Flight 4184 Investigation

American Eagle Flight 4184 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Indianapolis, Indiana to Chicago, Illinois. On October 31, 1994, the ATR 72 performing this route flew into severe icing conditions, lost control and crashed into a field. All 68 people aboard were killed in the high-speed impact. ATR stands for Aerei da Trasporto Regionale in Italian.

The aircraft involved, registration N401AM, was built by the French-Italian aircraft manufacturer ATR and was powered by two Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127 turbo-prop engines. It made its first flight on March 7, 1994, and was delivered to American Eagle on March 24, 1994. It was operated by Simmons Airlines on behalf of American Eagle. American Eagle was the banner carrier regional airline branding program of AMR Corporation’s regional system, prior to the formation of the fully certificated carrier named American Eagle Airlines.

The captain of Flight 4184 was Orlando Aguilar, 29. He was an experienced pilot with almost 8,000 hours of flight time, including 1,548 hours in the ATR. Colleagues described Aguilar’s flying skills in positive terms and commented on the relaxed cockpit atmosphere that he promoted. The first officer was Jeffrey Gagliano, 30. His colleagues likewise considered him to be a competent pilot, and he had accumulated more than 5,000 flight hours, of which 3,657 hours were in the ATR.

The flight was en route from Indianapolis International Airport, Indiana, to O’Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois. Bad weather in Chicago caused delays, prompting air traffic control to hold Flight 4184 over the nearby LUCIT intersection at 10,000 ft. While holding, the plane encountered freezing rain, a dangerous icing condition where super cooled droplets rapidly cause intense ice buildup. Soon after, they were cleared to descend to 8,000 ft. After this descent the pilots were ordered to enter another hold. During the descent, a sound indicating an overspeed warning due to the extended flaps was heard in the cockpit. After the pilot took action by retracting the flaps, a strange noise was heard on the cockpit voice recorder, followed by a sharp, uncommanded roll excursion that disengaged the autopilot. Flight recorder data showed that the aircraft subsequently went through at least one full roll, after which Aguilar and Gagliano regained control of the rapidly descending aircraft. However, another roll occurred shortly after as they engaged the autopilot again. This second occurrence was unrecoverable, and fewer than thirty seconds later, at 3:59 p.m., contact with Flight 4184 was lost as the plane crashed nose-down into a soybean field near Roselawn, Indiana, killing all 64 passengers and 4 crew on board.

The disintegration of the plane indicated extreme velocity, and data recovered from the flight data recorder showed that the plane had an indicated airspeed of 432 mph at impact. There was no fire. The bodies of all on board were fragmented by the impact forces; therefore, the crash site was declared a biohazard.

Flight 4184 was the first hull loss, and also the deadliest aviation accident, involving an ATR 72 aircraft. Sixteen years later, Aero Caribbean Flight 883 crashed into a high range of terrain, also due to icing conditions, resulting in the same number of fatalities

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable causes of this accident were the loss of control, attributed to a sudden and unexpected aileron hinge moment reversal that occurred after a ridge of ice accreted beyond the deice boots because: 1) ATR failed to completely disclose to operators, and incorporate in the ATR 72 airplane flight manual, flight crew operating manual and flight crew training programs, adequate information concerning previously known effects of freezing precipitation on the stability and control characteristics, autopilot and related operational procedures when the ATR 72 was operated in such conditions; 2) the French Directorate General for Civil Aviation’s (DGAC’s) inadequate oversight of the ATR 42 and 72, and its failure to take the necessary corrective action to ensure continued airworthiness in icing conditions; and 3) the DGAC’s failure to provide the FAA with timely airworthiness information developed from previous ATR incidents and accidents in icing conditions, as specified under the Bilateral Airworthiness Agreement and Annex 8 of the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Contributing to the accident were: 1) the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) failure to ensure that aircraft icing certification requirements, operational requirements for flight into icing conditions, and FAA published aircraft icing information adequately accounted for the hazards that can result from flight in freezing rain and other icing conditions not specified in 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 25, Appendix C; and 2) the FAA’s inadequate oversight of the ATR 42 and 72 to ensure continued airworthiness in icing conditions.

Address: N 400 E, Lake Village, IN 46349 (Near Roselawn, IN in Newton County)

Hauntings: Actually none; however locations where untimely death occur sometimes acquire ghost stories or actual sightings of unusual activity.

