Whether there were any survivors of the plane crashes. "I did not feel my body"
Each of these people was the sole survivor of the plane crash. K with a part of them is much more than 20 people (more precisely, 75), but here are selected those who survived among the largest number of victims or under very unusual circumstances, as well as children. Long life for them ...
All photos are taken at random, solely to illustrate plane crashes (not specific), airlines, planes and photos of survivors (if any).
09/05/1946, USA, Elko County (Nevada)
The Douglas DC-3 aircraft of Trans-Luxury Airlines, when approaching the destination airfield, collided with the ground. Probable cause- pilot error during spatial orientation in conditions of heavy fog. 20 people died, only two-year-old Peter Link survived, who was sitting in his mother's arms.01/28/1947, China, Wuhan city. And again a child, even younger ..
The Curtiss-Wright C-46 Commando of the National China Aviation Corporation crashed 30 minutes after leaving Wuhan. The reasons have not been established. 25 people died, only one and a half-year-old Paul Vick survived (there is no data where he was)
11/20/1949, Norway, commune Hurum
Airplane Douglas DC-3, airline Aero Holland. The plane crash occurred due to difficult weather conditions, which the crew was unable to overcome. The plane fell into the forest. Of the 30 passengers, 26 were children. 34 people died, including the crew, whether 12-year-old Isaac Allal survived.
10/30/1959, USA, Croset (Virginia)
Douglas C-47 Skytrain again, Piedmont Airlines Flight 349. Due to a crew error, the plane crashed into a 950-meter mountain (Bucks Elbow Mountain is 100 meters below its peak. Surviving Phil Bradley was thrown out of the fuselage during the impact, along with the seat on which he was waiting for the rescuers, wearing a seat belt. 26 people died. ...
08/09/1970, Peru, the city of Cuzco
Lockheed L-188 Electra, LANSA Flight 502. During the takeoff run along the runway, the third engine stalled and caught fire. Lockheed took off on three other engines, but the pilots requested an emergency landing and began a U-turn. The plane banked sharply to the left (35-40 degrees), after which it began to lose altitude, crashed into the ground and caught fire. Cause of disaster: overload, pilot error, inadequate maintenance. 101 people died, only 26-year-old pilot Huang Lu survived.
12/24/1971, also Peru, Arequipa region
Airplane Lockheed L-188 Electra, flight 508 of LANSA airlines, half an hour after takeoff, due to the fault of the pilots, it got into a thunderstorm, where it was struck by lightning. The plane began to collapse in the air at an altitude of 6400 meters and fell into the depths of the rainforest. Having received numerous injuries, the surviving passenger Juliana Köpke (19 years old) went out to the people after 9 days. She sat in the tail, the penultimate row on the right, by the window. 91 people died. Based on this tragedy, the film "Miracles Still Happen" was filmed.
January 26, 1972 aircraft DC-9-32 Jugoslovenski Aerotransport (JAT, international name - Yugoslav Airlines) made a flight on the route Stockholm - Copenhagen - Zagreb - Belgrade
An hour after takeoff, the DC-9 passed the next waypoint (Hermsdorf radio station in East Germany) and reached an altitude of 10 160 meters. Soon the plane unexpectedly collapsed: the bow part with the cockpit separated from the main body. 27 people died, only 22-year-old flight attendant Vesna Vulovich survived, the only woman in the world to survive a fall from such a height. Later, Spring was entered in the Guinness Book of Records, was treated for more than a year (the leg was paralyzed), but then returned to work for the same airline, albeit on ground work... She got married, has died today.
07/22/1973, French Polynesia, Tahiti, the city of Papeete
The Boeing 707-321B, Pan Am flight 816, took off from the airfield and rose to 100 meters, and then began to tumble to the left and plunged into the Pacific Ocean, plunging to a depth of about 700 meters. Flight recorders were not found. The causes of the disaster have not been established. 78 people were killed, only Neil Campbell, who was sitting in the middle of the plane, survived.
01/15/1979, USSR, in the vicinity of Minsk
An-24B plane, flight 7502 of Aeroflot airline crashed due to icing. The only surviving child is 13-year-old Victoria Bendeberya.
08.24.1981, USSR, Komsomolsk-on-Amur
An-24 aircraft, Aeroflot flight 811 collided with a Tu-16 bomber at an altitude of 5220 m. 37 people were killed. The only surviving woman, who fell from a height of 5200 meters, Larisa Savitskaya, 20 years old, sat in the tail. She lived for two days in the taiga, under the constant pouring rain, under a "tent" built by their own remnants of the plane. Doctors diagnosed her with a concussion, spinal injuries in five places, and fractures of the arm and ribs. She also lost almost all of her teeth.
