Plane crash survivors. Miraculous rescues: survivors of plane crashes. USSR, near Leninakan

Air travel is the safest form of passenger transportation. Every day, more than 80 thousand aircraft around the world make about two hundred thousand flights and deliver more than three million passengers to their destinations. The percentage of accidents is extremely low, and therefore - it would seem - the fear of flying is of an irrational nature. Nothing like this! After all, we all understand perfectly well: if something happens at an altitude of ten kilometers above the ground, there is no chance of survival. At all. However, there is no need to despair completely. It’s small, but nevertheless there is still hope for salvation. This is evidenced by amazing cases where passengers managed to survive the most terrible plane crashes.

Perhaps the most famous case of miraculous salvation occurred in 1972. The airliner of the Yugoslav airline Yugoslav Airlines was flying on the route Stockholm - Copenhagen - Zagreb - Belgrade. The plane took off and climbed to an altitude of ten thousand meters in normal mode. The flight took place over East Germany. Suddenly, the airliner fell into pieces: the bow with the cockpit separated from the main body. The main version of the crash was a terrorist attack, the organization of which was suspected of being organized by supporters of the Croatian nationalist organization Ustasha. However, who really became the organizer and executor of the terrorist attack has not yet been found out.

dnpmag.com

Stewardess Vesna Vulović was the only survivor of the crash. A 22-year-old girl who fell from a height of ten kilometers was discovered by a peasant Bruno Honke. He provided first aid to the flight attendant and handed the victim over to the paramedics who arrived at the scene. Vesna received many injuries, but after sixteen months she recovered. Having regained consciousness after the disaster, the first thing the flight attendant asked for was a cigarette.

Surprisingly, after the experience, the girl had no fear of flying. She lived until 2016 and died at the age of 67. In 1985, the name of Vesna Vulović was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the person who survived a fall from a maximum height.

An equally famous incident occurred in the summer of 1981. The An-24RV board was flying from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk. At an altitude of 5220 meters, the airliner collided with a Tu-16 military bomber - civilian and military flight control centers poorly coordinated their actions. The crews of both aircraft were killed. Just like the passengers of the An-24. The exception was student Larisa Savitskaya - the girl miraculously managed to survive.

ribalych.ru

Larisa was returning from honeymoon together with her husband Vladimir. The plane was half empty, so the newlyweds decided to sit on comfortable chairs in the rear of the plane. When the collision occurred, the girl was sleeping, but she instantly woke up from a strong blow and a sudden burn. The plane's fuselage broke right in front of Larisa's seat, and she was thrown into the aisle between the seats. The girl crawled to the nearest chair and pressed herself into it. Subsequently, she recalled that at that moment a scene from the film “Miracles Still Happen” came to her mind, in which the heroine squeezes herself into an airplane seat and survives the crash.

Larisa was saved by a favorable combination of circumstances. The shape of the fragment in which she found herself was such that when it fell, it glided like a leaf of a tree. The fall lasted a surprisingly long time - a full eight minutes. In addition, he fell into a birch grove, and the trees softened the blow. But, of course, Larisa lost consciousness at that moment.

Waking up on the ground, the first thing the girl saw was a chair with the body of her dead husband. A mystery - the remains of the passengers were scattered hundreds of meters around, and Vladimir was nearby.

Larisa received serious injuries, but was able to get to her feet. Rescuers found the girl only two days later. During this time, she built a temporary shelter from the wreckage of the plane, in which she waited for help. It was raining, the temperature did not rise above ten degrees - we had to keep warm with seat covers. She was also plagued by mosquitoes, from which the girl protected herself with a plastic bag.

I don’t know, maybe from psychological shock I didn’t feel my body,” Larisa Savitskaya recalled. - But the ribs, arms, back were broken, teeth were knocked out... The body seemed just like cotton wool, and it was difficult to breathe. The pain is dull, as if not mine. And there was also some kind of constant hum: either there was a buzzing in my ears, or mosquitoes...

Larisa also got into the Guinness Book of Records. But not only as a person who survived a fall from a five-kilometer height, but also as a passenger who received minimal compensation. Only 75 Soviet rubles.

