World Politics4 min(s) read
Woman who survived 33,000ft fall from plane without a parachute makes haunting admission 40 years later
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A woman who survived a 33,000ft fall without a parachute after a plane she was in exploded has made a haunting admission decades later.
On January 26, 1972, Vesna Vulović, then 23 years old, was working as a flight attendant 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.
The flight, which was due to travel from Stockholm to Belgrade began as normal until it reached the skies over Czechoslovakia, when an explosion believed to be caused by a briefcase bomb tore the McDonnell Douglas DC-9 aircraft into three pieces.
The plane crashed and everyone on board was killed, except for Vulović.
She survived a fall of over 33,000 feet — over 6 miles — without a parachute, a record that remains unbeaten in the Guinness World Records.
Her survival was a miracle - 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.
Vulović's doctors also theorized that her low blood pressure caused her to pass out quickly during the cabin's depressurization, preventing her heart from bursting upon impact.
She was discovered screaming in the wreckage by local villager and former World War II medic Bruno Honke, who gave her first aid until she could be transported to a hospital.
Despite suffering serious injuries, including 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.
Following her incredible survival, Vulović became a national icon in Yugoslavia, 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.
She was presented with a Guinness World Record medal for the highest fall survived without a parachute in 1985 by Beatles star Paul McCartney, whose music she grew up listening to.
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, Vulović 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, Vulović 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."
In 2012, 40 years after her miraculous survival, Vulović admitted that she lived with guilt for being the sole survivor when everyone else was killed in the crash.
She told the Independent: "Whenever I think of the accident, I have a prevailing, grave feeling of guilt for surviving it and I cry ... Then I think maybe I should not have survived at all."
Vulović also revealed that she had no memory of the crash itself, adding: "I do not remember the accident at all, just my waking up in the Czech hospital the next day and asking a doctor for a cigarette.
"The last thing I remember before the accident is passengers boarding the flight in Copenhagen and nothing else until my coming out from coma at the hospital."
Vesna Vulović died in December 2016 at the age of 66, from natural causes after suffering from heart ailments for several years. Her friends had become concerned for her welfare after she abruptly stopped answering phone calls and a locksmith was called to force open her door, leading to her body being found in her Belgrade apartment on December 23, believed to be the day she died.