50 years later, memorial dedicated to survivors, families of Eastern Flight 401 crash
MIAMI - Survivors and families are remembering the 101 souls who were killed 50 years ago when Eastern Flight 401 crashed into the Everglades. It happened just west of Miami International Airport.
"You will never be forgotten. You are here with us," said flight attendant Beverly Raposa, who survived the crash. Beverly vowed to make a permanent memorial to those who were killed.
"We now dedicate this memorial to the 101 souls who perished that night. In loving memory so they will never, ever be forgotten," she said unveiling the stone monument with the names of those who died engraved in the granite.
Beverly remembers when the flight went down. "It banked to the left and those engines roared to take off power and we hit. The left wing tip hit first. It was a huge fireball. The sound, a huge fireball that went through the cabin," she recalled.
Beverly was sitting in the rear of the plane. She recalls the terrifying moments afterward.
"The tail turned over, the floor opened under me and I went down with 400 pounds of debris on me," she said. "What saved my life was chute on that door…actually on impact it inflated, she recalled. "It save me from the 400 pounds of debris that was falling on me," she said.
She freed herself, then went to work saving others. "The blessing was we didn't know we were about to crash. There was no fear, no panic, no anything. We just hit,' she said.
Beverly has often wondered how she survived — how anyone survived. "The NTSB, when they studied it, they said this crash was unsurvivable, yet 75 miracles came out of there."
The name of Ronald Infantino's wife Lily is on that memorial. The couple was returning to Miami from their honeymoon when the unspeakable happened.
"Next thing I knew, we hit the left wing tip first, everything out of the overheads flew over. The plane actually spun in a circle, the floor dropped and I woke up in the water," he recalled. Hjs wife was not with him. "I don't know where she was. They didn't find her body until two days later," he said.
Dawn Quinn's grandfather was pilot Robert Loft. He did not survive, but his memory lives on. "My grandfather was a kind, humble, perfectionist. He was very dedicated," she said.
Located just across from the Miami Springs Country Club, survivors and families hope this memorial brings comfort 5 decades later. "They're home," Beverly said. "They'll never be forgotten."