Who survived the plane crash. Amazing stories of the only survivors of a plane crash. Nine-year-old girl who survived the crash over Cartagena

On December 23, 2016, at the age of 66, the legendary stewardess Vesna Vulovich died, who in 1972 was present at the explosion in the cabin of the aircraft, and then fell along with the debris from a height of 10 km.

She received numerous fractures and injuries, fell into a coma for several days, but then recovered, entered the Guinness Book of Records and became a world celebrity.

On January 26, 1972, 22-year-old Vesna Vulovich flew from Stockholm to Belgrade on a Yugoslav Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32. When the plane flew over the German Hersdorf, he disappeared from the radar, and 46 minutes after takeoff exploded in the air. It is assumed that the bomb was carried on board by Croatian nationalists - the Ustashe. Debris fell near the village of Serbska Kamenice in Czechoslovakia.

Of the 28 people on board, only Vulovich survived. As a result of the fall, she received fractures of the base of the skull, three vertebrae, both legs and the pelvis, spent several days in a coma, but then woke up and first of all asked for a cigarette. Interestingly, by mistake of the airline, the girl got on the flight instead of another stewardess with the same name (Vesny Nikolic). By the time of the disaster, the flight attendant had not yet completed her training and was in the crew as a trainee.

What saved Vulovich, who spent three minutes in free fall? Perhaps the fact that she was squeezed in the tail of the plane, between the corpses and pieces of luggage. In addition, pine branches and a thick layer of snow softened the blow.

Her cries in the forest were heard by the forester Bruno Henke, who during the Second World War was a doctor in the German army. He helped the girl hold out until the arrival of medical help.

Vulovich spent 10 months with paralysis of her lower body (from the waist to her legs). After that, she was treated for another six months, but then recovered and even asked to fly again on flights with JAT. She was turned down and instead given a job at the airline's office.

Such fearlessness is explained by the fact that Vesna did not remember either the accident or her salvation. In a 2008 interview, she admitted that she only remembers how she greeted passengers after taking off from Copenhagen, and then how she woke up in the hospital and saw her mother.

Vulovich became a national heroine: she was given a reception by Marshal Tito, which was then considered a great honor for a citizen of Yugoslavia. Songs were dedicated to the woman and she was invited to the most popular television shows. It became popular to name girls after a flight attendant who survived, as if it brought them good luck.

Vesna Vulovich used her fame for political purposes: she protested against the power of Slobodan Milosevic, and later campaigned for one of the parties in the elections.

The peak of international fame Vulovich came in 1985, when she was invited to London on behalf of the Guinness Book of Records. There, Vulović received an award for surviving a maximum height fall without a parachute. The prize was presented to the woman by musician Paul McCartney, the idol of her youth.
Vesna said that she was just as much a “survivor” as the other inhabitants of Serbia: “We Serbs are truly survivors. We have lived through communism, Tito, war, poverty, NATO bombings, sanctions and Milosevic. We just want a normal life."

On December 23, Vesna Vulović was found dead at her home in Belgrade after the police broke into the woman's apartment at the request of her friends, who were alarmed that she was not answering her calls. The cause of death is unknown, but, according to Vulovich's friends, her health has recently deteriorated.

Ever since man first took to the air, he has known the fall. Every year, flight technology has become more complex, more perfect and safer, but aircraft crashes still occur. The mass death of people in the crash of a passenger liner becomes not only grief for the inconsolable relatives of the victims, but also a national tragedy.

At the same time, people who survived after a plane crash become celebrities who are spoken and written about by the media in all countries of the world. This happens because there are very few of them.

Plane crash statistics

If we take statistics for the entire historical period of the development of passenger air transportation, we can conclude that they are extremely rare. The chance that the vehicle will crash during flight, takeoff or landing is 1/8 million. This means that it would take a person more than 20,000 years of daily flights on random flights to board that unlucky one.

If we take the statistics of the identified causes of the fall of equipment, then in percentage terms it will look like this:

• when the aircraft is being loaded, 5% of accidents occur (most often a fire);
• during takeoff - 17% of accidents;
• when climbing only 8% of cases;
• during the flight 6%;
• when the aircraft descends - 3%;
• approach is the cause of 7% of cases;
• aircraft landing - 51%.

The statistics of all recorded cases of airliner crashes show that the greatest risk is present during takeoff and fall. This is probably why passengers applaud the pilots after they complete this stage of the flight.

