How death occurs when a plane crashes. What happens to passengers when a plane crashes? . Feelings when air transport is overloaded

As a result of an aircraft accident, the following several factors often have a damaging effect on the body of the victim simultaneously or in rapid succession, and the effect of one factor often overlaps with another:
1) dynamic and shock overloads;
2) counter air flow;
3) explosive decompression;
4) atmospheric electricity;
5) thermal effects;
6) toxic products of combustion and pyrolysis;
7) blunt objects located inside the aircraft;
8) blast wave;
9) external parts of the aircraft;
10) running engines;
11) high-altitude decompression;
12) shaking, vibration.

When an aircraft collides with an obstacle, it can cause overloads reaching very large values ​​on the order of tens and even hundreds of g units. At the same time, the body is lifted off the back of the chair and held in place by seat belts. Depending on the magnitude of the overload, the consequences for victims can be of a different nature - from functional respiratory and circulatory disorders associated with the relative movement of the internal organs of the chest and abdomen, and loss of consciousness - to mechanical damage from seat belts in the form of abrasions, bruises, sometimes skin tears and soft tissues, spinal injuries, and in the event of an aircraft collision at high speed with an obstacle or the ground - in the form of gross damage to all tissues at the level of seat belts up to the separation of the upper torso. In the latter case, as a rule, subsequent significant destruction of the head and torso occurs as a result of the impact of these parts of the body on objects located in front.

Radial accelerations and corresponding overloads occur when trying to recover from a dive in emergency situations. In these cases, there is a significant displacement of soft tissues, internal organs and especially blood in large vessels, accompanied by a sharp disruption of breathing, blood circulation, functions of the central nervous system, visual impairment, loss of consciousness, as well as traumatic damage to tissues and vital organs.

When the overload is directed in the direction of the head and legs, a significant part of the circulating blood (up to 1/4 of the total mass) moves into the vessels of the abdominal cavity and extremities, as a result of which the work of the heart is disrupted, anemia of the brain develops with loss of consciousness. The outcome in such a situation will depend on the duration of the unconscious state and the flight altitude at which the loss of consciousness occurred. As a result of displacement and deformation of the internal organs and tissues of the abdominal cavity and a sharp overflow of them with blood, multiple hemorrhages can be observed in the intestinal mesentery, under the capsule and in the ligaments of internal organs, and loose fatty tissue.

Overloads directed from the legs to the head are much more difficult for a person to bear. Already at an acceleration of about 4-5 g, there is a strong rush of blood to the head, accompanied by redness and swelling of the face, nosebleeds, multiple small hemorrhages in the skin of the face, conjunctiva of the eyes, membranes and substance of the brain. A sharp increase in intracranial pressure leads to rapid loss of consciousness and death. In this case, fractures of the upper and lower extremities, compression fractures of the spine, fractures of the base and vault of the skull, and injuries to the soft extremities may be observed.

The oncoming flow of air at high flight speeds (800-1000 km/h or more) has the properties of a solid body, since the pressure force of the air flow under these conditions exceeds the weight of a person by 50-70 times. The oncoming air flow can tear off household items and clothing. When the oxygen mask breaks, a sharp deformation of the soft tissues of the face occurs with extensive hemorrhage and their detachment from the underlying bones, rupture of the corners of the mouth, and damage to the eyeballs. A jet of air penetrating under high pressure into the upper respiratory tract and esophagus can lead to barotrauma of the lungs and stomach; reflex breathing disorder and cessation of oxygen supply causes acute oxygen starvation. As a result of hands falling off the armrests and legs from the footrests,
scattering of limbs, accompanied by dislocations, sprained joint ligaments, muscle tears, and hemorrhages.

Explosive decompression is observed in flight at an altitude of over 8-9 thousand meters as a result of emergency depressurization of the cabin. As a result of a sharp drop in pressure, a person may experience barotrauma of the lungs and hearing aid, as well as gas embolism. Barotrauma of the hearing aid is accompanied by rupture of the eardrum, damage to the auditory ossicles, hemorrhage in the tissue of the middle and inner ear and the tympanic cavity.

