Plane Crashes That Changed the Skies Forever

Flying into Miami at night, the crew became distracted by a landing gear light that wasn’t working. Focused on troubleshooting, they didn’t notice the plane was slowly descending. The aircraft drifted into the Florida Everglades and crashed, killing 101 of the 176 people onboard.

The crash highlighted the danger of losing situational awareness in the cockpit. It became one of the first widely studied cases of “human factors” in aviation. Flight 401 also sparked eerie ghost stories among crew members who later flew on planes with salvaged parts from the wreck.