01/21/1985, USA, Reno (Nevada)
Lockheed L-188A Electra aircraft, Galaxy Airlines Flight 203 (USA). Shortly after takeoff, a strong vibration began in the plane due to the opening of the hatch on the wing. The crew made a mistake in assessing the situation and reduced the thrust of the engines, deciding that the detonation was caused by a malfunction of the turbines. As a result, the plane lost speed and crashed onto the campsite. The only surviving passenger, 17-year-old George Lamson, along with the seat (seat 6B, left side, at the beginning of the cabin) was thrown from the fuselage seconds before the explosion, which ultimately saved his life. 70 people were killed.
08.16.1987, USA, Detroit Metropolitan (airport), McDonnell
Again, the Douglas DC-9-82, flight 255 of Northwest Airlines, when taking off with the flaps and slats from the runway not extended, the plane lost speed and crashed outside the runway. The cause of the disaster was the crew's mistake, which did not check the position of the flaps and slats before takeoff, and also the lack of electrical voltage in the take-off warning system, which was caused by deliberate disconnection of the electrical fuse. 156 people died, only four-year-old Cecelia Cichan survived.
12/11/1988, USSR, near Leninakan
IL-76M aircraft, USSR Air Force crashed, crashing into a mountain while landing. 77 people died. Only Fyodor Balakev survived, who at that moment was in the cargo hold, sleeping in the cab of the transported KamAZ.
5.10.1991, Indonesia, Halim Perdanakusuma airport, Jakarta
A Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft, an A-1324 of the Indonesian Air Force for some unknown (or hidden) reason, lost control and crashed into a training center of the Ministry of Labor. 135 people died, only one survived - Bambang Sumadi (English Bambang Sumadi) P n / a n / a
12/15/1997, UAE, Sharjah
The Tu-154 aircraft, flight 3183 of the Tajik airlines, during the landing approach, dropped below the required altitude, lost speed and fell into desert area... The cause of the crash was pilot error. 85 people died. Only 37-year-old navigator Sergei Petrov, who was in the cockpit, survived.
6.03.2003, Algeria, Tamanrasset
Boeing 737-200, flight 6289 Air Algerie. Engine failure during takeoff. 102 people died. Among the survivors, only one is 28-year-old Yousef Jillali.
27.08.2006, USA, Lexington (Kentucky)
Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet, Delta Connection Flight 5191. During takeoff, the pilots confused the runway number and began takeoff along a shorter runway. The takeoff run was not enough, so the plane rolled out of the runway, rammed an iron fence, crashed into trees, collapsed and caught fire. 49 people were killed, only 44-year-old co-pilot James Polekhinke, who was in the cockpit, survived.
06/30/2009, Comoros
Airbus А-310-300, flight IY 626 crashed while landing. 152 people died. Only 14-year-old Bahia Bakari survived, sitting in the aft section next to the window.
05/12/2010, Libya, Tripoli
Airbus A330-200, Flight 771 of Afriqiyah Airways crashed on landing due to crew error. 103 people died, only 9-year-old Ruben van Assou survived.
7.09.2011, Russia, Yaroslavl
Aircraft Yak-42D, flight AKY-9633 crashed during takeoff due to crew error. 44 people were killed. On board which were the hockey players of the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv. Only the 52-year-old engineer for aviation and radio-electronic equipment Alexander Sizov, who was sitting on the right in the last row, survived., Although the hockey player Alexander Galimov also survived, but after being delivered to Moscow, despite the efforts of doctors, the athlete, who received burns of more than 90% of the body surface, died.
Vesna Vulovich, Juliana Margaret Koepke, Lyudmila Savitskaya - these women from different countries unites one incredible circumstance. All of them miraculously survived air crashes that occurred in different years. The stories of these three women inevitably make you believe in miracles or destiny.
Vesna Vulovic
Vesna Vulovic is a stewardess of an airplane that flew on January 26, 1972 on the route Stockholm - Copenhagen - Zagreb - Belgrade. At the time of the crash, she was in the passenger compartment and instantly lost consciousness, and then for many years she remembered only the moment when she went aboard.
The wreckage of the plane was scattered no more than a kilometer, near the village of Serbska Kamenice in Czechoslovakia (now it is the territory of the Czech Republic). Later, experts will make the assumption that the plane crashed as a result of a terrorist attack, but the perpetrators will never be found.