With pulmonary barotrauma, there is liquid blood in the respiratory tract, acute swelling of the lungs, multiple focal hemorrhages and ruptures of the lung tissue. Along with the large-focal nature of changes in the lung tissue along the branches of the bronchi, small ruptures and hemorrhages are also observed.

Blunt objects located inside the aircraft are the main damaging factor when the aircraft falls and hits the ground. In this case, deformation and destruction of its structure occurs, as well as mutual displacement of people on the plane and the objects surrounding them. The resulting shock overloads, depending on the speed and angle of impact of the aircraft, can exceed hundreds and even thousands of times the impact forces on victims observed in ground transport accidents.

The result of shock overloads of enormous force can be gross destruction of the body with separation of individual parts of it (head, limbs, pelvic area) with extensive ruptures and crushing of the skin and soft tissues, crushing of bones, opening of body cavities and crushing, separation, displacement of internal organs or their ejection out.

The blast wave is the most powerful damaging factor resulting from a fuel explosion in fuel tanks or a terrorist attack. Most often, the first explosion occurs when the plane hits the ground, sometimes in the air after touching the ground. When a jet plane falls to the ground in a dive followed by an explosion, the crater can reach a depth of several meters. A powerful blast wave causes complete destruction of aircraft structures and bodies. In this case, the remains are found both in the crater itself and outside it, scattered over an area with a radius of up to 300-500 m. When an explosion occurs in the air after touching the ground, the remains of people who were on the plane are scattered at a distance of up to 3 km in the direction of flight and up to 1.5 km to the sides from the explosion site.

When the body is completely destroyed as a result of an explosion, individual small flaps of skin without abrasion of their edges, auricles with part of the temporal bone, pieces of internal organs, bone fragments with scraps of soft tissue, and sometimes hands, feet or parts thereof are usually found. During a terrorist attack, extensive injuries with detachments of body parts, multiple through and blind shrapnel wounds are received by persons located directly near the explosion site, while others most often die as a result of mechanical damage when the plane subsequently crashes and hits the ground.

As a result of the action of the flame, ignition of clothing, burns of the body, as well as post-mortem burning of corpses can occur, reaching extreme degrees with charring of soft tissues and bones until they are incinerated. Sometimes a fire is preceded by an explosion; in these cases, the remains of corpses are exposed to thermal effects.

"Pulse speed is lower than explosion speed"

In the area of ​​the village of Stepanovskoye, Ramensky district, Moscow region, search work continues at the site of the crash of the Saratov Airlines AN-148 plane. Local residents, meanwhile, organized a memorial here and lit 71 candles - according to the number of passengers and crew killed. The answer to the question: “Why did the disaster happen?” After decoding the data from the flight recorders, experts will give information. But after each such emergency, the relatives of the victims and many other people who often board an aircraft, not without fear, are tormented by other questions: “What did the person feel at the time of the disaster? Was he in pain? Did he understand that he was dying? We asked the head of the laboratory for the development of the human nervous system at the Research Institute of Human Morphology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sergei Savelyev, to answer them.

AN-148 salon.

- Sergei Vyacheslavovich, tell me, during an explosion, does the human brain have time to transmit painful sensations to the body?

Since all this happens so quickly, I can say that most likely the victim of a plane crash does not have time to feel pain. Everything is very simple. The speed of impulses in our body along the nerves to the receptors is much lower than the speed of the explosion. It's just instant death.

- Does the brain have time to understand that death is about to occur?

Again, it all depends on the situation. If you mean, again, an explosion, then, of course, no. And if we consider that a person is flying in a plane that has lost control for several seconds, then everything happens according to a different scenario. The fact is that in such cases we are programmed for a positive outcome. A person always hopes that he will get out and stay alive. Resists to the last, as long as the brain is alive. And he dies last. This is due to our blood supply system.

Sergey Vyacheslavovich, is it true that before a flight, some people’s intuition may tell them not to board an airliner that is about to crash?

There is no intuition in this regard. Well, imagine, you approach the plane and see that everything is in order with it. What will life experience tell you in this case? Nothing. And sometimes you approach an airplane (I had such a case), and one of its engines is smoking. He sat down and flew away. Everything went fine. Astral tails don't help here.

