3 November 17-23, 2022 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | CuLture | Cafe | MusiC | MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | ▼ MIAMI SPRINGS FINAL BOARDING CALL FLIGHT 401 MEMORIAL MARKS 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF CRASH BY THEO KARANTSALIS B everly Raposa was a bubbly, 25-year-old flight attendant on- board Eastern Airlines Flight 401 from New York to Miami when the plane slammed into the Ev- erglades at 225 miles per hour near midnight on December 29, 1972. Of the 176 people aboard, 101 people died in the crash, which at the time marked one of the deadliest plane crashes in the nation’s history. “It was like being in a tornado,” recounts Raposa of Fort Lauderdale. “Then everything was quiet.” Fifty years later, she and other survivors will unveil a 2,385-pound granite monument near a Miami Springs golf course to honor the “101 souls that perished and the 75 survivors.” “So, you, in fact, were on that airplane, [Flight] 401?” Miami Springs City Council- man Bob Best asked Raposa at a June city council meeting before leaders unanimously approved the memorial’s placement. “Oh, yes, I rode that down,” said the 5-foot-2 Raposa, now 75, a former Miami Springs resident. “The NTSB, when they studied it, said this crash is unsurvivable.” The plane was a state-of-the-art Lockheed L-1011-1 Tristar wide-body jet that lifted from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport at 9:20 p.m. for a routine flight to Mi- ami International Airport, according to a Na- tional Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) crash report. The captain, 55-year-old Robert Loft, was a DC-8 pilot who had two-and-a-half hours of training in the new L-1011 plane, the report states. The flight diverted from its approach to the Miami airport because an onboard indica- tor did not signal the nose gear was locked in the down position. “Ah, tower, this is Eastern, ah, 401. It looks like we’re gonna have to circle. We don’t have a light on our nose gear yet,” Loft said. The aircraft was ad- vised by air traffic con- trol to climb 2,000 feet as Loft directed the first officer to engage the au- topilot. “Eastern, ah 401, how are things coming out there?” “We did something to the altitude,” the first officer said. “Hey, what’s happening here?” said Loft at 11:42 p.m., seconds before flight tower opera- tors heard a click and six beeps. Nicknamed the “Whisperliner” for its smooth and quiet ride, the plane’s engines and wings tore off and did end-to-end cartwheels, leaving divots in the earth. Fires crackled in the jet-fuel-coated saw- grass 18 miles west of Miami International Airport, where a quarter-mile swath of man- groves was strewn with food trays, carry-on bags, and bodies. Tales of ghost sightings after the crash site led to a book deal and a 1978 made-for-televi- sion movie called The Ghost of Flight 401, star- ring Ernest Borgnine. Prior to Halloween this year, a Travel Channel special aired about a team who ventured into the Everglades to con- tact the flight victims’ ghosts and “find out what really happened.” Government investigators took a less-su- pernatural approach and cited four possible causes for the crash: subtle incapacitation of the pilot, issues with auto-flight system oper- ation, flight crew training lapses, and flight crew distractions. A medical examiner’s report revealed that Captain Loft had a tumor that “displaced and thinned the adjacent right occipital lobe of the brain.” (The occipital lobe is primarily responsible for visual processing.) Raposa tells New Times that she got the idea for a monument from Miami Herald re- porter Luisa Yanez when she covered Flight 401’s 37th anniversary. “People from Denver and New York have already told me they are flying here, and lots of Eastern people from all over Florida and beyond have said they will be attending,” wrote Raposa in an email to city leaders. According to the City of Miami Springs, the Eastern Airlines Flight 401 Memorial Group has been raising funds for the project, which was originally estimated to cost about $600,000. The newest design for the monu- ment is considerably less expensive, accord- ing to Raposa. The memorial will be located where a run- way once ran through the middle of the city. The public is invited to the monument un- veiling at 1 p.m. on December 29, near the 700 block of Curtiss Parkway. | RIPTIDE | Photo by the National Transportation Safety Board ▼ BROWARD UNWANTED ADVANCES LAWSUIT ALLEGES SHERIFFS’ UNION LEADER ASSAULTED AN UNCONSCIOUS WORKER. BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN T he former treasurer of the Broward Dep- uty Sheriffs Association union is facing a lawsuit that alleges he sexually assaulted an incapacitated union member during a work trip in Nevada. In the lawsuit filed in Broward County on No- vember 2, the alleged victim claims the union leader, Frank Voudy, accosted her in her Las Vegas hotel room and that she was released from the union months later after she complained about the incident and ongoing harassment by Voudy. The plaintiff, whose name is not disclosed in the court file, claims the assault took place while she and Voudy were in Nevada for a law enforce- ment conference in May 2021. She says that while she was incapacitated, Voudy took advantage of her, snapped pictures of her naked body, and later showed the images to his Florida coworkers. The woman was working under Voudy as a la- bor and relations agent for the Broward Deputy Sheriffs Association, Local 6020 branch of the In- ternational Union of Police Associations, accord- ing to the complaint. She suspects she was given a “sedative or intoxicating substance” in the time leading up to the assault, the lawsuit alleges. “Upon learning of Voudy’s egregious actions, the plaintiff was distraught, shocked, and be- yond humiliated,” the lawsuit states. “At no point in time did plaintiff express any romantic interest in Voudy.” Several weeks after the alleged incident, the plaintiff reported it to the Las Vegas Metro Police Department, whose investigation is ongoing, ac- cording to court documents. She says she also reported the encounter to the local union branch but that “it took no action.” The local union branch and the International Union of Police Associations are named as defendants in the lawsuit alongside Voudy. The lawsuit claims that after the plaintiff and Voudy returned to Florida, he began harassing her by contacting her on her personal cellphone and Facebook. Around the time the plaintiff was helping her mother recover from surgery, the lawsuit alleges, Voudy sent the plaintiff a graphic email and then implored her to delete it. “Plaintiff repeatedly asked Voudy to stop contacting her other than for work purposes, but Voudy’s behavior continued,” the lawsuit says. “Voudy began involving himself into Plaintiff’s job duties that were unrelated to his job duties so that [she] would be forced to work with him.” The lawsuit alleges that the victim refused to go into the office and opted to work remotely be- cause of Voudy’s conduct. In response, the law- suit asserts, Voudy required mandatory in-person meetings and scheduled meetings with the plain- tiff at earlier times before other employees ar- rived because he “wanted ‘alone time’ with her.” In early October 2021, the plaintiff says, Voudy went into her office and left a $150 gift card to Morton’s steakhouse along with an envelope addressed to her daughter that contained a police “morale patch” for Voudy’s district and shift. The union discharged the woman in early January 2022 in retaliation “for seeking to assert her right to be free from harassment [and] dis- crimination,” the lawsuit states. Her attorney, Adriana Alcalde, says the termi- nation was a final blow to the victim after she endured months of humiliation and trauma. “She dedicated her life working for the union, and she believed in the union. When they let her down at her lowest moment, it was especially crushing,” Alcalde tells New Times. Counsel for the union has not responded to New Times’ request for comment. According to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, Voudy is still employed as a deputy. He has worked for the sheriff’s office since the late 1990s. [email protected] GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS “IT WAS LIKE BEING IN A TORNADO. THEN EVERYTHING WAS QUIET.” Aerial image of the wreckage of Eastern Airlines Flight 401, which crashed in the Everglades in December 1972.
