The Fatal And Devastating Crash Of Flight 401 | FULL EPISODE | Mayday: Air Disaster

In the Miami Tower, the controller notices something unusual – Flight 401 is no longer flying at 2,000 feet, it’s down to 900. He radios the crew but it’s too late to pull up. The jet crashes into a remote part of the Florida Everglades. 101 people die, but incredibly 77 survive.

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From Season 5 Episode 9 "Fatal Distraction": December 29, 1972 — Eastern Airlines Flight 401 is preparing to land in Miami. 163 passengers are on board the sophisticated new L-1011 jet. When the crew try to lower their landing gear, only two of three indicator lights turn green. The crew can’t be sure their landing gear is locked. Without confirmation, it would be dangerous to land.

Captain Robert Loft decides to circle away from the airport and troubleshoot the problem. The auto-pilot is programmed to keep the plane circling at 2,000 feet. Freed from the task of flying, all three crew members focus their attention on the faulty indicator. Co-Pilot Bert Stockstill works on removing the assembly to check the bulb. Second Officer Don Repo is sent to an area below the cockpit where he should be able to see if the landing gear is locked.

This is the first-ever crash of a jumbo jet and, at the time, the largest death toll in US civil aviation history. Investigators need to figure out why this sophisticated jet, fell from the sky without anyone in the cockpit noticing. They examine the engines for signs of failure but find none. They recover the plane’s AutoPilot computer and test it on another plane. There’s nothing wrong with it. Only when they listen to the Cockpit Voice Recorder do they discover that the crew was so obsessed with a light bulb, that they didn’t hear the warning that their plane was dropping. They discover that Captain Loft unintentionally disengaged the auto-pilot when he accidentally nudged his control column while turning to talk to his Second Officer.

Investigators ultimately blame the accident on pilot error. The crew was so focused on the light-bulb that they didn’t look at their instruments and didn’t notice that the plane was falling. Following the crash, pilots are warned that a slight nudge of the control column can disengage their auto-pilot. But there’s a much more lasting legacy to this accident.

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