In a number of plane crashes, several passengers managed to survive at once. Thus, in the crash of the Boeing 747 airliner of Japanese Airlines, which occurred on August 12, 1985, there were four survivors. That day the plane was flying from Tokyo to Osaka. Twelve minutes after takeoff, the vertical tail stabilizer, or, simply put, the fin, separated.

kulturologia.ru

For a long thirty-two minutes, the crew continued to try to stabilize the uncontrollable vehicle. But the plane, devoid of a keel, swayed along all three axes with ever-increasing amplitude. He continued to fly, then sharply gaining altitude, then suddenly descending. This continued until the last moment. Suddenly, before the eyes of the pilots, a mountain range. In an attempt to avoid a collision with the mountain, the commander increased the engine thrust and gave the order to release the flaps of the emergency electrical system. The plane sharply lifted its nose and almost fell into a tailspin, but it was still possible to level the plane. Unfortunately, the success was temporary. The out-of-control plane lowered its nose again and headed straight for the nearest peak. The rate of decline began to increase. The commander again tried to level the aircraft, but alas. The right wing hit the treetops, and the Japan Airlines plane high speed crashed into the wooded slope of Mount Otsutaka.

The disaster claimed the lives of 520 people and became the worst single aircraft disaster in the history of aviation. The surviving passengers were two women and two little girls. 26-year-old Japan Airlines flight attendant Yumi Ochiai, 34-year-old Hiroko Yoshizaki with her eight-year-old daughter Mikiko, and 12-year-old Keiko Kawakami. Keiko was found sitting in a tree. All four were immediately taken to a Tokyo hospital.

After the tragedy, it became clear that a much larger number of passengers could have survived. So, Keiko Kawakami said that already on earth her father talked to her, urging her not to lose heart, but then fell silent. The girl also heard moans and screams of other wounded people. Experts and doctors confirmed Keiko's words. They found that a large number of passengers died on the ground from wounds and cold, without receiving help. But help did not come for a long 14 hours. The reason for the terrible delay was competition between numerous rescue services. For a long time they could not decide who would go to rescue the victims.

The cause of the plane crash was simple negligence. Seven years before the tragedy, the airliner was seriously damaged when its tail hit the runway, but repairs were not carried out properly. For the 506 passengers and 14 crew members of JAL flight 115, this circumstance was fatal.

The largest plane crash in terms of number of victims occurred on March 27, 1977 on the island of Tenerife. There were two airliners on the same runway. One is for the American airline Pan Am, the other is for the Dutch KLM. The tragedy claimed the lives of 583 people. 61 people were lucky to survive.

kulturologia.ru

The reason why both planes hit the same runway at the same time was due to bad weather. The radio communication between the dispatchers and the pilots malfunctioned, and the command staff of the aircraft could not correctly understand the instructions that came from the control center. In addition, heavy fog descended on the island, which reduced visibility to one hundred meters.

The planes were opposite each other. Was the first to take off Boeing airlines KLM. Having picked up speed, his crew saw another Boeing, an American Pan Am, moving towards him from the fog. The pilots tried to lift the car off the ground, but the distance did not allow them to perform the maneuver. The airliners collided head-on at full speed. Everyone on the Dutch plane died; there were survivors among the passengers of the American Boeing. Including the captain, co-pilot and flight engineer.

Of course, the fastest and most comfortable mode of transport of our time is the airplane. Moreover, quite often it is by airliner that passengers can get to the most remote place on the planet, and the journey will take very little time. However, many refuse this option because they consider plane crashes to be a frequent occurrence. And this is not at all surprising, because if you analyze numerous feature films about plane crashes, you can really come to the conclusion that planes crash almost every day and the passengers have practically no chance to survive. In fact, this is, of course, not the case, but this fact is confirmed by numerous survivors of the plane crash. Real stories We will present in this article about the lucky ones who managed to escape during plane crashes as a convincing example.

Of course, the plane was and will be the most comfortable and in a safe way transport, but even such a powerful and reliable car should first of all be considered as technology. And as you know, problems can happen with any machine, which leads to emergency situations. According to analytical studies, the main cause of disasters, sad as it may be to admit, is human factor. After all, technology cannot spoil itself and disable itself; this happens due to the inattention and negligent attitude of a person. If low-quality components were used when assembling the machine, this process was not given due attention, and daily technical inspection was carried out, as they say, in haste, then even the most reliable equipment may sooner or later fail.

Almost all survivors of a plane crash indicate that the car in the sky simply begins to behave somehow incorrectly, and at this time alarming “lights” begin to flash on board, which further escalates the already alarming situation. Experts say that any breakdown in the sky is a defect and specialists need to find it on the ground in order to prevent an emergency from occurring.

Most often, planes crash due to the following reasons:

malfunctions of the aircraft or individual devices that were not identified during the technical inspection. According to statistics, approximately 23% of plane crashes occur precisely because of this reason, that is, due to ordinary human negligence and inattention;
errors made by pilots and maintenance personnel;
unfavorable conditions that can change dramatically along the airliner's route.

