A soft touchdown after a stabilized approach down the glide slope is fine, a plunge nose first into the Atlantic ocean is not. [18] Although she was advised by physicians that her injuries would not have an adverse effect on her reproductive function, Vulovi experienced an ectopic pregnancy that nearly proved fatal and was never able to have children. Physics. All of the other 27 passengers and crew on board died. She suffered a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae, broken legs, broken ribs, and a fractured pelvis. Incredibly, Vulovic was found alive, trapped by a food cart in either the center section or the tail section of the jet, depending on sources. How Vesna Vulovi Survived A 33,330 Feet Fall Out Of The Sky Her Plane Exploded 33,000 Feet In The Air - And Somehow Vesna Vulovi Survived The Fall By Katie Serena Published June 4, 2018 Updated June 2, 2021 In the end, the very thing that almost prevented Vesna Vulovi from becoming a flight attendant is what ultimately kept her alive. The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, landed at Copenhagen Airport at 2:30p.m., whereupon Vulovi and her colleagues boarded the plane. The tail landed in a heavily wooded and snow-blanketed part of a mountainside, which was thought to have cushioned the impact. Her physicians believe her low blood pressure kept her heart from bursting on impact with the mountainside. The captain, Vulovi would later recall, spent 24 hours locked in his room, refusing to go out at all. Vulovi was fired from JAT in the early 1990s after taking part in anti-government protests during the breakup of Yugoslavia, but avoided arrest as the government was concerned about the negative publicity that her imprisonment would bring. Scan of the English Translation of the Official Report. First was Copenhagen in Denmark, which is where the secondary cabin crew - including Vesna - boarded the plane. The cause of Flight 367s explosion and subsequent crash has been subject to several conspiracy theories over the years, the most popular of which suggested that the plane was mistakenly shot down by Czechoslovak anti-air missiles at a much lower altitude of 800 metres (2,600 ft). VESNA Vulovic, a Serbian air hostess who survived the highest ever fall after a plane exploded mid-air, has died aged 66. [9] A man, describing himself as a Croatian nationalist, called the Swedish newspaper Kvllsposten the following day and claimed responsibility for the bombing of Flight 367. View our online Press Pack. In January 1972 she was working as a flight attendant a Yugoslav Airlines DC-9 plane when it blew up over the snowy mountain ranges of what was then Czechoslovakia. The rest of the 28 crew and passengers flew to their deaths when the cabin depressurized but she was trapped by the food cart. "The man who found me told me that I was in the middle part of the plane," she said. When I told my parents I was living in the Swedish capital, they thought of the drugs and the sex and told me to come home at once." Her recognition in Yugoslavia, and subsequently Serbia, where she lived in the capital, Belgrade, provided Vulovic with a platform for political causes. Other crew members saw him, as did the station manager in Copenhagen. GET IN TOUCH WITH A RECORD SPECIALIST (Opens in a new window), Rumeysa Gelgi, tallest woman living, breaks three new records, Love is in the air as highest speed dating event record is set on board jet plane. Moreover, her fall was cushioned by the snow on the mountains. [8] Yugoslav authorities suspected that they were to blame for bringing down Flight 367. However, this claim was debunked by flight data obtained from the aircrafts black boxes, which provided exact data regarding the planes altitude, acceleration, direction and speed at the time of the explosion. Folk Figure. Thehorrors of Mariupol should remind us of a new danger to Sarajevo, Russians using Serbian loophole to avoid EU flights ban, Russia may pressure Serbia to undermine western Balkans, leaders warn. YouTubeVesna Vulovi recovering in the hospital. Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? After being taken to a hospital in Prague, Vesna Vulovi spent several days in a coma recovering. Thank you for the link! She said in 2008 that she could only recall greeting passengers before takeoff from the airport in Denmark, and then waking up in hospital with her mother at her side. Physics questions and answers. She was the sole survivor. On the 26th of January 1972, Vesna Vulovi was a flight attendant onboard JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367. While many other passengers were sucked out of the plane after the explosion, Vulovi became pinned by the cart. The low blood pressure meant she passed out when the cabin depressurized and was later able to make a full recovery. Investigators