Spring was in a coma when local resident Bruno found her. He checked her pulse and immediately went for the rescuers. It was clear: the girl's spine was damaged and it was absolutely impossible to touch her. The stewardess received multiple serious injuries that nearly cost her her life.
She was in a coma for 27 days, and then there was a long recovery period, she spent 16 months in the hospital. The doctors were sure that she would remain disabled for life. But Vesna, contrary to all forecasts, got on her feet, after four and a half years she was already walking normally and even returned to work at her airline. True, she was denied the right to fly, given a position in the office. But she remembered the moment of the plane crash 25 years later.
It is believed that in the air she was saved by loss of consciousness and low pressure. Vesna Vulovic is a Guinness Book of Records record holder who survived a fall from 10 120 meters.
Juliana Margaret Koepke
On December 24, 1971, 17-year-old Juliana flew with her mother from Lima Jorge Chavez airport to Iquitos. The plane was supposed to make a stopover at Pucallpa and continue on the route. There were 92 people on board the LANSA airline. Juliana was looking forward to the Christmas break she would spend with her father organizing various insect cards.
They were at the rear of the plane, admiring the wonderful views from the window. The plane began to enter the thunderstorm front, it began to shake violently. In an amicable way, as soon as danger arose, it was necessary to return to Lima, but both passengers and crew members were in a hurry to celebrate Christmas with their loved ones. The pilot made the wrong decision to continue the flight, hoping to safely bypass the danger zone.
Juliana watched the propeller work when it was this part of the plane that was struck by lightning. Everything that happened later, she recalled as slow motion in a movie: here the plane falls into pieces, and she, fastened with a seat belt to the seat, begins her endless fall down. She remembered how she circled in the air, how the earth was approaching rapidly, and how the dense green crowns of the trees on the ground swallowed her along with the debris. And only at the moment of contact with the ground, the girl lost consciousness.
She came to her senses for a long time, the whole day. And then, being in shock, I did not even feel pain from the serious injuries received. She had multiple cuts, she broke her collarbone, she had a torn popliteal ligament, all signs of a concussion. She lost her glasses and could not see normally even with one eye, while the other was completely swollen due to a severe bruise on her face.
But having recovered a little and rallied her strength, Juliana realized that it was pointless to wait for help, the wreckage at the crash site was not visible to the search planes because of the dense greenery. She remembered the survival lessons her father had given her, and went downstream the stream she had discovered to follow it to the river and to the people. Later, an examination will establish that at the time of the fall, at least 15 more passengers were still alive, but, unfortunately, they did not wait for the help of rescuers.
Juliana reached the empty loggers' hut 10 days after the disaster. A day later, local residents found her under a canopy. They even mistook her for the water goddess who came down from heaven. She was given first aid, fed and warmed, removed some of the fly larvae from her wounds and floated down the river to the town of Turnavista, where they began to inject her with an antibiotic and completely cleansed the wounds from the worms that had settled there. From Turnavista, Juliana was transported to Pulcapa Hospital, where she finally met her father.
In 1974, the feature film "Miracles Still Happen" will be released about her. This picture will help Larisa Savitskaya survive the plane crash.
Larisa Savitskaya
20-year-old Larisa was returning with her husband from a honeymoon trip to Blagoveshchensk on August 24, 1981. They sat in the tail of the plane, Larisa dozed off in her seat, then felt a very strong jolt, and immediately behind him was simply unbearable cold. She flew a meter away from her chair, and before her eyes stood the frames of the film, which she watched not so long ago. The heroine survived the plane crash. Larisa took this memory as a guide to action. She reached the chair by the window, grabbed it with all her might and flew down with it. It was this chair that ultimately saved her life. The crash occurred as a result of a collision with a military aircraft.
Her fall lasted 8 minutes. The blow was softened by birch crowns. Larisa was found on August 27 with serious injuries in a state of deep shock. She survived, learned to walk and was even able to give birth to a son in 1986.
She received the minimum compensation for damage - only 75 rubles. The very fact of this disaster was kept secret for many years. The girl's parents and Larisa herself were ordered not to tell anyone about what happened. Only twenty years later, the details of the terrible crash were made public, and Larisa Savitskaya was able to tell about that terrible day.
The film that helped Larisa Savitskaya to survive - "Miracles still happen"
These three girls can be called almost lucky, they managed to survive. They are still trying to unravel the mystery of the death of the young peacekeeper in a plane crash.
The statistics stubbornly show that in terms of safety, aviation costs significantly more than motor vehicles. In the United States, more people die in car accidents every year than in plane crashes in the entire history of air travel.
But even those who are in trouble in the air still have a chance. Even if this is one chance in a million. Here are seven stories of those who pulled out their lucky ticket while on the verge of death.
