The Ghost of Flight 401 (1978)

Based on a true story, about the ghost of an airplane disaster.I just bumped into this movie on YouTube thinking I was getting one of those 1970s airplane disaster movies, I got a totally different sort of disaster movie: one said to be based on fact!I have not done the required research on this story to state if I think the whole event is real or not. But, I must admit, it strikes me as a bit strange that I am finding out about this "famous story" now in 2016. I am a middle aged man who usually knows about these sort of strange events in the USA. Yes, I know the airline involved kept a lid on it, but still, why did it take nearly 40 years for me to find out about this "famous story"??I am not sure why Ernest Borgnine was cast in this film? Maybe he looks like the the real guy this happened to? If so, that is a good reason for casting him in the role. The problem I find is that he is such a big Hollywood name, sometimes a comical name, and seeing him pop in and out of the movie like Barbera Eden in I Dream Of Jeannie takes from the dramatic impact we are meant to feel.But all in all, The Ghost Of Flight 401 is great to see on YouTube...I hope they don't take it down.

I never heard of this movie until i saw 7500.Someone I know told that movie was based of inspired by this movie. There both really different movies but there have only have two things common, its set on Plane and with Supernatural things on a plane.This is not a horror movie , it more of mystery /drama and really good one two,This movie flowed really well, it wasn't really that scary at all but there were some creepy, ghost scenes.The acting in this movie was really good for a TV movieI going to give this movie 7 OUT OF 10

...and that's make a quality film just for the small screen with a good cast that people have in their fondest memories decades later. I watched the original broadcast of this film in early 1978 when I was still in college and it really moved me, this friendly ghost of the good natured middle-aged flight officer that got the family he thought he'd never have in mid-life only to have that life taken from him in a crash. This movie was televised several years later in the late 80's and I watched it again and I was surprised at what I did not notice the first time around in 1978 that I did notice ten years later. So many of the people who initially see the ghost are what we now call flight attendants, but in 1978 they were called stewardesses, and they were all female. Initially the reports of Don Repo's ghost were discounted not only because it was bad for business but because it was the stewardesses - or "stews" as they call them in the film - that were seeing the ghost. There were many comments in the film that would be considered very sexist today about hysterical females, and nobody bats an eye at these statements. Only after some of the male members of the crew see the ghost does anyone start to take this phenomenon seriously. It's just funny how standards evolve over time - in this case attitudes towards women - and you don't really notice until you're plunged back into a time capsule and see how much things have changed. I'd strongly recommend this one if it ever airs again. It's in the same boat as films like "J.T." (1969), "The Great Houdini" (1976), "Coffee Tea or Me"(1973), "The Ballad of Lizzy Borden" (1975), "The Neon Ceiling" (1970), and "Legend in Granite" (1973), also starring Ernest Borgnine. These are all made for TV films that were popular at the networks after studio films became too expensive to televise and before cable fractured TV audiences. They are as good as or better in quality than many feature films that are released today. Sure, some of them are quite dated in many ways, but that is part of the nostalgia for many of us who remember the original broadcast.

I was on the employee bus to the terminal with Dee Dee Welch that night. She was the gate agent who was working the inbound Flight 401 that night. It was a hellish night for everyone concerned at Eastern and more for the survivors of the crash and the relatives and friends waiting for the flights arrival.I left Eastern within a year after the crash. John Fuller tracked me down as most Eastern Airlines Employees would not talk to him. What I can tell you from a crew schedulers point of view is that I was having a hard time working around crews would over the next year walk of the aircraft each time they encounter the ghost of one of the crew members of Flight 401. My name is appears on pages 78 and 79 in the book "The Ghost of Flight 401."