, cold and wet. Nothing left of the plane. Nothing left of the fuselage. We were in 10 inches to a foot of water. I crawled as far as I could, a long way, 300 yards or so. I could hear people screaming. A lot of people weren't moving.”
REED said the jet's flight recorder containing a record of the jet's air-to-ground contacts had been recovered and was sent to Washington for analysis. The recorder would also contain information on the plane's altitude and speed during the final minutes.

RAY DICKENS, who was out gigging frogs from his airboat in the Everglades, said he first saw the plane “pass over kind of low, although it looked like a normal approach. All of a sudden there was a flash that lasted for about 10 or 15 seconds and we knew it crashed,” he said.
DICKENS, apparently the first person to reach the scene, said he started his boat motor and headed for the wreckage, but quickly cut off the boat engine in order to hear the cries for help.
“The wreckage was scattered over such an area that we bypassed some of the survivors. They were just scattered all over everything,” he said.
Another early arrival on the scene was Coast Guardsman DON SCHNECK, who reported he saw other persons who gathered at the scene taking watches and wallets from the dead.

SCHNECK said game wardens and other rescuers also saw the looting but SCHNECK shrugged and asked: “What can you do? We were there trying to help the survivors ... I don't know how people like that get there so fast.”
UPI newsmen flying over the crash site found the plane – or what was left of it – in three main pieces, the fuselage, a wing and the tail section.
It was indistinguishable as an airplane and REED later confirmed that there had been “gross disintegration of the airplane, which was strewn out over a quarter of a mile from the point of initial impact.”
The plane came down about 200 yards form a water-control dike which runs east-west across the Everglades. A trail-like road atop the dike enabled ambulances to get close to the crash scene, but removing the injured still proved a difficult task.
The injured were lifted to helicopters in slings and flown to three Miami area hospitals, where medical crews stood waiting.
Those brought out by airboat were taken to the dike, where rescuers formed a human chain to get the stretchers up the steep banks.
One woman, barely visible under the blankets that had been heaped upon her, sobbed and cried out incoherently as she was lifted into an ambulance.
Another woman, able to walk, obediently took a seat in the front of one ambulance, since the back was filled with others more seriously hurt, and then sat with her head slumped on her chest – obviously in shock.
Since the living had to take precedence over the dead, some bodies were left in the wreckage for hours while rescuers tried to get aid for the survivors.

The News Tribune Fort Pierce Florida 1972-12-31
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!