Bud Marques Leads Flight 401 Survivors Back to the Crash Site for Remembrance

77 year old Bud Marques will be leading 60 airboats into the Everglades to where he became a hero.  The 1972 survivors of the Eastern Airlines flight 401 New York to Florida crash survivors will be following him.

Marking the anniversary of the disaster, the group hopes to raise enough interest in the accident to create a memorial for the 94 people on the flight that did not survive.

61 year old Ron Infantino was an insurance man flying home with his wife.  His wife did not survive.  Infantino said “I never was able to see my wife.  I need to go back there.  I always said to myself, ‘I don’t know where to go.’  I’ve always wanted some kind of recognition for the people who’ve lost their live.”

Marquis remembered the night Eastern flight 401 came crashing into the swamp at 227 mph.  Racing to the scene he immediately began to pull people out of the wreckage.  He recalled the painful moans, calls for help and the smell of jet fuel floating in the air. 

A former state game officer, Marquis made this statement, “I didn’t feel it was any great, heroic thing, I figure I didn’t do anything that anybody else wouldn’t have done.”