Is it possible to trick the brain during a flight if it’s too scary? Suppose you close your eyes and imagine that you are on a train?

A storm has begun. Armchair experts on the Internet claim that after a storm it will only be easier for divers to work - the water itself will wash many things ashore. Those professionals who are now examining the sunken TU-154 think differently. Bad weather, on the contrary, will confuse all the cards. The head of the search and rescue unit of the southern regional search and rescue team of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Vyacheslav Ivashchenko, told Komsomolskaya Pravda about how the search for the crashed plane is going on.

- Under what conditions do you have to work?

Almost ideal. The plane lies on a large underwater field. The depth is approximately the same everywhere - about 25 meters. That is, you can search during the day without special lighting; natural conditions are enough. The bottom is solid sandstone. There is almost no silt or dirt.

- And what can you find?

Large parts of the aircraft, small ones, some personal items. If we manage to find electronic devices - phones, tablets - they are immediately taken upstairs. Then they are sent for examination. Yesterday we lifted an aircraft engine weighing three tons from the bottom. There are also fragments of bodies (according to data, as of 18:40 on December 28, the remains of 16 people were found - Author)

Divers working underwater at the Tu-154 crash site.

- Are there any whole bodies?

Alas. This happens when you hit the water hard. The dead are literally torn apart. I saw something similar during the Armenian Airlines Airbus crash 10 years ago. Also near Adler. The injuries are similar.

(Recall that information appeared in the media that the bodies of the dead were found without clothes. Now it is clear why. By the way, the data that the passengers were wearing life jackets was also not confirmed.)

- How do you look for fragments at the bottom?

An anchor is lowered from a ship to the surface. I tie myself to it with a rope and begin to swim slowly in a circle. Then the rope lengthens, and I swim in a larger circle. The bottom is searched using such divergent trajectories. Small objects are tied with a rope and lifted by partners in the boat on the surface. Large aircraft parts are pulled out using a crane. I indicate the coordinates, a ship or barge with a lift floats on the surface. Then the find is tied with slings and lifted.

- What is more: personal belongings or aircraft parts?

90% - fuselage elements. Passengers' belongings are rarely found.

- They say the storm will help you.

No. The storm will shake everything at the bottom. Something may shift to already tested areas. In addition, now everything is clearly visible under water. And after the storm, the clouds will rise and work will become much more difficult.

- Is it psychologically difficult to swim underwater and find remains?

You need to set yourself up correctly. I focus on the idea that there is difficult but important work to be done. Return their loved ones to the relatives. Only I can do this. There will be no others. This kind of motivation helps.

- Are there any tricks to relax after work and reboot?

I return to my family, play with the children, and just try not to think about what lies at the bottom. Again, I remind myself that I don’t have an ordinary profession where anything can happen.

Vyacheslav Ivashchenko said that divers from the Ministry of Emergency Situations work hard all day long. They go out to sea in the morning, when it begins to get light, and return to shore only in the evening at sunset. But even so, each submariner manages to work no more than two hours. The rest of the time is spent on diving and ascent, preparing equipment and refilling oxygen cylinders.

PHOTO REPORT

Rescuers from the Ministry of Emergency Situations lift the wreckage of a Tu-154 from the bottom of the Black Sea

HELP "KP"

The search operation involves 45 ships, 15 deep-sea vehicles, 192 divers, 12 aircraft and five helicopters. A self-propelled crane arrived in the area of ​​the plane crash to lift large debris.

About one and a half thousand fragments of the aircraft were discovered. So far, one third has been brought to the surface. Another 12 large pieces of debris were discovered. One of them is two by three meters, the second is about five meters long, the third is more than 60 meters long.

MEANWHILE

The main phase of the search for the wreckage of the crashed Tu-154 has ended

“The active phase of the search operation in the Black Sea has been completed,” the source said. The search group recovered almost all the fragments of the Tu-154 from the bottom of the sea. The group of ships that took part in the operation left the Black Sea

BY THE WAY

Rescuers from the Tu-154 crash site: The dead have the same injuries as the victims of the 2006 disaster

Since the day of the Tu-154 crash, rescuers have been working non-stop at the crash site in the Black Sea. They are raising from the bottom the bodies of the dead and the wreckage of the plane, on board at the time of the crash there were 92 people - crew members, artists of the ensemble named after. Alexandrova, journalists and Dr. Lisa.