There are several other reasons that can lead to a plane crash, for example, terrorism, but this is a completely different topic for discussion. But in order not to create an emergency situation, there are still survivors in almost every accident after a plane crash. What helped them stay alive, what measures they took to save their lives, we will further analyze more carefully.

Names and stories of people who managed to survive plane crashes

Rescuers carry survivors from the scene of a plane crash near Jose Maria Cordova airport in Colombia.

It may seem to many that those who managed to survive the plane crash were simply lucky, that is, they were, as they say, born under a lucky star. In reality, this is not entirely true, because experts, having analyzed more than 2 thousand rescues, came to the conclusion that the survivors of the plane crash were able to save their lives not only because of a favorable combination of circumstances, but also thanks to the knowledge and rules that they took in a timely manner in extreme situation.

This applies to the surviving crew member of the Yugoslav airliner - flight attendant V. Vulovich, who was 22 years old at the time of the accident. Unfortunately, in the history of those who survived, it is not so often possible to find the names of airline crew members, perhaps this is explained by the fact that in such a difficult situation the crew of the airship does not care about their own safety, but devotes all their strength to saving passengers.

And V. Vulovich still managed to miraculously escape from a terrible plane crash in which a passenger plane exploded in the sky due to a bomb on board that was planted by terrorists. This terrible tragedy occurred in 1972, during an air flight from Copenhagen to Zagreb, which was operated by a Yugoslav air carrier. Despite a terrible explosion in the sky, the flight attendant survived the plane crash. According to experts, such an incredible rescue can be explained by the fact that the flight attendant was in the safest place at the time of the explosion - in the middle of the cabin and at a decent distance from the bomb. By luck, the flight attendant who survived the plane crash was in a compartment separated from the body, which fell from a height of 10 thousand km onto the branches of snow-covered trees and thereby softened the blow.

But this is just the first part of the happy story of a Yugoslav flight attendant who miraculously escaped. If it weren’t for the help of a local resident, who, upon seeing the girl, immediately freed her from the wreckage of the plane and took her to the nearest hospital, Vesna Vulovich could have simply frozen to death in the cold forest. The surviving flight attendant, after the plane crashed from such a great height, lay in a coma for more than a month, and after that she still had to wage a desperate fight for her life for almost 1.5 years. The girl was able to withstand serious tests and soon fully recovered both physically and mentally, and her truly “fantastic” jump from a height of 10 thousand km without a parachute was listed in the Guinness Book of Records. The legitimate certificate to the world-famous flight attendant was presented by her idol, Paul McCartney, which brought the heroine to incredible delight.

The story of Cecilia Sichan, a 4-year-old girl

Cecilia Sichan

The story of the next heroine, Cecilia Sichan, took place in 1989 and is actively discussed even today. After all, in this terrible tragedy that happened to the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82, which was serviced by Northwest Airlines, only one passenger out of 154 people on board was able to survive - a 4-year-old little girl from America.

Cecilia went on an air trip with her parents. The problem that caused the plane crash showed itself on takeoff - the pilot was unable to turn the steering wheel correctly, as a result of which the left plane of the wing caught the lighting mast, and a terrible flame instantly engulfed the wing. Air transport changed the flight path, which led to the crash and explosion of the plane. The airliner fell onto the highway, and a terrible explosion followed immediately. Experts found the wreckage of the car and the mutilated bodies of those on board half a mile from the crash site.

Medics and fire services arrived at the scene of the tragedy immediately, but the horror of the picture that presented itself made it clear that there was no one to save in this place. However, the children's crying, which came from the wreckage of the plane, led the rescuers to real amazement. Firefighter D. Tied was the first to rush to the child’s voice. Seeing a small hand reaching out of the rubble, the fireman carefully took out the victim and carefully handed her over to the doctors.

Of course, during the crash the girl received numerous injuries to both her head and limbs, and her body was also severely burned. But despite everything, this little traveler was the only one who managed to survive in terrible tragedy. For a complete recovery, the girl had to undergo several operations, including 4 skin grafts. Her aunt and uncle began to take care of Cecilia. As soon as the girl grew up, she decided to get an airliner tattoo on her arm as a constant reminder of the terrible and at the same time happy day in her life. Today, Cecilia continues to use modern aircraft, and when asked frequently whether you are afraid of air travel, she answers jokingly, “No, I’m not afraid, since a shell certainly doesn’t hit the same place twice.”

