ROBERT 'BUD' MARQUIS, 79
Airboater rescued air crash survivors

Robert 'Bud' Marquis was frog hunting when he witnessed the crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 in 1972.

BY LUISA YANEZ lyanez@MiamiHerald.com

Robert 'Bud' Marquis, the Homestead airboater who witnesses the crash of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 in the Florida Everglades 36 years ago -- and then rushed to help rescue survivors -- died Friday of complications from an accident five weeks ago. He was 79.

A former South Florida wildlife game warden who lived most of his adult live on the edge of the Everglades, Marquis was frog-hunting from an airboat with a friend just before midnight on Dec. 29, 1972, when they heard the roar of a jumbo jet flying dangerously low.

Within seconds, the L-1011 coming from New York and carrying 176 people crashed into the pitch darkness of the Everglades west of Miami International Airport. In horror, Marquis and his friend watched the impact light up the horizon.

''I told my friend to keep his eye on where we had seen the ball of fire, and I started heading that way as fast as I could,'' Marquis told The Miami Herald last December on the 35th anniversary of the crash.

SURVIVORS FOUND

Marquis and his friend were first at the scene. They found almost 100 people dead, but also more than 70 survivors of what was then Florida's deadliest crash and the first of the brand-new jumbo jet fleet.

In the end, 75 survived. Last year, some of them gathered at an event organized by first responders at the Firefighters' Memorial Building to honor Marquis.

''I would not be alive today if not for Bud Marquis,'' said survivor Ron Infantino, who along with other survivors is working to build a memorial to honor those who died that night -- among them his young bride.

The memorial would feature Marquis' airboat -- a testament to the significant role it played. From the Everglades, Marquis and his friend used a light rigged to a hat to guide Coast Guard helicopters and others to the desolate crash site. They spent the night pulling survivors out of the marsh.

Flight 401 flight attendants Beverly Raposa of Sunrise and Mercy Ruiz of Miami said the sound of Marquis' airboat was a sign of life.

''Even if we couldn't see him, we could hear him and we knew help had arrived,'' Raposa said. Ruiz was rescued in Marquis' airboat.

AIRBOAT RESTORED

At the 35th-anniversary observance, the airboat Marquis used that night, which he still owned and which had fallen into disrepair in his yard, was presented to him totally overhauled.

''I would do it all again in a heartbeat,'' Marquis told the crowd that day.

The accident would change aviation history, and it spawned several books, lore about ''the ghost of Flight 401'' and a television movie. It also changed Marquis, who was forever connected to the disaster.

''Just today, a passenger who lives out of state called because he had heard Bud had passed away,'' said Marquis' widow, Nancy.

She and Marquis were married for 61 years. ''We met when I was 15 and he, 18,'' she said. ''He had moved with his family from Arkansas to West Palm Beach, where I lived. It was love at first sight.'' They had two children.

On the night of Oct. 21, 2008, Marquis went to the Florida City Wal-Mart and suffered injuries that led to his death. Something happened to him in the parking lot. ''We don't know if he was mugged or run over or if he fell,'' Nancy Marquis said.

With six broken ribs and a head injury, Marquis refused medical care and drove himself home. He was rushed to a hospital, where he remained in the intensive-care unit until his death.

''Doctors said his injuries looked like those of someone who might have been mugged, but he still had his wallet in his pocket,'' his widow said. She said Florida City police told her they were still investigating.

There will be no funeral service for Marquis. His wife said his ashes would be spread over the crash site in the Everglades that ''he loved so much,'' at a later date.

Marquis is also survived by a son, Donald Marquis of Altamonte Springs; a daughter, Terri Mabie of Tucson; 10 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.