Cecilia Xichan
On August 16, 1989, take off from Detroit airport regular flight- McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 of Northwest Airlines. There were 154 people on board, including a 4-year-old girl Cecilia Sichan. Her parents and her six-year-old brother flew with her.
The liner began to swing already on takeoff, it touched the lighting mast with its left wing, part of the wing came off and caught fire. Then the plane tilted to the right, and another wing punctured the roof of the car rental office. The plane crashed onto the highway, falling apart, and burst into flames. The debris and bodies of the victims were scattered over an area of over half a mile.
Worked at the crash site fireman John Tied heard a thin squeak and saw a child's pen among the wreckage. A 4-year-old girl with a skull fracture, a broken leg and collarbone, and third-degree burns was the only survivor of the disaster. She underwent four skin grafts but managed to fully recover.
Cecilia was raised by her aunt and uncle. When the girl grew up, she got a tattoo on her wrist in the form of an airplane, in memory of that tragic and happy day.
Sessilia admits that she is not at all afraid to fly airplanes, guided by a principle that is well known in Russia - if this has already happened to her once, the likelihood of a repetition of this is negligible. Simply put, the shell does not hit the same funnel twice.
Larisa Savitskaya
On August 24, 1981, 20-year-old student Larisa Savitskaya was returning from her honeymoon trip with her husband Vladimir. The An-24 plane was on a flight from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk. An-24 collided with a Tu-16 bomber over the city of Zavitinsk at an altitude of 5200 meters. The collision killed the crews of both aircraft. An-24 broke into several parts and began to fall. Larisa, who was sleeping in her seat in the tail of the plane, woke up from a strong blow and a sudden burn caused by the depressurization of the cabin at altitude.
Another break in the fuselage threw her into the passage, but Larisa managed to get back into the chair. As she recalled later, she remembered the Italian film Miracles Still Happen, where the heroine escaped in a similar situation, squeezing into a chair. Larisa herself admitted that she did not believe in salvation, but simply wanted to “die slightly”.
The surviving part of the aircraft's hull fell onto a birch grove, which softened the blow. Experts later established that Larisa Savitskaya fell within 8 minutes from a height of 5200 meters on a wreck of an aircraft measuring 3 meters wide and 4 meters long.
From the blow, she lost consciousness for several hours, but then came to herself and was able to move independently.
In the forest alone, among the corpses and debris, the girl spent two days, managing to build herself even a semblance of shelter from the weather.
Rescuers who reached the crash site were shocked to see the girl. Larisa Savitskaya was the only one of 38 people who was lucky enough to survive this plane crash.
The search engines were so sure of her death that a grave was already prepared for the woman, as well as for other victims. Doctors diagnosed her with a concussion, spinal injuries in five places, and fractures of the arm and ribs. She also lost almost all of her teeth.
Larisa Savitskaya was twice included in the Guinness Book of Records: as a person who survived a fall from a maximum height, and as a person who received the minimum amount of compensation for physical damage in a plane crash - 75 rubles (in 1981 money).
Vesna Vulovic
On January 26, 1972, a Yugoslav passenger plane Douglas DC-9, en route from Copenhagen to Zagreb, exploded in the air near the village of Serbska Kamenice in Czechoslovakia at an altitude of 10 160 meters. The cause of the tragedy, according to the Yugoslav authorities, was a bomb hidden aboard an airliner by Croatian Ustasha terrorists.
The plane, torn to pieces, began to fall down. In the middle section there was a 22-year-old flight attendant Vesna Vulovich. Spring was not supposed to be on that flight - she replaced her colleague and namesake - Vesna Nikolic.
The wreckage of the plane fell onto the snow-covered trees, softening the blow. But the luck for the girl was not only this - she was first discovered in an unconscious state by the local peasant Bruno Honke, who worked in a German field hospital during the war years and knew how to provide first aid.Immediately after that, the flight attendant, the only survivor of the crash, was taken to the hospital. Vesna Vulovic spent 27 days in a coma and 16 months in a hospital bed, but still survived. In 1985, she was included in the Guinness Book of Records for the highest jump without a parachute, having received a certificate from the hands of her musical idol, a member of the famous Beatles, Paul McCartney.
Erica Delgado
On January 11, 1995, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-14 aircraft flew from Bogota to Cartagena with 47 passengers and 5 crew members on board.
Due to the failure of the altimeter during the landing approach, the plane literally crashed in a swampy area. 9-year-old Erica Delgado, who was flying with her parents and her younger brother, was thrown from the plane at the moment when it began to fall apart. The girl later said that her mother pushed her out of the liner.
