According to Robert J. Serling's 1980 book "From the Captain to the Colonel: An Informal History of Eastern Airlines", the claim that wreckage from Flight 401 was installed and later removed from other aircraft was false, and no Eastern employees had ever claimed to have seen or believed in the alleged ghost sightings. A number of movies, books, and television documentaries about Flight 401 have promoted the fictional ghost stories.
When the engine fire breaks out on the New York City to Mexico City flight piloted by Captain Garrick as predicted by Dom Cimoli's ghost, the smoke is obviously drifting in a light breeze instead of being blown back into the airstream of an airliner in flight.