Aircraft Ghosts

Entry in A Dictionary of Ghost Lore
Ghosts have been reported on a number of aircraft during recent years and in October 1974, the London Evening News crried a story that the cleaners at Heathrow Airport had claimed there was a sinister force at work on certain of the planes. An airport official was quoted as saying, "We have had reports about some strange presence on the jumbo jet planes and at present t cannot be explained. Some cleaners have said they have been thrown about by something invisible and others that they have been unable to move, as if they were being held down by something." The most famous story of an airline haunting is told by the American investigavtive writer, John G. Fuller, in his book The Ghost of Flight 401 (1978) about the phantoms that haunt a number of planes belonging to Eastern Airlines. In 1973 an L-1011 TriStar belonging to Eastern Airlines--Flight 401--crashed near Florida killing nearly 100 people, among whom were the pilot, Captain Bob Loft, and the engineer, Don Repo. Not long thereafter other crews flying Eastern Airlines' TriStars began to report seeing ghostly figures that looked remarkably like Loft and Repo on board their aircraft. In every case the figures seemed friendly and appeared to want ony to prevent any other TriStar from suffering the same tragedy as had befallen them. Subsequently John Fuller investigated the story and published his book, and although considerable mystery still hangs over the haunting it remains the best-known story of ghosts that took to the skies. As Fuller himself remarked, "If you believe that old country mansions are haunted, why not a jumbo jet?"