Our photojournalist Vladimir Velengurin observes with his own eyes how divers work and how the search operation is progressing

"No. Izvestia tracked down several people who survived plane crashes or were involved in serious flight accidents...

“I somehow immediately realized that my husband was dead”

The story of Larisa Savitskaya is included in the Guinness Book of Records. In 1981, at an altitude of 5220 meters, the An-24 plane in which she was flying collided with a military bomber. 37 people died in that disaster. Only Larisa managed to survive.

I was 20 years old then,” says Larisa Savitskaya. - Volodya, my husband, and I were flying from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk. We were returning from our honeymoon. First we sat in the front seats. But I didn’t like the front, so we moved to the middle. After takeoff, I immediately fell asleep. And I woke up from noise and screams. My face burned with cold. Then they told me that our plane’s wings were cut off and the roof was blown off. But I don’t remember the sky above my head. I remember it was foggy, like in a bathhouse. I looked at Volodya. He didn't move. Blood was gushing down his face. I somehow immediately realized that he was dead. And she prepared to die too. Then the plane fell apart and I lost consciousness. When I came to my senses, I was surprised that I was still alive. I felt like I was lying on something hard. It turned out to be in the aisle between the chairs. And next to it is a whistling abyss. There were no thoughts in my head. Fear too. In the state I was in - between sleep and reality - there is no fear. The only thing I remembered was an episode from an Italian film, where a girl, after a plane crash, soared in the sky among the clouds, and then, falling into the jungle, remained alive. I didn't expect to survive. I just wanted to die without suffering. I noticed the rungs of the metal floor. And I thought: if I fall sideways, it will be very painful. I decided to change position and regroup. Then she crawled to the next row of chairs (our row was near the rift), sat down in the chair, grabbed the armrests and rested her feet on the floor. All this was done automatically. Then I look - the ground. Very close. She grabbed the armrests with all her strength and pushed herself away from the chair. Then - like a green explosion from larch branches. And again there was a loss of memory. When I woke up, I saw my husband again. Volodya sat with his hands on his knees and looked at me with a fixed gaze. It was raining, which washed the blood from his face, and I saw a huge wound on his forehead. Under the chairs lay a dead man and woman...

Later it was established that the piece of the plane, four meters long and three meters wide, on which Savitskaya fell, glided like an autumn leaf. He fell into a soft, marshy clearing. Larisa lay unconscious for seven hours. Then for two more days I sat in a chair in the rain and waited for death to come. On the third day I got up, started looking for people and came across a search party. Larisa received several injuries, a concussion, a broken arm and five cracks in the spine. You can’t go with such injuries. But Larisa refused the stretcher and walked to the helicopter herself.

The plane crash and the death of her husband remained with her forever. According to her, her feelings of pain and fear are dulled. She is not afraid of death and still flies calmly on airplanes. But her son, who was born four years after the disaster, is terrified of flying.

“Consciousness instantly floated away somewhere”

Arina Vinogradova is one of the two surviving flight attendants of the Il-86 plane, which in 2002, barely taking off, crashed into Sheremetyevo. There were 16 people on board: four pilots, ten flight attendants and two engineers. Only two flight attendants survived: Arina and her friend Tanya Moiseeva.

They say that in the last seconds your whole life flashes before your eyes. This didn’t happen to me,” Arina tells Izvestia. - Tanya and I were sitting in the first row of the third cabin, near the emergency exit, but not in service chairs, but in passenger seats. Tanya is opposite me. The flight was technical - we just needed to return to Pulkovo. At some point the plane began to shake. This happens with IL-86. But for some reason I realized that we were falling. Although nothing seemed to happen, there was no siren or roll. I didn't have time to get scared. Consciousness instantly floated away somewhere, and I fell into a black void. I woke up from a sharp jolt. At first I didn’t understand anything. Then I gradually figured it out. It turned out that I was lying on a warm engine, littered with chairs. I couldn't unfasten myself. She started screaming, pounding on the metal and disturbing Tanya, who then raised her head and then lost consciousness again. The firefighters pulled us out and took us to different hospitals.