Survivors after a plane crash most often indicate that something “suddenly” became wrong with the plane. In fact, meticulous extras and workers responsible for flight safety note that the reasons for a sudden breakdown of instruments or ignited engines are flaws that have not been identified on the ground, which means that the reasons for the crash of the liners should first of all be looked for there.

Causes of plane crashes

No matter how you say it, but the main cause of all air crashes is the human factor. Machines do not spoil themselves and do not incapacitate. The lack of due attention during their assembly, during daily checks for malfunctions and the conscious work of pilots and dispatchers - all this most often leads to the crash of equipment.

Is it possible to survive in a plane crash if the specialists did their job poorly? And in this case, the answer will be yes, since today there are cases when more than 1 person remained alive.

Aircraft crash statistics as a percentage is as follows:

• pilot error is the cause of 50% of cases;
• errors of personnel serving during the flight were revealed in 7% of tragedies;
• the influence of weather conditions account for 12%;
• malfunction of instruments and the machine as a whole - 22% (what was not properly identified before the flight);
• terrorism and others (unidentified causes or collision in the air) - 9%.

Of these reasons, except for the weather, everything else is the activity of people. This suggests that the tragedy could have been avoided, and the cases of survivors of the plane crash were significantly higher. If we take the statistics of the largest crashes over the past 30 years, then their causes are:

• DC-8 crashed in Newfoundland in 1985 on takeoff due to loss of speed, killing 250 passengers;
• the crash of a Boeing 747 in 1985 in Japan was caused by poor repairs, resulting in 520 casualties;
• Il-76 en route from Kazakhstan to Saudi Arabia crashed in India in 1996 from a mid-air collision with a Boeing, resulting in 349 deaths;
• Il-76 crashed in Iran in 2003 due to impact on the ground in poor visibility, killing 275 people;
• 224 people who did not survive the Kogalymavia plane crash in October 2015 added to the sad statistics: the reason is a possible terrorist attack.

These are far from all the major crashes that occurred from 1985 to 2015, but even they show that their cause is most often human inattention or dishonesty. The list of plane crash survivors would be much longer if flight safety professionals did their job well and passengers knew what to do to stay alive.

What to do in case of a plane crash

It turns out that there are rules that really help people stay alive when the liner crashes. The most basic instructions are given by flight attendants before the start of the flight. Unfortunately, most passengers do not listen to them, and even more so they cannot put them into practice. Among the simplest recommendations, it is considered mandatory:

• be fastened during takeoff and landing (ideally, it is better to be fastened during the entire flight);
• know where the life jackets are and how to use the oxygen mask;
• in an emergency, do not leave your seat, and even more so do not try to get into the luggage compartment in order to save your belongings;
• concentrate and take the correct posture before the aircraft collides with the ground or water (bending your head to your knees, covering it with your hands).

In addition to these simple rules, there are several conclusions of emergency specialists that people who survived after a plane crash applied intuitively and did not suffer.

Most of the passengers die after the plane crashes and catches fire, because they cannot get out of it in time. To prevent this from happening, you should know in advance:

• How are the seat belts unfastened?
• the exact direction to the exit (especially if there is smoke in the cabin);
• panic is 100% death.

For example, George Lamson, still a 17-year-old teenager in 1985, survived only because at the time of the collision of the plane in which he was flying with his father, his chair was thrown out of the cabin. If the boy had not been fastened and had not pressed his head to his knees, and after the fall he had not been able to quickly unfasten himself and run to a safe distance, he would have died, like the other 70 people.

As the cases of survivors of a plane crash show, if a person does not panic and knows what to do, then he has every chance of surviving. Examining examples of such tragedies, scientists have come to the conclusion that many passengers, instead of getting out of the plane, are waiting for someone's instructions or instructions. It is important to know that in such a situation everyone is responsible for their own safety.

High risk situations

Although it may seem that the survivors of a plane crash are just the lucky ones, in reality they are not. As the data of scientists from England, who studied more than 2,000 rescue cases in such an accident, showed, these people were helped not by a simple coincidence of circumstances, but by specific knowledge and actions, plus a bit of luck.

