The incredible story of Juliane Koepcke who survived free-falling 3,000m out of a plane over the Peruvian rain forest

[editor]

This is one hell of a story:

Juliane Diller’s mother had booked herself and her daughter seats in the penultimate row of Lansa flight 508 from Lima to Pucallpa in Peru, to reunite with her husband for the Christmas holidays. Diller was sitting next to the window, so when a bolt of lightning struck the plane’s right-hand wing, she had a clear view.

She describes seeing a gleaming white light around the outer of the two wing-mounted engines. When the plane lurched forward, her row of three seats dislocated from its mounting and she could see all the way down the aisles as it nosedived to the ground. It was 24 December 1971, and she could make out the shapes of Christmas presents and boxes with festive panettone cakes as they tumbled from the hand-luggage compartment. She heard her mother next to her say, “Now it’s all over” in an oddly calm voice, “as if it came from another world,” says Diller.


The next moment, she was outside the plane, and could sense that her mother was no longer sitting next to her. Beneath her she could see an expanse of different shades of green. “In that moment it was crystal clear to me that I was falling from the sky. I was in freefall. And that’s when the film cuts out”.

Diller regained consciousness an hour after she had fallen from the sky. She was lying, soaked in mud, underneath the same row of seats she had sat on inside the plane. Its propeller-like movement during the fall probably slowed down her descent and cushioned her from the impact on the rainforest canopy. Miraculously, she sustained no major injuries other than concussion, a broken collarbone, a cruciate ligament tear in her left knee and a gash on her upper arm that was deep but not bleeding.

A bolt of lightning struck my plane – and I plunged 3,000m into a rainforest

Juliane Diller was 17 when the aircraft she and her mother were on exploded. Of the 92 people on board, Juliane was the only survivor – and it would take her 11 days to walk to safety

www.theguardian.com

Juliane Koepcke: How I survived a plane crash

Juliane Koepcke was flying over the Peruvian jungle when her plane was hit by lightning, she plummeted two miles to the jungle floor and survived

www.bbc.com

 

[Indeliblelink]

Have you seen Herzog's documentary about her where they go back to Peru and discover the crash site?

ETA
Wings of Hope 1998

 

[skyscraper101]

Great story. I can't imagine how scary going through all that was.

 

[weltweit]

What a story ..

 

[planetgeli]

It is a great story. It's also a very old story?

You won't believe what happened next with plane crashes in Peru...

Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Yossarian]

Amazing story - the grimmest part is how her mother and 13 others survived the crash with more serious injuries and died at the site

It's believed 14 people survived the impact, but were not well enough to trek out of the jungle like Juliane.

The cause of the crash was officially listed as an intentional decision by the airline to send the plane into hazardous weather conditions.

Juliane later learned the aircraft was made entirely of spare parts from other planes.

This teenager fell 3km to Earth and lived. But her fight to stay alive was just beginning

The sole survivor of a plane crash, Juliane Koepcke found herself totally alone in the Amazon rainforest. But this 17-year-old was no ordinary teenager.

www.abc.net.au

 

[weltweit]

Bit of a headfuck, being the only survivor.

The only one .. just one ..