Russian accident

The tragedy with the An-24 plane, which was transporting 38 passengers from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk, has been discussed all over the world for a long time. After all, the survivors of the plane crash were not counted in dozens or even just a few - in this terrible disaster that happened in 1981, only one 20-year-old passenger, L. Savitskaya, was able to survive, who was returning home with her husband after a honeymoon. The name of the surviving passenger was included in the Guinness Book of Records, more than once:

For surviving a fall without a parachute from a height of more than 5 thousand km.
For receiving the very minimum compensation, in the amount of 75 rubles, which is paid by the state as damage to all victims.
She also collected many domestic awards from the authorities.

The cause of the plane crash was a collision with a bomber. Of course, the An-24, which is small in size, could not withstand the terrible impact and simply fell into pieces high in the sky. At the time of the collision, the happy passenger was resting in her seat, wearing a seat belt. She was brought out of her sleep by a severe burn caused by the fire, which was rapidly gaining strength due to depressurization.

Larisa was familiar with the rules of safe flight, so she did not unfasten her seat belts and sank into her seat as much as possible. As the girl will later explain, the plot of the film from the Italian directors “Miracles Still Happen” helped her survive, in which the main character was able to survive thanks to a fastened belt and the correct body position. The part of the plane the girl was in fell onto tree branches, which significantly softened the fall, which lasted about 8 minutes. After landing, Larisa lost consciousness, but after a while she woke up on her own, went down into the birch forest and even built a shelter for herself for a safe overnight stay. It took rescue teams 48 hours to find the lucky passenger, whose name had already been added to the list of dead.

This is not at all surprising, because those who arrived at the scene of the tragedy could not find a single survivor; there were only burnt bodies and plane wreckage around. The girl had serious head and back injuries; for a full recovery she needed to undergo several operations, which Larisa was able to cope with 100%.

Erica Delgado's Story

Erica Delgado

Many were worried about the recovery of 9-year-old, the only surviving passenger on the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-14, Erica Delgado. The air transport carried 47 passengers on board to Bogota from Cartagena. Only Erica managed to escape death. The cause of the plane crash was a breakdown of the altimeter, as a result of which the plane was unable to land safely and simply crashed in a swampy area.

The girl was on board with her parents and brother; according to her, she was pushed out of the plane, which literally began to fall apart before her eyes, by the hands of her mother. Literally a few seconds later the air transport was engulfed in flames and a terrible explosion occurred. Erica fell on the seaweed, but she could not get out of the swamp on her own. According to the girl, within a few minutes local residents arrived at the scene of the tragedy, but not to save the victims, but for the purpose of profit. According to Erica, they ignored her pleas for help, but the looters quickly tore the gold jewelry from her neck and hurried away. But her rescuer turned out to be a local farmer, who, having heard the child’s cry, hurried to the girl’s aid. Surprisingly, in such a terrible accident, Erica escaped with only a broken arm.

Wreck Rider

Vesna Vulović, a flight attendant at Jugoslovenski Aerotransport (today called Air Serbia), holds the world record for surviving a free fall without a parachute. She entered the Guinness Book of Records because she survived the explosion of a DC-9 plane at an altitude of 10,160 meters.

At the time of the explosion, Vesna was working with passengers. She immediately lost consciousness, so she did not remember either the moment of the disaster or its details. Because of this, the flight attendant did not develop a fear of flying - she perceived all the circumstances from other people’s words. It turned out that at the time of the destruction of the plane, Vulovich was pinned between the seat, the body of another crew member and the buffet cart. In this form, the debris fell onto the snow-covered mountainside and slid along it until it came to a complete stop.

Vesna remained alive, although she received serious injuries - she broke the base of her skull, three vertebrae, both legs and her pelvis. For 10 months, the girl’s lower body was paralyzed; in total, treatment took almost 1.5 years.

After recovery, Vulovich tried to return to her previous job, but she was not allowed to fly and was given a position in the airline office.

Target selection

Surviving like Vesna Vulovich in a cocoon of debris is much easier than in solo free flight. However, the second case also has its own surprising examples. One of them dates back to 1943, when US military pilot Alan Magee flew over France in a heavy four-engine B-17 bomber. At an altitude of 6 km he was thrown out of the plane, and the glass roof of the station slowed his fall. As a result, Magee fell on the stone floor, remained alive and was immediately captured by the Germans, shocked by what he saw.

A great fall target would be a large haystack. There are several known cases of people surviving plane crashes if densely growing bushes got in their way. A dense forest also gives some chances, but there is a risk of running into branches.