It turns out that there are high-risk zones and safer areas in airplanes, as evidenced by survival statistics:

• for example, those who sit in the first five rows in the nose of an aircraft have a 65% chance of survival;
• it is even higher for those who sit in these rows on the outer seats (67%), and not near the windows (58%);
• passengers at the rear of the aircraft have a 53% survival rate if they are also seated in the first five rows from the emergency exit;
• people who survived after a plane crash and sat in the middle of the cabin are extremely rare.

In addition to risk areas in the cabin, the aircraft itself also plays an important role. So, statistics say that 73% of all air crashes occur in small aircraft designed for up to 30 seats. The fatal outcome of a single-engine or small aircraft crash is 68%, which suggests that the chance of survival for passengers and pilots of such vehicles is tantamount to a miracle.

One conclusion suggests itself - you should fly large planes of reliable companies. It is unlikely that only the right choice of vehicle and the place in it will save lives in an emergency, but its passengers will have more chances of survival, and rescuers in the crash of a large liner do not ask the question “are there any survivors in a plane crash”, but save them.

The most difficult situations

The most difficult and dangerous part of the disaster is the collision of the aircraft with the ground or water. After this happened, people only have 1.5-2 minutes to stay alive. It is at this time that it is necessary to meet in order to unfasten, find a way out and jump out as far as possible.

The biggest threat to life is a fire and carbon monoxide filling the cabin, which is confirmed by a woman who survived the plane crash. Larisa Savitskaya survived after the plane in which she was flying with her husband collided with a bomber. Having received burns from the fire that started, she managed to concentrate and take the correct position in the chair, which saved her life when she fell on it from a height of 5200 m for 8 minutes.

Tree branches “softened” her landing, but even after surviving such a fall, she had to endure a severe shock both from her injuries and from the fact that rescuers were in no hurry to search for the crashed plane, confident that no one had survived.

“Are there people who survived the plane crash?” - this question should be in the first place for those who deal with similar situations. Larisa waited two days for help with a fracture of the cervical spine and a head injury. She is the only one who got into the Guinness book twice for the same event:

• first time as a survivor after falling from a height of more than 5 km;
• the second - as having received the most meager compensation for the damage received - only 75 rubles.

No less a threat to human life is a collision of an aircraft with a water surface, although most passengers naively believe that it can soften the fall. Such ignorance of the elementary laws of physics cost the lives of many people.

Fall into the ocean

When a plane crashes over the ocean, it's not uncommon, but the death toll remains shockingly high, although there are survivors of a plane crash on the water.

This happens for several reasons:

• firstly, people often cannot find and put on a life jacket because of panic;
• secondly, they put it into action too early, and when inflated, it prevents not only moving, but also swimming out of the cabin if water has entered there;
• thirdly, they do not know that the impact of an aircraft on the water is tantamount to a collision with a concrete surface, and they may not buckle up to take a rescue position.

Except when the pilot makes a forced landing on the water, falling into the ocean is just as dangerous as falling to the ground, as the only girl who survived the plane crash confirms.

Bakari was 12 years old when she and her mother flew from Paris to Yemen. For an unknown reason, the plane crashed into the ocean 14 km from the coast of Bolshiye Komory Island. From the impact on the water, he was torn to pieces, and the girl fell into the water. She was lucky that parts of the liner remained on her surface, on one of which she waited 14 hours until she was picked up by a nearby fishing boat.

The story of the girl went around the whole world, as this is one of those examples when, perhaps, there would have been more survivors if help had arrived in time. Hypothermia and life jackets not put on in time claimed the lives of other passengers.

This is not the last example where the sole survivor of a plane crash had to fight for her life due to the lack of help on the ground.

Fall in the jungle

Although there are examples when the fall of the plane was softened by tree branches, the number of passengers and crew members who survived did not increase. How a person behaves during a tragedy still plays a big role.

An example of this is the story of a German 17-year-old schoolgirl traveling with her mother from Lima to Pucallpa (Peru) before Christmas 1971. In fact, it was a small flight, which became tragic due to the fact that the plane got into turbulence during a thunderstorm.

From a lightning strike, the systems of the airship went out of order, a fire started in the cabin. Juliana Koepke is the only survivor of the plane crash during this flight. At an altitude of 6400 m, both wings of the aircraft came off, after which the liner, which had gone into a tailspin, began to fall apart in parts.

The girl was saved by the fact that she was wearing a seatbelt and took a rescue position when a row of chairs, along with her seat, was “thrown” overboard. During the fall, it, along with the debris from the cabin, was rotated by a strong wind, which led to a decline along an inclined plane and falling into the dense thickets of the Amazon jungle.