Arina still works as a flight attendant. The plane crash, she said, did not leave any trauma in her soul. However, what happened had a very strong impact on Tatyana Moiseeva. Since then, she no longer flies, although she has not left aviation. She still works in the flight attendant squad, but now as a dispatcher. She doesn’t even tell her close friends about what she experienced.

"Someone kissed the ground, someone burst into tears of happiness..."

The Lyceum group is known throughout the country. But few people know that two singers from this group - Anna Pletneva and Anastasia Makarevich - also survived the fall on the plane.

This happened about five years ago,” Anna Pletneva tells Izvestia. “I was always terrified of flying by plane, but now I became brave.” I flew with Nastya Makarevich to Spain. We had a great time. In a cheerful mood we returned to Moscow on a Boeing 767. The neighbors were with the child. The minute we started descending and the flight attendants told us to fasten our seat belts, the child was in my arms. And then the plane went down sharply. Things fell on their heads, the flight attendants shouted: “Hold the children! Bend down!” I realized that we were falling and hugged the baby to me. A thought flashed through my head: “Is this really all?” I used to think that when it’s so scary, my heart should be pounding. But in reality you don’t feel the heart. You don’t feel yourself, but you look at everything as if from the outside. The worst thing is hopelessness. You can't influence anything. But there was no panic like they show in the movies. Deathly silence. Everyone, as if in a dream, buckled up and froze. Some prayed, some said goodbye to their relatives.

Anna doesn't remember how much time has passed. Maybe seconds... Or minutes.

“Suddenly the plane gradually began to level out,” she recalls, “I looked around: was it really just me imagining it? But no, others also perked up... Even when we stopped on the runway, I couldn’t believe that everything ended well. The commander announced: “Congratulations to everyone! We were born in a shirt. Now everything will be fine in your life.”

Surprisingly, I stopped being afraid of flying on airplanes,” she says. - And on charter flights, pilots often let us into the cockpit and let us steer. I like it so much that I want to buy my own small plane in the near future. We will fly it on tour.

“I really wanted to rewind the film.”

Our colleague, Izvestia journalist Georgy Stepanov, also survived the fall.

This happened in the summer of 1984, he recalls. - I flew on a Yak-40 plane from Batumi to Tbilisi. When I entered the plane, I felt like I was in a gypsy camp - there were so many things there. They filled all the compartments on top, as well as the passage of the cabin. Don't overcrowd. There were, of course, also more passengers than expected. We took off and gained altitude. Below is the sea. I felt drowsy. But then it was as if someone had hit the fuselage with a sledgehammer, the noise of the turbine became different, and the plane went down sharply, almost vertically. Everyone who was not wearing a seat belt flew off their seats and rolled around the cabin, interspersed with their things. Screams, squeals. A terrible panic began. I was wearing a seat belt. I still remember my state of horror. Everything in me broke down, my body seemed numb. I had the feeling that everything was happening not to me, but that I was somewhere on the side. The only thing I thought was: poor parents, what will happen to them? I could neither scream nor move. Everyone nearby was completely white with fear. Their dead, motionless eyes were striking, as if they were already in another world.

We actually fell for no more than a minute. The plane leveled off: the passengers began to come to their senses and pick up their things. Then, when we were approaching Tbilisi, the pilot came out of the cockpit. He was like a zombie. We began to ask: what happened? In response, he wanted to laugh it off, but somehow it turned out to be a pity; he felt embarrassed for him.

This fall still haunts me to this day. When I board a plane, I feel like a completely helpless creature in an insecure shell.

The world knows more than a dozen cases of happy salvation

No matter how much experts, citing statistics, assure us that air transport is the safest, many are afraid to fly. The earth leaves hope, the height does not. How did those who did not survive the plane crash feel? We will never know. According to research by the Interstate Aviation Committee, the consciousness of a person in a falling plane is switched off. In most cases - in the very first seconds of the fall. At the moment of the collision with the ground, there is not a single person in the cabin who would be conscious. As they say, the body’s defense reaction is triggered.