The ideal option for a falling person would be snow or a swamp. A soft and compressible environment that absorbs the inertia accumulated during the flight to the center of the earth, under a successful combination of circumstances, can make injuries compatible with life.

There is almost no chance of survival if you fall onto the surface of the water. Water is practically not compressed, so the result of contact with it will be the same as when colliding with concrete.

Sometimes the most unexpected objects can bring salvation. One of the main things skydiving enthusiasts are taught is to stay away from power lines. However, there is a known case when it was a high-voltage line that saved the life of a skydiver who found himself in free flight due to a parachute that did not open. It hit the wires, bounced back and fell to the ground from a height of several tens of meters.

Pilots and children

Statistics on survival in plane crashes show that crew members and passengers under age are much more likely to cheat death. The situation with pilots is clear - the passive safety systems in their cockpit are more reliable than those of other passengers.

Why children survive more often than others is not completely clear. However, researchers have established several reliable reasons for this issue:

increased bone flexibility, general muscle relaxation and a higher percentage of subcutaneous fat, which protects internal organs from injury like a pillow;
short stature, due to which the head is covered by the back of the chair from flying debris. This is extremely important, since the main cause of death in plane crashes is brain injury;
smaller body size, reducing the likelihood of running into some sharp object at the moment of landing.

Invincible fortitude

A successful landing does not always mean a positive outcome. Not every miraculously surviving person is instantly found by well-disposed local residents. For example, in 1971, over the Amazon at an altitude of 3,200 meters, a Lockheed Electra aircraft collapsed due to a fire caused by lightning striking a wing with a fuel tank. 17-year-old German Juliana Kopke came to her senses in the jungle, strapped to a chair. She was injured, but could move.

The girl remembered the words of her biologist father, who said that even in impenetrable jungle You can always find people if you follow the flow of water. Juliana walked along the forest streams, which gradually turned into rivers. With a broken collarbone, a bag of sweets and a stick with which she dispersed stingrays in shallow water, the girl came out to people 9 days later. In Italy, the film “Miracles Still Happen” (1974) was made based on this story.

There were 92 people on board, including Kopke. It was subsequently established that besides her, 14 more people survived the fall. However, over the next few days, they all died before rescuers found them.

An episode from the film “Miracles Still Happen” saved the life of Larisa Savitskaya, who in 1981 was flying with her husband from their honeymoon on a flight from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk. At an altitude of 5,200 meters, a passenger An-24 collided with a Tu-16K bomber.

Larisa and her husband were sitting in the back of the plane. The fuselage broke right in front of her seat, and the girl was thrown into the aisle. At that moment, she remembered the film about Julian Kopka, who during the crash reached a chair, pressed herself into it and survived. Savitskaya did the same. Part of the plane's body, in which the girl remained, fell onto a birch grove that softened the blow. She was in the fall for about 8 minutes. Larisa was the only survivor; she received serious injuries, but remained conscious and retained the ability to move independently.

Savitskaya's surname is included twice in the Russian version of the Guinness Book of Records. She is listed as the person who survived the fall from the greatest height. The second record is rather sad - Larisa became the one who received minimal compensation for physical damage. She was paid only 75 rubles - that’s exactly how much, according to State Insurance standards, survivors of a plane crash were then entitled to.

Approximately 16% of people are afraid of flying on airplanes. Statistics say that you are much more likely to get into an accident when traveling by land than by air. But still, in some cases, the risk of plane crashes is quite justified.

After each crash, people who miraculously missed their flight or canceled their ticket thank God for such a happy coincidence. After all, the chance of surviving a plane crash is very small. Popular Mechanics magazine published statistics showing that people who choose a seat at the back of a plane increase their chances of being rescued by 40%. But Ed Galea, professor of mathematical modeling and engineering at the University of Greenwich in London, is convinced that there are no “safe” seats on airliners. In an air crash, all passengers are equally at risk.

There are very few people who survive plane crashes. How do they live after receiving a second chance?

Cecilia Sichan (Kroken)

In 1987, a Northwest Airlines McDonnell Douglas MD-82 crashed. On board was four-year-old Cecilia Sichan, who was returning from vacation with her mother and brother. The plane was unable to gain altitude, resulting in a terrible collision with a pole, damaging the left wing. The liner fell to the ground and broke, sliding along the surface for several meters. The accident occurred due to the fault of the crew - the pilots were unable to control the take-off angle and speed of the aircraft. There was also no signal that the plane was not ready for takeoff.