The consequences of the “landing” were a broken collarbone, abrasions and bruises, but even greater trials awaited her. Located 500 km from Lima, in the thick of the jungle, without knowing the way, this young woman who survived a plane crash was forced to fight for her life in an unfamiliar area.

For 9 whole days she walked down the river, afraid to move far from it, so as not to lose the source of water. Eating fruits and plants that she recognized and could pick, the girl went to the parking lot of the fishermen, who took her to the hospital.

If Juliana had stayed to wait for help near the crashed plane, she would most likely have died. Based on these events, the Italian television company filmed the feature film “Miracles Still Happen”, which subsequently saved the life of a Soviet girl, Larisa Savitskaya, who had been waiting for two days for rescuers.

Surviving crew members

It is quite rare to hear that the crew members survived when the plane crashed. Perhaps they are busy rescuing passengers or are at this moment in the most “unfavorable” part of the aircraft, but this is a fact.

But there are examples when a flight attendant who survived a plane crash was the only one saved. Vesna Vulovic was only 22 years old in 1972 when a Yugoslav airline plane fell apart in the air as a result of a terrorist bomb during a regular flight from Copenhagen to Zagreb.

This case can be attributed to a "miracle", since Vesna was able to survive being in the middle of the aircraft cabin when falling from a height of more than 10 km. The fragment of the car she was in fell into the snow-covered trees, which greatly softened the blow.

The second "miracle" was that while she was unconscious, a farmer from a nearby village found her and took her to the hospital. The flight attendant, who survived a plane crash after falling from such a height, was in a coma for almost a month, and then struggled for another 16 months to be able to move around and live a normal life.

Vesna Vulovich became the Guinness book record holder as a person who made a parachute jump from a height of 10 kilometers. There is hardly a daredevil who, of his own free will, decides to surpass her result.

Russian plane crash in Egypt

One of the hottest topics in autumn 2015 was the plane crash in Egypt. Today, “are there any survivors” is no longer the most important question in this tragedy. If at first there were rumors that not all of the 224 people died, now this is a sad fact.

Today, the public is interested in the cause of the death of the airliner, and the guarantee that this will no longer happen to Russian aircraft.

Completely different versions of what happened are presented by Russian and foreign media. The airliner, which took off without delay, 23 minutes after takeoff, disappeared from the controllers' radars for unknown reasons.

One of the versions why the survivors of the plane crash in Egypt have not been found is the explosion of the bomb on board. The plane exploded in the sky, so the passengers had practically no chance.

Egyptian authorities claim that the presence of the bomb was not found in the wreckage. These data were published by them after experts from the USA, England and Russia came to a different conclusion.

The only reason for the inconsistency of the experts' conclusions is Egypt's unwillingness to lose potential customers during the tourist season and pay compensation to the Kogalymavia company for a plane crash in its airspace. If there were survivors, they would also receive compensation for the damage.

It is to be expected what agreement both sides will come to, but, looking back at the history of aeronautics, we can say that planes do not just fall apart in the air and do not disappear from the radar. There are no final conclusions yet, but the world community understands what caused the plane crash in Egypt today. Are there any survivors, the answer to this question is unequivocal - “no”.

positive statistics

Knowing the meticulousness of scientists in their desire to calculate and measure everything, there is no doubt that they also studied the question of why people do not survive in a plane crash.

The reason is actually the most banal - all the same human factor. If we take the statistics of changes in the causes of aircraft crashes since 1908, then it will look like this:

• at the dawn of aircraft construction from 1908 to 1929. 50% of crashes were due to technical problems, 30% to weather, 10% to fire and 10% to pilot error;
• by the second half of the 20th century, the air fleet came up with different statistics - 24% are related to technology, 25% - the weather is to blame, pilot error - 37%, fire - 7%, and terrorist attacks occupy only 5%;
• in the 21st century, statistics have completely changed - 45% - the culprit is the human factor, 13% - the weather, 32% - technical problems, fire - 3%, and terrorist attacks occupy 4% of cases.

This is how the causes of air disasters in the air have changed in 100 years. Nevertheless, today it is the safest form of transportation, because crashes occur with a probability of 0.00001%. In addition, more and more facts are appearing when not 1 person survives a plane crash, but a significant part of the passengers.