The ancient Greek poet Theognis wrote: “What is not destined by fate will not happen, but what is destined, I am not afraid of.” There are also cases of miraculous salvation. Larisa Savitskaya is not the only one who survived the plane crash. In 1944, the English pilot Stephen, shot down by the Germans, fell from a height of 5500 meters and survived. In 2003, a Boeing 737 crashed in Sudan. A two-year-old child survived, although the plane was almost completely burned down. The world knows more than a dozen such cases.

In some cases, passengers did not even receive any serious injuries. Some were simply late for the tragic flight, canceled the flight for any reason, while others remained relatively safe and sound after the crash. There were also cases when those who were not present on the fatal board, but died under its rubble, became victims of the disaster.

Four-year-old American girl who survived the disaster

In August 1989, an American airliner flying the route Saginaw - Detroit - Phoenix - Santa Ana took off from the airport in Detroit. A few minutes after the plane left the ground, it began to roll sideways, crashed into several lamp posts and burst into flames. The airliner crashed onto the road, drove along it, hit a railway embankment and crashed into an overpass. The plane was completely destroyed. One hundred and fifty passengers and crew members died in this disaster. Two people who were in the cars that were crashed by the plane died on the ground.

Four-year-old American Cecilia Sechan suffered significant injuries but survived the disaster. The child who survived the plane crash was flying with his parents and older brother. The girl was noticed by firefighter John Tied, who was working at the crash site. Cecilia suffered a fractured skull, third-degree burns, a broken collarbone and a broken leg. The girl underwent several operations, but was able to fully recover. Photos of the girl who survived the plane crash then spread all over America.

Cecilia Sechan was raised by her uncle and aunt. She has never given interviews, but broke her silence in 2013 by appearing in the documentary Sole Survivor. The girl says that she is not afraid to fly on airplanes. She is guided by the principle: if it happened once, it will not happen again. In addition, the girl got a tattoo of an airplane on her arm, which reminds her of that both tragic and happy day.

Larisa Savitskaya, survivor of the crash over Zavitinsk

In 1981, Soviet student Larisa Savitskaya was returning from a honeymoon with her husband on a Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Blagoveshchensk flight operated by an An-24 aircraft. The newlyweds had tickets for the middle part of the plane, but since there were many empty seats in the cabin, they decided to take seats in the back.

During the flight, the plane collided with a Tu-16K bomber. There were several reasons for this. These include errors by airport ground staff and dispatchers, and generally unsatisfactory organization of flights in the Zavitinsk area, and non-compliance with safety regulations, and unclear interaction between civilian and military aircraft. Everyone on board both planes died, except for the only girl who survived the crash.

At the time of the plane collision, Larisa was sleeping in her chair. The girl woke up from a burn caused by depressurization of the cabin, cold air (the temperature dropped to -30 degrees) and a strong blow. After the fuselage broke, the girl was thrown into the aisle, she lost consciousness, but a few moments later she woke up, reached the nearest seat and squeezed into it without wearing a seat belt. Larisa Savitskaya, who survived the plane crash, later claimed that at that moment she remembered the film “Miracles Still Happen,” the heroine of which miraculously escaped from the crash by squeezing into a chair. But the girl did not think about salvation then, she just wanted “to die without pain.”

Part of the plane fell on a birch grove, which significantly softened the blow. Larisa fell on a piece of debris 3 x 4 meters. It was subsequently determined that the fall took eight minutes. The girl fell to the ground unconscious.

When she woke up, she saw in front of her a chair with the body of her dead husband. Larisa was injured, but was still able to move independently. The girl had to spend two days in the forest, alone, among corpses and the wreckage of the plane. The girl was wearing paint that was flying off the fuselage, and her hair was very tangled in the wind. She built a temporary shelter from the rubble, kept warm with seat covers, and protected herself from mosquitoes with plastic bags.

It was raining all this time, but search work was still carried out. Larisa waved at a passing helicopter, but rescuers, not expecting to find survivors, mistook her for a geologist from a camp nearby. Larisa Savitskaya, as well as the bodies of her husband and two other passengers, were the last to be found. She was the only survivor.