153 people died - the crew, passengers and two eyewitnesses of the tragedy. Cecilia Sichan was the only survivor of the crash. The girl owes her salvation to her mother - the woman covered the baby with her body. Cecilia does not remember the collision. Although the girl thinks about it every day and even got a tattoo on her wrist in the form of a small airplane, she was able to talk about the tragedy only a quarter of a century later:

“I think about what happened every day. It's hard not to think about it when I look in the mirror. I have scars on my arms and legs, on my forehead.”

Little Cecilia suffered third-degree burns and a broken skull, collarbone and leg. After seven weeks of treatment at the clinic, the baby was taken by Aunt Rita, her mother’s sister, and uncle Franklin Lumpkin. To get rid of the annoying attention of journalists, they had to move to Alabama from Arizona.

Cecilia is only in high school learned that she was the only survivor on board the plane:

“I felt guilty. Why me? Why didn't my brother survive? Why not someone else?"- says the girl in the film Sole Survivor.

Cecilia is not afraid to fly, but she also never had a desire to become a flight attendant. At one time, Sichen was nicknamed “the main American orphan.” After many years, they managed to find firefighter John Thie - it was he who found the girl among the wreckage of the liner and handed her over to the doctors. In 2012, Xichen invited her savior to her wedding. In addition, the girl maintains contact with the families of the victims. Cecilia tries to live a normal life, but one look in the mirror brings her thoughts back to that terrible disaster, awakening a feeling of guilt for the fact that she was the one who survived the crash.

Vesna Vulovich

Vesna Vulovich was included in the Guinness Book of Records as a survivor of a fall from 10 thousand meters.

The girl worked as a flight attendant for Yugoslav Airlines. On January 26, 1972, she flew from Copenhagen to Zagreb with 28 passengers on board. The plane had been in the air for about an hour when suddenly the nose section with the cockpit became detached from the rest of the structure. According to experts, an explosive device went off on board. The State Security Service of Czechoslovakia, 10 days after the plane crash, presented details of the explosive mechanism in the form of an alarm clock. Even the names of the fuses were established, but they themselves could not be found.

22-year-old Vesna doesn’t remember anything about the crash at all. The last memory is how a cleaning lady cleans the side of the plane, and a few hours later Vulovich was found on the wreckage of this airliner.

“A loud explosion, a very bright light and unbearable cold - that’s all I remember about that disaster. A local resident, German Bruno, came across me. I felt my pulse and realized that my spine was broken, so I didn’t move my body, but immediately called for help,”— says Vesna in one of the interviews.

In addition to multiple fractures, the flight attendant also suffered memory loss. When she came to in the hospital, she remembered absolutely nothing about the accident and did not understand why her parents were crying. When Vesna was told about what happened, the flight attendant felt a sense of guilt - she could not understand why she survived while all the passengers and her colleagues died.

“I broke my left arm and left leg, three vertebrae (one of them was simply crushed), and fractured my skull in several places,” Vulovich recalls his injuries.

The girl managed to escape thanks to low pressure - at such a height, the heart of a person with normal pressure simply could not withstand the load. The flight attendant lost consciousness, which also played into her hands.

After the accident, Vesna had to learn to talk and walk again, and she also needed to regain her memory. It took her four and a half years to get back on her feet, and Vulovich could not get rid of her lameness for the rest of her life.

After being discharged from the hospital, the girl again wanted to work as a flight attendant, but she was refused, without even taking into account the arguments that “a shell does not fall into the same funnel twice” and that Vulovich “is the guarantor of safety on board.” However, in return she was offered a job in the airline office, where she worked until retirement. In 200/16, Vesna Vulović passed away; she died in her home in Belgrade.

Kamil Bazhenov

In April 2012 the liner UTair airlines, heading to Surgut, fell from a height of 200 meters 42 seconds after takeoff. The crash occurred near Tyumen, 33 people died, 10 survived.

The plane crash occurred as a result of the decision of the PIC not to carry out anti-icing treatment, although there was snow on the plane at that moment. After the incident, the airline decided to carry out this procedure without fail; previously, the decision rested with the captain.

One of the survivors was 27-year-old Kamil Bazhenov, who was flying to a business meeting. Kamil could have flown on a completely different flight because he mixed up the lines. But at the last moment I still took a ticket in the tail section of this ill-fated plane.

The flight began as usual, there were no signs of trouble, when suddenly the plane began to shake violently. Kamil woke up already on the ground - the guy raised his hand so that the rescuers noticed him. Although Bazhenov was conscious, he could not remember anything that happened next.

In the plane crash, Kamil received ten fractures and four ligament ruptures; the guy had to learn to walk again.

