On January 26, 1972, Vesna Vulović, found herself earning a Guinness World Record for something that no person would ever want to achieve.
On that fateful day, the 23-year-old flight attendant found herself aboard JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367.
Amazingly, Vulović wasn't even supposed to be flight, but due to a mix-up with another crew member who shared her first name, it took off with her onboard.
Little did she know, this flight from Stockholm to Belgrade - making a stopover in Copenhagen - would etch her name into the annals of miraculous survival stories... and the Guinness World Record books.
The flight was routine until it traversed over Czechoslovakia. There, an explosion believed to be caused by a briefcase bomb tore the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 aircraft into three pieces. The plane crashed, killing everyone on board except for Vesna.
She survived a fall of over 33,000 feet — over 6 miles — without a parachute, a record that remains unbeaten (after all, who would want to be it?).
Vesna’s survival was nothing short of miraculous. She was pinned in the tail section of the fuselage by a food cart, which is believed to have helped cushion her fall. Additionally, the fuselage itself landed in a snow-covered, heavily wooded area near Srbská Kamenice in Czechoslovakia, hitting the ground at an angle that improbably favored her survival.
Moreover, Vesna's physicians theorized that her low blood pressure caused her to pass out quickly during the cabin's depressurization, preventing her heart from bursting upon impact.
Local villager and former World War II medic Bruno Honke discovered Vesna screaming in the wreckage. He provided first aid until she could be transported to a hospital. Despite her grave injuries, which included a fractured skull, broken legs, and a crushed spine, she astoundingly regained the ability to walk after a ten-month recovery, albeit with a limp.
Vesna’s brush with death turned her into a national icon in Yugoslavia.
She was honored by President Josip Broz Tito and even had a song titled 'Vesna Stjuardesa' ('Vesna the Stewardess') penned by Serbian folk singer Miroslav Ilić.
Her story reached a poignant climax in 1985 when Paul McCartney, whose music she grew up listening to, presented her with a Guinness World Record medal for the highest fall survived without a parachute.
The official cause of the crash was a terrorist attack, with suspicions pointing towards the Croatian ultranationalist group, the Ustashe. However, alternative theories, including one that posited the aircraft was shot down by a missile at a much lower altitude, circulated for years. These were eventually debunked by comprehensive analyses of the flight data retrieved from the aircraft’s black boxes.
In 2002, Vesna told security training firm Green Light Limited: "My colleagues had a feeling that something would happen to them. The captain was locked in his room for 24 hours. He didn’t want to go out at all."
After her recovery, Vesna continued to work for JAT in a desk role but was dismissed in the 1990s for participating in protests against Slobodan Milošević, then President of Serbia. Her defiance extended beyond her survival; she was an active voice against nationalism, fearing its rise in her home country.
"I am like a cat, I have had nine lives," she had told the New York Times. "But if nationalist forces in this country prevail, my heart will burst."
Vesna Vulović passed away in December 2016 at the age of 66, but her legacy endures not only as a record-holder but as a symbol of indomitable spirit and resilience.
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