The Ghost Research Society investigated the crash site of Flight 4184 on May 15, 2021 and the team members included: Mike Rosario, Charles Williams and Dale Kaczmarek

Equipment setup: A few Nightshot cameras were set up along with a REM Epod, Melmeter with telescopic probe, digital recorders and cameras.

Experiments performed: A ParaTek session was conducted near the roadside memorial. There was quite of bit of contamination created by a stiff breeze that was blowing at the time making it hard to discern any possible evidence or voices captured on digital recorders.

Personal experiences:

Mike Rosario: Our investigation at the Flight 4184 Memorial in Lake Village, Indiana took off at approximately 12:30pm with Dale Kaczmarek, Chuck Williams, and Mike Rosario on Saturday, May 15, 2021.  Weather was warm, but was slightly drizzling a bit (on an off) during the day.  Equipment used was my K-II meter; a Philips VoiceTracer Digital Voice Recorder; a DVC 4K Ultra HD 48mp Night Shot Digital Video Camcorder; and an Apple iPhone 8-Plus 256GB Smartphone for exterior HD pictures and videos.

For this investigation, I was accompanied by Dale and Chuck, and we pretty much stuck together as one group for this investigation.  I began by doing my usual K-II sweeps in and around the Flight 4184 memorial monuments and large boulder, and my base reading was low (around a constant 0.5-0.7 mg).  There was some outside noise contamination as farmers were plowing the fields behind us, so we tried to make our voices heard the best we could through our next investigative tactic, doing some EVP sessions. 

The three of us very respectfully asked questions pertaining to the accident, specifically weather conditions, and what kind of flight routine was like before the accident.  I believe I had asked what flight level was assigned to them as soon as they were airborne.  Then we asked some questions about what had happened after the accident, and what type of things could possibly have led to the accident.  All through the investigations, the entire atmosphere felt extremely eerie, knowing that 68 people died instantly in a plane less than a thousand feet from where we were standing.

Evidence:  Upon reviewing all of my evidence, I didn’t have any visual evidence on my DVC camcorder, but I did capture some faint audible EVP hits from the crash site.  The audible evidence is as follows:

Flight 4184 Memorial Crash Site:

~ “Two.”  A faint female voice.

~ Children’s Voices.  Faint sounds of children.

~ Faint sound of a male voice.

 Charles Williams: Nice memorial set up, a wall of the names of those perished in the disaster. No personal experiences noted.   1 hour spent there, 30” Investigation.1 EVP recovered.  Rain threatened all day, high winds here impeded audio recording.

Dale Kaczmarek; I don’t believe that I had any personal experiences or feelings at the site besides that of a deep sadness which is to be expected. After this crash occurred, I was scheduled to fly in a very similar plane as part of a television show that paid for my flight. I was briefly interviewed at O’Hare Airport for my reaction to the crash and if I had any misgivings on flying on an exact same plane. I said that I didn’t, flying was still safer than driving in some cases and if it was your time to go then it was your time to go.

A farmer who was plowing his field was very nice and cautioned us to be careful of a fallen power line that was already called on and due to be fixed. He was plowing the exact same field where the plane went down.

Evidence collected:

Children’s voice 4184.MP4 – while conducting an EVP session, a faint sound of a possible child’s voice can be heard in the background.

Faint male voice 4184.MP4 – while conducting an EVP session, a faint male voice or hiss can be heard in between our voices.

Two female voice 4184.MP4 – while conducting an EVP session, two possible female voices were caught in the background.

Words spoken by the ParaTek app: December, wild, afterlife, Y, bar, let, until, utter, many, law, sea, 8, fear, kicking, Paul, day, bend, nine, kicking, believe, grab, knot, sea, beg, government, hear, interrupt and great.

Conclusions: Personally I don’t believe there are or have been any spirits ever encountered here or during our investigation. The people that tragically died here have most likely moved on and did not wish to remain in this very tragic and sad location. Not all locations were untimely, sudden or tragic deaths occur are there later reports of paranormal activity. This is probably one of those locations that fit the bill.

Even though we were a whole field away from where the actual crash site, if there were anyone still lingering around, they should have had something to say if given the chance. Being that no physical words, responses or intelligent phrases were captured, it is my belief that this area is at peace and that everyone moved on to a better place.