Doctors determined that the girl had a concussion, broken ribs, broken arms, spinal injuries, and in addition, she had lost almost all her teeth. Despite her injuries, she did not receive disability. Later Larisa was paralyzed, but she was able to recover. Larisa became the person who received the minimum amount of compensation, that is, only 75 rubles.

Serbian flight attendant who survived a plane crash in 1972.

Flight attendants who survive a plane crash are not uncommon. However, the only survivors are already a one in a million chance. Such a miracle happened to a flight attendant on a flight from Copenhagen to Zagreb. The plane exploded in mid-air over the village of Serbska in Czechoslovakia. The investigation named the cause of the crash as a bomb planted by Croatian terrorists.

When the explosive detonated, the plane exploded into several pieces and began to fall. In the middle compartment at that time there was flight attendant Vesna Vulović, who was replacing her colleague Vesna Nikolic. The luck of the girl who survived the plane crash was that she had a soft fall and that she was first discovered by a peasant who worked in a field hospital during the war and knew how to provide first aid.

The girl, who was soon taken to the hospital, spent 27 days in a coma, then 16 months in a hospital bed. She had amnesia, the girl for some time forgot every day that passed. But she still survived. Doctors attributed her miraculous salvation to low blood pressure. When a person finds himself at a high altitude, his heart breaks from high pressure. But Vesna, who always had very low blood pressure, was able to escape death in the air. It also helped that the girl lost consciousness. But no one knows how the flight attendant managed to survive hitting the ground.

After the tragedy, the flight attendant who survived the plane crash quit and never flew on planes again. She admitted to reporters that even before that disaster she was on the verge of life and death eight times. This was when Vesna was on vacation in Montenegro and met a shark that should not have been in those waters at all, when she was arguing with her mentally ill neighbor about politics (the man took a knife and tried to attack), when she had a severe case of ectopic pregnancy and etc.

Nine-year-old girl who survived the crash over Cartagena

In January 1995, an American plane was flying from Bogota to Cartagena with 5 crew members and 47 passengers on board. During landing, the altimeter failed and the plane crashed in a swampy area. Nine-year-old Erica Delgado was flying with her parents and younger brother. A girl who survived the plane crash said that her mother pushed her out of the falling plane.

The plane exploded and caught fire as it fell. Erica fell into the seaweed, which softened her fall. Immediately after the tragedy, looting began. Residents of a nearby village tore off a gold necklace from a living girl, ignoring her pleas for help. Some time later, the girl who survived the plane crash was found by a farmer.

One and a half dozen survivors and 72 days of struggle with nature

In the fall of 1972, a plane crashed while flying from Montevideo to Santiago. The survivors had virtually no chance of salvation, but they managed to cheat death. Several passengers were left in the snowy mountains, not knowing where they were or whether anyone was looking for them. It was cold in the mountains, people tried to somehow warm up, hiding in the remains of the fuselage. By morning, several passengers still had not woken up. The passengers managed to find some provisions: crackers, liqueur, several chocolates, sardines. Everyone understood that this would not be enough. The survivors later found a radio and heard that the rescue operation had been called off. Then they decided to eat the dead.

The next day, an avalanche occurred and some people were trapped under snow debris. They managed to get out from under the rubble three days later. People waited 72 days for salvation. Each new day was similar to the previous one. Soon the three survivors decided to go in search of some settlement. It was difficult for them to breathe and move in the snow; soon one of the group decided to return back to the plane.

When they reached the top of the mountain, they saw only snow-capped mountains around. They thought there was no hope, but decided that it was better to die on the road than near the plane. Moreover, the mother and sister of one of the guys had died earlier, and he knew that if he returned, he would have to eat their meat.

On the ninth day of the journey, the young people found a river, on the other side they saw a shepherd. He brought paper and a pen and threw it with a stone to the other side. The survivors wrote down everything that happened to them. The shepherd threw cheese and bread to the young guys, and he himself went to the nearest settlement, which was 10 hours away. He returned back with the military.