The plane exploded and caught fire. Erica fell into a pile of seaweed, which softened the blow, but could not get out. According to her recollections, looting immediately began at the site of the disaster: from her, from the living, one of local residents tore off the gold necklace and disappeared, ignoring requests for help. After a while, the girl was found by her screams and pulled out of the swamp by a local farmer. Erica Delgado, the only survivor of the crash, escaped with only a broken arm.
Julianne Dealer Cap
On December 24, 1971, the Lockheed L-188 Electra of the Peruvian airline LANSA entered a vast thunderstorm area, was struck by lightning and was severely affected by turbulence. The plane began to collapse in the air at an altitude of 3.2 kilometers and fell deep into the rainforest, about 500 kilometers from the capital of the country, Lima.
17-year-old schoolgirl Julianne Kepke was strapped to one of the chairs in a row that broke off from the rest of the hull. The girl fell in the midst of the raging elements, while the piece rotated like a helicopter blade. This, as well as the fall into the dense crowns of trees, softened the blow.
After the fall, Julianne's collarbone was broken, her arm was badly scratched, her right eye was swollen from the blow, her whole body was covered with bruises and scratches. Nevertheless, the girl did not lose her ability to move. It also helped that Julianna's father was a biologist and taught her the rules of survival in the forest. The girl was able to get her food, then found a stream and went downstream. After 9 days, she herself went to the fishermen, who saved Julianne.
Based real story Julianne Kepke made several feature films, including Miracles Still Happen - the one that will help Larisa Savitskaya survive in a plane crash ten years later.
Bahia Bakari
On June 30, 2009, the Airbus А-310-300 of the Yemeni airline flew flight 626 from Paris to the Comoros with a transfer in the capital of Yemen, Sana'a.
Among the passengers was 13-year-old Bahia Bakari, who flew with her mother from France to the Comoros to visit her grandparents. The plane crashed into the Indian Ocean in the territorial waters of Comoros just minutes before landing. What exactly happened, the girl does not remember, since at the time of the catastrophe she was asleep. Bahia herself believes that she was thrown through the window.
When she fell, she received multiple bruises and broke her collarbone. However, a new test awaited her - it was necessary to survive in the water until the arrival of rescuers. The girl managed to climb onto one of the aircraft wreckage that remained afloat. She spent nine hours on it, according to Bakari herself, although some sources claim that rescuers found her only 14 hours after the disaster.
The surviving passenger was found by fishermen, who took her to the hospital. Not everyone believed in the possibility of such a rescue - there were rumors that the girl was thrown out of the boat by illegal immigrants, since Bahia has a suitable appearance.
The girl was taken to Paris by a special plane, where the then President of France visited her in the hospital. Nicolas Sarkozy.
Bahia Bakari was the only survivor of the 153 people on board. Six months after the disaster, Bakari published her autobiography The Survivor.
"Lucky Four"
On August 12, 1985 in Japan, there was the largest accident in the world aviation with the participation of one aircraft in terms of the number of victims.
The Jepan Airlines Boeing 747SR flew from Tokyo to Osaka. Onboard there were 524 passengers and a crew member. 12 minutes after takeoff, during the climb of 7,500 meters, the vertical tail stabilizer broke off the aircraft, resulting in depressurization, the pressure in the cabin dropped and all hydraulic systems of the airliner failed.
The plane became uncontrollable and was virtually doomed. Nevertheless, the pilots managed to keep the airliner in the air for another 32 minutes with incredible efforts. As a result, he suffered a disaster near Mount Takamagahara, 100 kilometers from Tokyo.
The airliner crashed in a mountainous area, and rescuers managed to reach it only the next morning. They did not hope to meet the survivors.
However, the search group found four alive at once - a 24-year-old flight attendant. Yumi Ochiai, 34-year-old Hiroko Yoshizaki with her 8 year old daughter Mikiko and 12 year old Keiko Kawakami.
Rescuers found the first three on the ground, and 12-year-old Keiko - sitting in a tree. It was there that the girl was thrown at the time of the death of the liner.
The four survivors were nicknamed "The Lucky Four" in Japan. During the flight, all of them were in the tail compartment, in the area where the plane's skin was torn.
Many more people could have survived in this monstrous disaster. Keiko Kawakami later said that she heard the voice of her father and other wounded. As the doctors later established, many of the Boeing's passengers died on the ground from wounds, cold and painful shock, since the rescue teams did not try to get to the crash site at night. As a result, 520 people became victims of the crash.
