Story of the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 near Miami, FL, December 29, 1972. On the night of December 29, 1972, Eastern Airlines Flight 401 took off from New York City for Miami. The veteran pilot did not know that the twin autopilot computers on his new Lockheed L-1011 had been mismatched, or that a $12 part would fail at a critical moment. Before the night was over, 185 tons of metal, kerosene, cargo and humanity would become a fireball cartwheeling into the Everglades. This is the true story of the first crash of the new generation of jumbo jetliners. It describes the rescue effort that brought 77 persons out of the swamp alive, survivors of a "non-survivable" accident. It narrates the heroism and suffering as those who lived--and the relatives of those who died--struggled to regain the routines of normal life. And it details the gargantuan legal battle in which lawsuits claimed more than $100,000,000 in damages, and investigators slowly unraveled the mystery of how the crash occurred.--From publisher description.