Flight attendant Vesna Vulovic was trapped by her food trolley at the tail end of Yugoslav Airlines Douglas DC-9 as it hurtled 33,000ft down to earth.
A bomb had blown a hole in the jet as it passed over Czechoslovakia late on January 26, 1972, filling the cabin with thin, freezing air.
Apart from Ms Vulovic, all other passengers and crew on board died as the plane crashed down into a heavily wooded patch of the snow-capped mountainside.
Luck had saved Vesna Vulovic as the plane broke up around her during its descent. Her screams would save her again, as she was rescued by a nearby woodsman before falling into a coma for three days.
Ms Vulovic became a local celebrity after emerging relatively unscathed from the highest fall survived without a parachute.
Over the years, terrifying stories have emerged of the rare instances where sole survivors walk away from plane crashes against astonishing odds.
Ms Vulovic’s has become one story among many. These are the astonishing stories of the remarkable few who beat these odds and lived to tell the tale.
The air hostess who plummeted 33,000ft without a parachute and somehow survived
For three days after her fall, Vesna Vulnovic (pictured) was comatose, having fractured her skull and suffered a cerebral haemorrhage
Vulovic miraculously survived a 33,330ft fall to the ground below her
On January 26 1972, Vulovic boarded Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 (pictured) as one of three air hostesses serving the 23 passengers and two pilots that day
Former air hostess Vesna Vulovic still holds the record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute, even despite dying in 2016.
On January 26 1972, Vulovic boarded Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 as one of three air hostesses serving the 23 passengers and two pilots that day.
The plane, flying from Stockholm, Sweden, to Belgrade, in then-Yugoslavia, was blown up by a bomb hidden in a checked bag mid-flight.
Jettisoned from the plane, then-22-year-old Vulovic miraculously survived a 33,330ft fall to the ground below her.
She was the only survivor of the attack, believed to have been carried out by Croatian fascists.
The tragedy of Vesna’s story was that she wasn’t even meant to be on the flight – the airline she worked for had mixed her up with another stewardess with the same first name.
Though she had drawn the short straw, and turned up to work that fateful day not knowing that she was so close to it being her last, luck ended up saving Vesna, as the plane broke up around her during its descent.
Vulovic was found severely injured, howling in pain. Her turquoise uniform was soaked in her own blood. She said she was found with her legs sticking out of the plane’s still-smoking fuselage on a snowy hill.
A local villager, who found her after hearing her tortured screams amid the rapid thud of bodies hitting the ground, managed to keep her alive until rescuers came.
Luck would save her one again. By some miracle, the villager had been a medic during the Second World War, and was able to keep calm under pressure and administer first aid.
For three days she was comatose, having fractured her skull and suffered a cerebral haemorrhage.
She also broke both her legs, three vertebrae and several ribs. Her pelvis was also fractured, and was paralysed.
Despite this, she managed to start walking again after 10 months – a feat the says was the result of her Serbian stubbornness, as well as a childhood diet of chocolate, spinach and fish oil.
But it wasn’t only her body that was broken. Her spirit was crushed, having been the only survivor.
The air hostess said following the terror attack: ‘Whenever I think of the accident, I have a prevailing, grave feeling of guilt for surviving it and I cry.’
Despite the terror she went through, she said she is not afraid to fly as she doesn’t quite remember exactly what happened to her that day.
Even years later, after living as a national hero for surviving the attack, she spoke of the hardship living in Belgrade and of the guilt she still carried with her.
‘I don’t know what to say when people say I was lucky … life is so hard today’, she mournfully told the Independent.
The four-year-old who survived a deadly crash still strapped to her seat
Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashed shortly after taking off in 1987
Cecelia Cichan (pictured) was the sole survivor of the crash
The sole survivor of this internal American flight, carrying passengers from Detroit, Michigan, to Phoenix, Arizona, was four-year-old Cecelia Cichan.
She and her family were travelling home to the Copper State when the plane crashed shortly after taking off on August 16 1987.
The plane, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, clipped a light as it took off.
The accident forced the entire plane into a 90-degree roll, sending it careening towards the ground.
After taking off the top of a rental car building, it crashed into a busy nearby road before being engulfed in its own fireball.
Almost all the 155 souls onboard the flight perished, save for the young child.
Emergency workers who rushed to the scene of the crash found little Cecelia still strapped to her seat.
Her body was all but broken, having suffered severe burns and multiple fractures.
Despite not remembering the crash, Cecelia revealed she still feels the tremendous guilt of surviving.
‘I remember feeling angry and survivor’s guilt. Why didn’t my brother survive? Why me’, she said in an interview with CNN.
To honour her lost family, she bears a tattoo of an aeroplane on her wrist ‘as a reminder of where I come from.
The teenager who trekked 11 days through the Amazon after crashing
Juliana Koepcke (pictured) spent 11 days trekking through the Amazon to find civilisation after her plane crashed
She was one of just 14 of the 91 people onboard survived the initial crash
Juliana Koepcke was already indignant when she and her mother, Maria, boarded Peru-bound Lansa Flight 508.
They had been kept waiting for seven hours at Lima, hoping to get back to father and husband Hans-Wilhelm before Christmas 1971.
Despite warnings that Lansa had a poor reputation, the mother and daughter duo were desperate to reunite with Hans-Wilhelm for the holidays.