The rescue operation took two days. First, the military rescued two young people who went in search of the settlement. The survivors gave their first press conference in the mountains. The young people had to tell everything that happened. But the press turned out to be merciless, the newspapers were full of headlines “They ate the dead”, “Traces of cannibalism discovered” and so on. But both the rescuers and the survivors themselves understood that they had no other opportunity to survive.

Seventeen-year-old schoolgirl Juliana Diler Kepke

The plane crash happened at night. When the girl woke up, the hands of her watch were moving; the time was about nine in the morning. The surviving girl later said that her eyes and head hurt very much. She was sitting in the same chair. Juliana lost consciousness several times. The girl saw rescue helicopters, but could not give any signal.

Seventeen-year-old Juliana broke her collarbone, she had a deep wound on her leg, scratches, her right eye was swollen shut from the blow, and her whole body was covered in bruises. The girl found herself in a deep forest. Her father was a zoologist; as a child, he taught Juliana the rules of survival, she was able to get food, and soon found a stream. Nine days later, Juliana Diler Kepke herself came out to the fishermen.

Based on the story of Juliana’s miraculous rescue, the feature film “Miracles Still Happen” was made, which later helped Larisa Savitskaya survive.

Survivor of a plane that crashed into the Indian Ocean

People who survived a plane crash were usually able to fully recover from the tragedy. In 2009, a flight from Paris to the Comoros crashed into the Indian Ocean. Thirteen-year-old Bahia Bakari flew with her mother to visit her grandparents in the Comoros Islands. The girl does not know how exactly she managed to survive, since she was sleeping at the time of the disaster. The girl received fractures and multiple bruises from the fall. But she needed to hold out even before the rescuers arrived. She climbed onto one of the pieces that was floating. Bakari was found only fourteen hours after the disaster. The girl was taken to Paris on a special flight.

"Lucky Four" in the largest disaster in terms of number of victims

In Japan in 1985, the largest disaster involving a single aircraft occurred in terms of the number of victims. The Boeing took off from Tokyo to Osaka. There were more than five hundred passengers and crew members on board. After takeoff, the tail stabilizer came off, depressurization occurred, pressure dropped, and some of the airliner systems failed.

The plane was doomed; it became uncontrollable. The pilots managed to keep the plane in the air for more than half an hour. As a result, he crashed one hundred kilometers from the capital of Japan. The plane crashed in the mountains, rescuers were able to find the wreckage only the next morning; they, of course, did not at all hope to find survivors.

But a rescue team discovered a whole group of survivors. They were flight attendant and passenger Hiroko Yoshizaki and her eight-year-old daughter, twelve-year-old Keiko Kawakami. The last girl was found on a tree. All four survivors were in the rear of the plane, exactly where the plane's skin ruptured. But more passengers could have survived the disaster. Keiko Kawakami later claimed that she heard the voices of passengers, including her father. Many passengers died on the ground from their wounds and injuries. The victims of the tragedy were 520 people.

Girl who survived the L-410 plane crash

The girl who survived the plane crash in Khabarovsk is three-year-old Jasmina Leontyeva. The girl was flying with her teacher along the route Khabarovsk - Nelkan; the plane was supposed to land, but it started to land, tilted and fell not far from the runway. Two crew members and four passengers on board were killed. The girl, who was found under the wreckage of the plane, was immediately taken to the hospital, and then transported by a special plane to Khabarovsk. There, the parents of the girl who survived the plane crash were already waiting for Jasmine at the hospital.

Flight technician who survived the Yak-42 crash

A few years ago, a Yak-42 plane crashed with the Lokomotiv hockey team on board. The flight engineer managed to survive this terrible tragedy. Alexander Sizov, a survivor of the Lokomotiv plane crash, testified in court. The case of Vadim Timofeev, who was responsible for air transport security at the Yak Service company, was considered.

Air transport is one of the safest, but tragedies occur there from time to time. Fortunately, even in a plane crash there is a chance of survival, albeit one in a million. Evidence of this is a Soviet flight attendant who survived a plane crash, the only survivor of a crash over the Indian Ocean, the tragedy over Cartagena, the “lucky four” in Japan and other people.