For example, 4 people survived in a plane crash that occurred in Japan in 1985. 12 minutes after takeoff, the aircraft suffered a depressurization in the tail compartment. The pilots managed to keep the car in the air for 32 minutes, after which the board crashed 100 km from the capital of Japan. As the survivors said, there could have been more rescued, as people asked for help, but by the time the rescuers arrived, who were in no hurry at all, 520 people were dead. They were killed by hypothermia and wounds received during the fall.

Unfortunately, information about the saved does not always correspond to the truth. So it was when it was reported that 4 people had survived a plane crash over Egypt. In this case, one can only sympathize with people who found hope for a miracle, but then lost it again.

There are also examples in the Russian history of aviation when passengers survived the crash of an airliner. So, the people who survived the Kogalymavia plane crash in 2011, when the plane caught fire, which was just taxiing to the runway, received only three people from 116 passengers and 6 crew members, while the Tu-154 completely burned down.

Stewardess Vesna Vulovich in the early seventies became famous throughout the world. In 1972, an event occurred, after which her life completely changed. Vulovich's name was entered in the Guinness Book of Records, she met with political and public figures, met the idol of her youth Paul McCartney and other world stars. What happened in the early seventies? What event made an ordinary flight attendant famous?

plane crash

A terrible accident occurred on January 26, 1972. The McDοnnell Dοuglas DC-9-32 airliner was flying from Stockholm to Belgrade. At an altitude of more than ten thousand meters, the liner exploded. Its wreckage fell on the Czechoslovak city of Ceska Kamenice. All passengers and crew members were killed, with the exception of the flight attendant Vesna Vulovich.

On this day, all the media in the world reported on the explosion of the plane. The cause of the tragedy that occurred over a small Czechoslovak city was a bomb, which terrorists from Croatia hid on board the airliner. The chances of surviving such accidents are negligible. Reports of catastrophes in the sky, as a rule, end with the tragic phrase: "All who were on board died." But this time, news appeared in the media that struck the world: Yugoslav airlines flight attendant Vesna Vulovich managed to survive. However, this case cannot be called absolutely unprecedented in

So, more than forty years ago, a sensation flew around the world - twenty-two-year-old stewardess Vesna Vulovich remained alive after falling from a height of ten thousand meters. What saved her life? The landing was softened by snow-covered treetops. However, the heroine herself of this amazing story could not tell ο her flight. The stewardess Vesna Vulovich, who survived the terrible accident, remembered that terrible day vaguely. She came to herself only two months later. What is known from the biography of the flight attendant?

Stewardess Vesna Vulovich

She became a flight attendant by accident. Vesna was born in Yugoslavia in 1950. She graduated from high school, entered the university. Like many other young people of the sixties, the girl was a fan of the Beatles, and therefore dreamed of mastering the English language perfectly. In 1968, she could not even imagine that she would someday meet Paul McCartney himself.

Vesna chose the English department for herself and began to study the language in which famous vocalists sang. After the first year of study, our heroine went on an internship to England. When she returned home, something happened that abruptly changed her whole life.

The girl met her school friend. By that time, he had flown on the liners of a large Yugoslav company. A childhood friend and advised Vesna to enroll in flight attendant courses. Working on international airlines made it possible to regularly visit the beautiful foggy city of London. In addition, the salary of a flight attendant was several times higher than the income of an English teacher.

The first flight

Courses Vesna successfully completed. In 1971, the girl took to the skies for the first time. When the tragedy occurred, which became the main event in her life, she was still a university student. She did not have a permanent job.

Last hours before disaster

On that day, the crew in which Vesna was trained arrived in Copenhagen. In the Danish capital, he replaced the pilots of the plane that flew in from Stockholm. Subsequently, Vesna Vulovich - the stewardess who killed all her colleagues - recalled that the crew members, more experienced people, seemed to have a premonition of something. They constantly talked about their families, went shopping a lot, bought souvenirs for their relatives.

Later, in the hospital, the Serbian stewardess Vesna Vulovich tried to remember all the smallest events of that day. Who planted the bomb? Shortly before takeoff, she drew attention to one of the porters. This man differed both in appearance and behavior from his colleagues. Outwardly, he looked like a resident of the Balkan Peninsula. The behavior of the man contrasted sharply with the behavior of other loaders. He spoke loudly, was nervous, fussed. According to Vulovich, it was he who put the bomb on the plane. However, this realization came too late.