But just short while into the Christmas Eve flight, lightning struck the aircraft’s wing, setting it alight.
It quickly burned through the structure, causing the plane to crash deep into the Amazon jungle.
Just 14 of the 91 people onboard survived the initial crash. Juliana was one of them. She had been saved by being strapped to her seat.
By some miracle, she had spent her life preparing for this scenario. Having been raised by two zoologists, she had been trained in survival skills.
She suffered a broken collarbone, a deep cut on her right arm, an eye injury and a concussion
Having been raised by two zoologists, she had been trained in survival skills
The determined 17-year-old, suffering a broken collarbone, a deep cut on her right arm, an eye injury and a concussion, spent 11 days trekking through the Amazon to find civilisation.
While making her way through the jungle, she dealt with horrifying insect bites and an infestation of botfly larvae in her arm, and after nine days found a local lumberjacking camp.
Workers quickly sent her to a more inhabited area, before she was airlifted to a hospital.
Following her own survival, she tragically learned that everyone else who has survived the initial crash had died waiting for help, including her own mother.
Juliana later told the BBC: ‘I found out that [Maria] also survived the crash but was badly injured and she couldn’t move. She died several days later. I dread to think what her last days were like.’
The ‘miracle girl’ who clung to floating debris for 13 hours
Yemenia Flight 626 was a flight on an Airbus A310-324 twin-engine jet airliner that was flying from Sana’a in Yemen to Moroni in Comoros, when it crashed on 30 June 2009
France’s so-called ‘Miracle Girl’ was just 12 when she survived a nightmarish, 13-hour fight for her life
Bahia Bakari, with no life vest, was forced to cling to the wreckage of Yemenia Flight 626 in the dark after it plunged into the Indian Ocean on 30 June 2009
France’s so-called ‘Miracle Girl’ was just 12 when she survived a nightmarish, 13-hour fight for her life.
Bahia Bakari, with no life vest, was forced to cling to the wreckage of Yemenia Flight 626 in the dark after it plunged into the Indian Ocean on 30 June 2009.
The young girl and her mother had been travelling from Paris, France, to Comoros for a summer holiday, when the plane stalled and crashed into the ocean just minutes before they were due to land.
Bahia, who was never a strong swimmer growing up, initially heard the voices of what she believed were other survivors.
But slowly through the night, those voices faded until she was left on her own.
She was found by clinging to a piece of debris, among a mass of bodies and plane wreckage.
Bahia’s mother had tragically died in the initial crash, one of the 152 souls who lost their lives on that tragic day.
One of the last things she said to her daughter was: ‘Did you fasten your seatbelt?’
The nine-year-old traveller found still conscious in his seat
Survivor 9-year-old Ruben van Assouw lies in bed at El Khadra hospital in Tripoli May 12, 2010
Dutch boy Ruben Van Assouw (pictured) is one of the youngest sole survivors of a plane crash
Flying from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Tripoli, Libya, on May 12 2010, the Afriqiyah Airways plane crashed after the pilots messed up the descent into Libya’s capital
Dutch boy Ruben Van Assouw is one of the youngest sole survivors of a plane crash, somehow being the only one to live of the 104 people onboard the plane.
Flying from Johannesburg, South Africa, to Tripoli, Libya, on May 12 2010, the Afriqiyah Airways plane crashed after the pilots messed up the descent into Libya’s capital.
The Airbus A330-200 crashed around 1.2km short of the runway, following a series of misunderstandings between the pilots who failed to communicate properly with each other.
Ruben, who was nine at the time of the crash, was returning home to the Netherlands following a safari trip with his mother, father and brother, all of whom died in the accident.
The impact, which sent hot metal flying up to half a mile away from the crash site, had a severe impact on little Ruben’s body – he suffered significant leg fractures.
The boy was found semi-conscious and still strapped to his seat some distance from the plane crash.
After he was taken to hospital, he was taken back to the Netherlands by his aunt and uncle, who raised him from that day on.
Although he chose to stay out of the limelight for the rest of his life, a recent book titled ‘Dear Edward’ that was based partly on his story was published a few years ago.
The woman who lost her husband and went on t be a motivational speaker
A survivor of the Boeing-737 plane that crashed shortly after take off at the Jose Marti International Airport, is transferred to the Calixto Garcia Hospital, in Havana, Cuba, 18 May 2018
Mailen Diaz Almaguer (pictured) was just 19 when she lost her husband in a tragic plane crash in Cuba on May 18 2018
The engines of Global Air Flight 0972 were ablaze shortly after takeoff, after which the plane disappeared behind trees and crashed into a field
Mailen Diaz Almaguer was just 19 when she lost her husband in a tragic plane crash in Cuba on May 18 2018.
According to eyewitnesses, the engines of Global Air Flight 0972 were ablaze shortly after takeoff, after which the plane disappeared behind trees and crashed into a field.
As the sole survivor of the plane, which was carrying 105 souls from the Cuban capital Havana to Holguin, Cuba, Mailen struggled immensely in the days after the crash.
Though she was one of three to initially survive the crash, the two other survivors tragically succumbed to their injuries.
And after 70 days of treatment, doctors made the extraordinarily difficult decision to amputate her left leg.
But Mailen hasn’t allowed her grief or injury hold her back.
Since the 2018 crash, she has become an inspirational speaker.
In 2021, she filmed an emotional video in which she boarded a plane for the first time since the accident.