“Before the disaster, I had a rather difficult period in my life. I work in harsh conditions. On a personal level, it was not easy... But I am not discouraged. The black stripe will change to white. If this happens to a person, then we have to fight,”- says Bazhenov.

Indeed, a year after the accident, Kamil got married and became a successful entrepreneur. Only two photographs from the electronic album “New Life” and a recording made after the disaster remind us of this page in his biography: “ Thank you all so much for your support, it helped me a lot, especially when I was in intensive care.”

Larisa Savitskaya

20-year-old Larisa and her husband were returning from a honeymoon from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk. Their An-24 plane was at an altitude of 5220 meters, when suddenly a Tu-16 bomber crashed into the liner. The plane shattered into debris, tightly clinging to the passenger seat, Savitskaya flew down.

“I remember a terrible blow, a burn - the temperature instantly dropped from plus 25 to minus 30. Terrible screams and whistling air. My husband died immediately - at that moment my life ended. I didn’t even scream - from grief I didn’t have time to realize the fear. At first I lost consciousness, and when I came to my senses, I lay there and thought - but not about death, but about pain. I don’t want it to hurt when I fall,” Larisa recalls in an interview.

The girl didn’t even think that she would be able to survive; she just wanted to die without pain. But a collision with a tree saved her life. The impact knocked out all of Larisa's teeth, damaged her spine in five places, and broke her legs, ribs and arm.

The girl spent three days unconscious. When she finally managed to open her eyes, the first thing she saw was the body of her dead husband.

“I was in such a state of shock that I didn’t feel any pain. I could even walk. When the rescuers found me, they couldn’t say anything other than “mu-mu.” I understand them. Three days of removing pieces of bodies from trees, and then suddenly seeing a living person.”

Larisa's relatives also did not expect to see the girl alive. They even ordered a coffin for her and dug a grave. Savitskaya had to undergo a long course of treatment and a period of rehabilitation, but even now, years later, when the weather changes, the pain intensifies, recalling that monstrous day.

A few days before the flight, Larisa watched the film “Miracles Happen,” which told about the rescue of Juliana’s cap. Savitskaya does not know whether this was a warning.

“I didn’t fall into religion, or drunkenness, or depression. I love life. But sometimes I half-jokingly, half-seriously say: “I am God’s favorite girl.” I live as I lived."

In 1985, Larisa had a son. Two months after this happy event, Savitskaya’s mother died in a car accident. Larisa lived on an allowance of 32 rubles, reprinted texts, and sold books. In the 90s, she was paralyzed due to injuries received in a plane crash. But Savitskaya was able to get out and even got a job as an office manager in a real estate company.

The woman tries not to remember the crash, but any mention of plane crashes brings her back to that day. In addition, Larisa now celebrates two birthdays - she considers August 24 the day of her salvation, when she was given a second chance.

Juliana Koepke

On December 24, 1971, a terrible plane crash occurred in Peru. a huge amount victims - 92 people died in the crash of the Lockheed L-188 Electra.

17-year-old Juliana Margaret Koepke was the only surviving passenger. The girl, together with her mother, ornithologist Maria Kepke, was heading to her father. Hans Kepke was a zoologist and was just conducting research in the South American jungle. The family wanted to celebrate Christmas together.

20 minutes before the end of the flight, the plane flew into a cloud, passengers felt a strong shaking. Luggage was flying around the cabin, passengers were crying and screaming.

“Suddenly we entered a very heavy dark cloud. My mother was worried, but I was fine, I liked flying." Juliana said in an interview with the BBC.

The girl did not let go of her mother's hand, last words, which Juliana heard were: “It’s over, it’s over.”

The plane went into a tailspin and the girl lost consciousness. She woke up in the hospital and the first thing she thought was: “I survived the plane crash.”

Koepke tore ligaments in her knee and her collarbone was broken in several places. But after the accident, Juliana was in a state of passion and did not feel pain, all her strength was aimed at surviving:

“Before the crash, I spent a year and a half with my parents at a research station just 30 miles from the crash site. I learned a lot about life in tropical forest. I heard search planes circling, but I couldn’t see them because of the dense forest.”

The girl had to make her way almost by touch - she lost her glasses and could see almost nothing. During the day, she was able to go to the stream, which was supposed to lead her to civilization. It took her 10 days to find people. On the way, she kept coming across the mutilated bodies of passengers, in each of them she tried to discern her mother and every time she was convinced that there were other people in front of her, she sighed with relief.