Bruno Honke

What happened to the flight attendant Vesna Vulovich in 1972 can be safely called a miracle. She was extraordinarily lucky twice. The first time was when she didn't die in the explosion. In the second - when she managed to survive the fall.

However, the girl was saved not only by the fact that the dilapidated liner fell into snow-covered trees. The fact is that the first on the scene of the disaster was a local resident Brunο Honke. This man during the Second World War worked in the German field hospital. He gave the girl first aid. It is worth saying that Honka miraculously managed to find a barely breathing young stewardess among the many dead bodies. He probably saved her life.

Treatment

The story of Vesna Vulovich, a flight attendant from Yugoslavia who survived an accident that claimed 27 lives, instantly spread around the world. She was taken to the hospital. A long period of rehabilitation began. For about two months, Spring did not come to its senses. Doctors did not believe for a long time that the girl would survive after such a monstrous accident. But she still came to her senses. It is noteworthy that when she opened her eyes, the first thing she asked for was a cigarette.

As the days passed, the young body more and more confidently coped with the injuries received during the fall. However, Spring did not remember the last hours spent on board the plane. She could not tell what she was doing at the time of the explosion. Most likely, in those minutes the girl was in the passenger compartment.

For ten months Vesna was paralyzed. The doctors feared that she would never be able to walk. However, another miracle happened - the only survivor of the McDοnnell Dοuglas DC-9-32 plane crash got to her feet.

After the disaster

Stewardess Vesna Vulovich, whose photo was shown on television almost every day in February 1972, was sent by plane to Belgrade two months after the accident. Doctors feared that the flight would adversely affect her mental state. A fall from such a height cannot go unnoticed. However, everything turned out well. Moreover, Spring had no fear of flying. She was not afraid of planes even later.

She spent some more time in the Belgrade hospital. At the entrance to Vulovich's ward, a policeman was on duty day and night. She did not remember anything about the events of the last hours before the accident. Nevertheless, she remained the only witness to the crime, which, by the way, was never solved. The authorities feared that the terrorists would try to deal with the surviving crew member.

The miraculous rescue of the stewardess overshadowed the sοbοy οsteel fοdrοbnοsti of your accident. Spring was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records as the person who made the highest jump without a parachute. In the mid-eighties Spring came to London. Paul McCartney was present at the ceremony of presenting the Diploma in the Guinness Book of World Records. Spring, finally, met with the idol of his youth.

In the early autumn of 1972 Vulovich was discharged from the hospital. Surprisingly, not only did she not have a fear of flying, but she did not even lose her desire to work as a flight attendant. Vesna tried to get a job with an airline again. She was not taken as a flight attendant, but was offered a position in the office. Vesna Vulovich worked for the airline for many years: she was engaged in the execution of cargo contracts. The former stewardess left her place of work eighteen years later due to disagreement with the policy of the Yugoslav leader S. Milosevic.

The stewardess who survived the 1972 plane crash has become a national heroine. She was given a reception by Marshal Tito himself, which was considered a great honor for a citizen of Yugoslavia at that time. Songs were dedicated to spring, she was invited to various television shows. Girls were named after her. In order to survive in such a catastrophe, a happy accident is not enough. You need strength, an extraordinary desire to live. Vulοvich has become a symbol of good luck and optimism.

The former stewardess used her fame for social and political purposes. She took an active part in protests against the power of Milosevic, and campaigned for one of the parties in the elections.

Death

Vesna Vulovich lived for 66 years. On December 23, 2016, she was found dead in her own apartment. Relatives and friends could not get through to her for a long time. The police were called and they opened the door. The cause of death of the famous stewardess is unknown. Friends say that the woman's health has recently deteriorated sharply.

The record of a stewardess from Yugoslavia has not yet been broken. Not a single person managed to fall from such a height and stay alive. However, history knows several no less interesting cases.

In 1942, a Soviet military aircraft was shot down, the pilot of which fell without a parachute. The snow cover saved his life.

Another amazing event happened many years after World War II ended. In December 1971, a passenger plane crashed near Peru. Half an hour after departure, the airliner landed in a thunderstorm. The plane burst into flames and shattered into pieces. A 17-year-old passenger survived. When she woke up, she found herself sitting in a chair hanging from a tree.

In August 1981, there was a collision between the An-24 and Tu-16 aircraft. On board the passenger airliner was a student Larisa Savitskaya with her husband. There were several reasons for the disaster, including poor coordination between civilian and military controllers. Everyone died except Larisa.

She fell from a height of five kilometers. She received many injuries, but, according to Soviet laws, she was not entitled to disability. The woman all her life was interrupted by odd jobs, sometimes starving. She also became a record holder in some way. Unlike Vulovich, Savitskaya did not become famous in her homeland. She received compensation from the state in the amount of 75 rubles, after which the story of the amazing fall was forgotten.

1. Clothing for survival.
Your chances of survival will increase if you have the “right” clothes and shoes in the event of a plane crash. “Imagine if you need to escape from a burning plane,” says Cynthia Corbett, an FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) specialist - “how comfortable would it be to do this in flip-flops or high-heeled shoes?”.
In addition to shoes, it is smart to wear thick fabrics with long legs and sleeves. This will help protect the skin from burns and sharp debris. According to the NTSB report, 68% of people who die in a plane crash die after the accident, from injuries sustained in a fire.

2. The safest places.
An analysis conducted in 2007 by Popular Mechanics showed that the largest percentage of survivors is in the tail section of the aircraft (cases of crashes since 1971 were considered). These are general statistics, of course, in some cases there were exceptions.
Regardless of which part of the aircraft you choose to seat in, try to make your choice so that it is located closer to the emergency exit. Professor Ed Galea, a fire safety engineer at the University of Greenwich in England, found that most crash survivors were no more than 5 rows from the emergency exit. He also points out that aisle seats are safer than window seats, as they allow easy access to the aisle.

3. Takeoff and landing.
Safety experts have found that the most dangerous moments in flight in terms of a crash are 3 minutes from the moment of takeoff and 9 minutes before the landing of an airliner. It is at these moments that you should stay in comfortable shoes and clothes with long sleeves, and also pay attention to emergency exits.
In addition, experts recommend placing hand luggage under the front seat. In the event of a crash, this can prevent your legs and feet from getting under the front seat. A broken leg in a collision is the most common injury.
If a collision is unavoidable, it is important to adopt a “survival posture” (see instructions in the seat in front of you).
Be sure to remove sharp and hard objects such as pencils, pens, keys from your pockets.

4. The 90 second rule.
The first 90 seconds after a disaster are the most important! If you manage to keep calm and try to get out of the plane, your chances of survival will be quite high.
Some passengers get into such a state of panic that they cannot even unfasten their seat belts. Reports from the NTSB show that many crash victims are in their seats with their seat belts fastened.
“It's very important to know what to do without waiting for instructions,” Corbett says. “Some people sit and wait to be told what to do, but no one says anything and they continue to sit right in the middle of a disaster.”
One of the reasons so many people survived the recent crash is that they were able to get off the plane quickly.
Finding and collecting your luggage can also be a fatal mistake. Don't hesitate a second.

5. No more dangerous than an escalator.
According to NTSB statistics, only one in 1.2 million flights ends in disaster. Constant improvements in safety practices, fire fighting equipment and the choice of non-flammable materials make flying by plane now safer than traveling by car.
The chance of dying in a plane crash is about 1 in 11 million, while dying in a traffic accident is 1 in 5,000.
Thus, flying today is one of the safest ways to travel. However, do not take them lightly, just do not be afraid and always need to have a plan of action.

Vesna Vulovich, Juliana Margaret Koepke, Lyudmila Savitskaya - these women from different countries are united by one incredible circumstance. All of them miraculously survived during the plane crashes that occurred in different years. The stories of these three women involuntarily make you believe in miracles or in fate.

Vesna Vulovich

Vesna Vulovich is a stewardess of an aircraft that flew on January 26, 1972 on the route Stockholm - Copenhagen - Zagreb - Belgrade. At the time of the disaster, she was in the passenger cabin and instantly lost consciousness, and then for many years she remembered only the moment when she got on board.

The wreckage of the plane was scattered no more than a kilometer near the village of Serbska Kamenice in Czechoslovakia (now it is the territory of the Czech Republic). Later, experts will make the assumption that the plane crashed as a result of a terrorist attack, but the perpetrators will never be found.