Juliana had many wounds in which larvae had already appeared; the girl pulled them out with her hands, overcoming severe pain. But finally salvation came:

“At some point I heard the voices of several men. It was like the voices of angels. When they saw me they became alarmed and stopped talking. They thought I was some kind of water goddess - a figure from local legend."

At first local residents I had to help the surviving passenger on my own, only a day later Juliana fell into the hands of rescuers. The girl's mother was found two weeks after the crash. The woman survived, but received many injuries. Doctors fought for her life, but Maria Kepke died in the hospital.

Juliana wanted one thing - to forget the disaster as a nightmare, but she was unable to do this due to the persistent attention of journalists. The story of the girl's rescue formed the basis of the film Miracles Still Happen, filmed in 1974. Tired of being harassed by correspondents, Juliana completely refused interviews.

Only in the early 2000s was the girl able to talk about the crash again. She got in touch with director Werner Herzog, who planned to film documentary"Juliana's Fall into the Jungle." Ten years later, in 2011, Kepke wrote the book “When I Fell from the Sky.”

The girl became a mammalologist (a branch of zoology that studies mammals). The reasons for which that terrible plane crash occurred were never explained, so Juliana is still interested in the question of why crashes of this kind even occur:

“Ever since this happened to me, I have been following plane crashes. It is very important for me to know why they happen. It is important for me that there is an explanation. Our fall was never explained."

Kepke is not afraid to fly, but does not like to fly. When the plane hits turbulence, her palms begin to sweat and her heart begins to feel intense pressure.

To Khabarovsk. As previously reported, doctors diagnosed her with a compound fracture of her ankle and suspected a traumatic brain injury. Let us remind you that the child is the only surviving passenger of the L-410 plane, which crashed near the village of Nelkan on Wednesday afternoon. Besides her, there were six more people on board - all died.

The rescue of a girl who literally fell from the sky is already called a miracle. Meanwhile, this is far from an isolated case. The history of aviation knows many other times when people managed to survive the most monstrous disasters. Even if the chance of salvation was one in a million.

One of the last: when on June 20, 2011, a Tu-134 crashed near Petrozavodsk. There were 52 people on board. We flew at night, visibility was poor. During the landing approach, the plane hit a 50-meter pine tree. A couple of seconds later he was torn into pieces. But five survived. Including Alexander Kargopolov. Thrown out of the cabin by a monstrous force, she fell onto the arable land. It saved a life. I recovered quickly physically, but I couldn’t find peace of mind for several years. “You can’t cope with grief alone,” she admitted. “You always need someone to be nearby.”

One of the largest disasters occurred on August 12, 1985 in Japan. A Japan Airlines Boeing 747 carrying 524 passengers and crew took off from Tokyo to Osaka. 12 minutes after takeoff, the plane's tail came off. With incredible efforts, the pilots held the uncontrollable car for another 32 minutes... The airliner crashed in the mountains. Rescuers did not even hope to see survivors. The greater the shock when we discovered four (!) at once. They were all sitting where the casing had been torn apart.

On August 16, 1989, a Northwest Airlines DC-9 took off from Detroit Airport. There are 154 people on board, including 4-year-old Secilia Sichan, who was flying with her parents and older brother. As it took off, the plane began to rock. It hit the lighting mast and part of the left wing was torn off. DC-9 crashed to the ground...

One of the firefighters heard a thin squeak among the smoldering debris. Little Cecilia, who received severe fractures and burns, was the only one who managed to escape. She underwent four operations. The girl was taken into the family by her aunt and uncle. When Cecilia grew up, she got a tattoo of an airplane on her wrist. She admits that she is not at all afraid of flying: she is convinced that such horror simply cannot happen again.

And, of course, the story of the Russian woman Larisa Savitskaya is amazing. On August 24, 1981, a 20-year-old student was returning from a honeymoon with her husband Vladimir. We flew on an An-24 from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk. Over the city of Zavitinsk at an altitude of 5200 meters, their plane collided with a Tu-16 bomber.

Larisa was sleeping when she felt a strong blow. And she sank into a chair. For eight minutes she fell from a height of 5200 meters on a piece of aircraft 3 meters wide and 4 meters long. The only one of 38 people who survived. I spent two days before the rescuers arrived. She also managed to survive on earth. Doctors diagnosed her with a concussion, spinal injuries, and fractures. Then they wrote that compensation to the relatives of the victims amounted to 300 rubles. Larisa received... 75 rubles. Because she survived.

She got married and gave birth to a son. I was sick a lot. She said: she’s not at all afraid of flying on an airplane. “But when I talk about what happened, I am then tormented by insomnia,” Larisa admitted. That's why I avoided journalists.