Vesna was in a coma when she was found by local resident Bruno. He checked her pulse and immediately went for the rescuers. It was clear: the girl's spine was damaged and it was absolutely impossible to touch her. The stewardess suffered multiple severe injuries that nearly cost her her life.

She was in a coma for 27 days, and then there was a long recovery period, she spent 16 months in the hospital. Doctors were sure that she would remain disabled for life. But Vesna, contrary to all forecasts, got on her feet, after four and a half years she already walked normally and even returned to work at her airline. True, she was denied the right to fly, providing a position in the office. But she remembered the moment of the plane crash 25 years later.

It is believed that she was saved in the air by loss of consciousness and low pressure. Vesna Vulovich is a Guinness World Record holder who survived a fall from 10,120 meters.

Juliana Margaret Koepke

On December 24, 1971, 17-year-old Juliana, together with her mother, flew from Lima Jorge Chavez Airport to Iquitos. The plane was supposed to make an intermediate landing in Pucallpa and go further along the route. There were 92 people on board the LANSA plane. Juliana was looking forward to the Christmas holidays that she would spend with her father, organizing cards for different types of insects.

They were in the tail of the plane, admiring the wonderful views from the porthole. The plane began to enter the storm front, it began to shake violently. In a good way, as soon as danger arose, it was necessary to return to Lima, but both passengers and crew members were in a hurry to celebrate Christmas with their loved ones. The pilot made the wrong decision to continue flying, hoping to safely pass the danger zone.

Juliana was watching the propeller work when lightning hit that part of the plane. Everything that happened later, she recalled, like slow motion in a movie: here the plane falls apart, and she, fastened with a seat belt to her seat, begins her endless fall down. She remembered how she was spinning in the air, how rapidly the ground was approaching, and how she was swallowed along with the debris by the dense green crowns of trees on the ground. And only at the moment of contact with the ground the girl lost consciousness.

It took her a long time to come to her senses, the whole day. And then, being in shock, she did not even feel pain from her serious injuries. She had multiple cuts, she broke her collarbone, she had a torn popliteal ligament, she had all the signs of a concussion. She lost her glasses and could not see properly even with one eye, while the other was completely swollen due to a severe bruise on her face.

But having recovered a little and gathered her strength, Juliana realized that it was pointless to wait for help, the wreckage at the crash site was not visible to the search aircraft because of the dense greenery. She remembered the lessons of survival that her father had given her, and went downstream the stream she discovered in order to go out along it to the river and to people. Later, the examination will establish that at the time of the fall, at least 15 more passengers remained alive, but, unfortunately, they did not wait for the help of rescuers.

Juliana reached the empty lumberjack hut 10 days after the disaster. A day later, local residents found her under a canopy. They even mistook her for a water goddess descended from heaven. She was given first aid, fed and warmed, some of the fly larvae were removed from her wounds and floated down the river to the town of Turnavista, where they began to inject her with an antibiotic and completely cleaned the wounds from the worms that had settled there. From Turnavista, Juliana was transferred to the Pulcapa hospital, where she finally met her father.

In 1974, the feature film Miracles Still Happen will be released about her. This picture will help Larisa Savitskaya survive the plane crash.

Larisa Savitskaya

20-year-old Larisa was returning with her husband from their honeymoon to Blagoveshchensk on August 24, 1981. They sat in the tail of the plane, Larisa dozed off in her chair, then she felt a very strong push, and immediately after it, simply unbearable cold. She flew off a meter from her chair, and the frames of the film that she watched not so long ago appeared before her eyes. The heroine survived the plane crash. Larisa took this memory as a guide to action. She reached the chair by the porthole, clung to it with all her might, and flew down with him. It was this chair that ultimately saved her life. The crash occurred as a result of a collision with a military aircraft.

Her fall lasted 8 minutes. The blow was softened by the crowns of birches. Larisa was found on August 27 with serious injuries in a state of deep shock. She survived, learned to walk and was even able to give birth to a son in 1986.

She received minimal compensation for damages - only 75 rubles. The very fact of this catastrophe was kept secret for many years. The girl's parents and Larisa herself were ordered not to tell anyone about the incident. Only after twenty the details of the terrible crash were made public, and Larisa Savitskaya was able to tell about that terrible day.

The film that helped Larisa Savitskaya survive - "Miracles still happen"

These three girls can be called almost lucky, they managed to survive. The mystery of the death in a plane crash of a young peacekeeper is still trying to unravel.