believed that the fuselage, with Vulovi pinned inside, landed at an angle in a heavily wooded and snow-covered mountainside, which cushioned the impact. A German man, upon arriving at the crash site, found all of the planes passengers dead, save one. Serbian survivor of fall from plane explosion dies at 66 Vulovic later recalled: I saw all the passengers and crew deplane [at Copenhagen Airport]. But, the plane never made it to the second stopover in Croatia. Her physicians believe her low blood pressure kept her heart from bursting on impact with the mountainside. He didn't want to go out at all. On January 26, 1972, Vulovic was working aboard DC-9-32 YU-AHT, flying between Stockholm and Belgrade as JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367, with scheduled stopovers in Copenhagen and Zagreb. I didnt know about this one. The theory has also been dismissed by the Civilian Aviation Authority and Czech army experts. Your email address will not be published. The explosion and crash killed everyone on board. [27], On the basis of her conversations with Honke, Vulovi disputed the assertion that she was discovered in the rear section of the DC-9, as claimed in some reports. How stewardess plummeted 33,000ft and SURVIVED when plane was - The Sun [1] She was in a coma for three days, Glenday said. But Vulovic was not supposed to be on the doomed flight. Investigation could not be manipulated because it involved members of the Yugoslav Party and independent professionals.. Landing They never reached the second stopover in Zagreb, Croatia. She suffered a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae, broken legs, broken ribs, and a fractured pelvis. In Belgrade, Vulovi's hospital room was placed under 24-hour police protection because authorities feared that the perpetrators of the bombing would wish to kill her. Vulovi's parents told her that she first learned of the crash about two weeks after it occurred. [3] Vulovi's hospitalization lasted until June 1972, after which she travelled to Montenegro to recuperate at a seaside resort, where her doctors visited her every two or three days. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. YouTubeThe same type of aircraft that Vesna Vulovi was on before her fall. She was the sole survivor after a briefcase bomb exploded in the baggage compartment of JAT Flight 367 on 26 January 1972, causing it to crash near Srbsk Kamenice, Czechoslovakia. Air safety investigators attributed the explosion to a briefcase bomb. Reminded me of the British airman who fell out a Lancaster at 18,000 feet and survived. The Flight took off from Copenhagen at 15:15. Vesna Vulovic, Flight Attendant Who Survived Jetliner Blast, Dies at 66 Tommy Mardell, who took the above photograph and many more photographs, including more great portraits of Vulovi, contacted me about this post. TIL flight attendant Vesna Vulovi holds the record for surviving the highest fall (33,330 feet) without a parachute after an explosion tore through plane's baggage compartment. The last thing I remember is boarding the plane by the rear door and seeing a few women cleaning the plane.. But this post is written to imply that Vesna fell 33,000 feet. Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? [3] Her pelvis was fractured and several ribs broken. Earlier this week, a 102-year-old woman survived after toppling from her fourth-floor balcony in Turin. Another Vesna should have been working. A bomb, which may have been planted in the front baggage compartment of the plane, exploded onboard when the aircraft was at 33,330 ft. Vulovic was in the tail section that fell to Earth. A low-level incident would perhaps help to explain Vulovics unlikely survival, although such theories remain unverified and would rely on elaborate falsification of chemical traces and other evidence of an explosion on board. Your email address will not be published. (AAP) "Everybody thinks I am lucky, but they a mistaken. What amount of force did she have to withstand? Vulovi made an almost complete recovery but continued to walk with a limp. We'll use the information you provide us to contact you via email about our relevant content, products and services. Vesna Vulovic, a Serbian stewardess who miraculously survived a plunge from 33,000 feet after her plane exploded in mid-air in 1972, died last week. Yugoslav air stewardess Vesna Vulovic survived a fall of 33,000 feet from an exploding airliner. [3][6], Air safety investigators attributed Vulovi's survival to her being trapped by a food cart in the DC-9's fuselage as it broke away from the rest of the aircraft and plummeted towards the ground. More recently, a daredevil named Brad Guy survived a skydiving accident which saw him crash to the ground from 14,000ft in 2013. Vesna Vulovic, a flight attendant for JAT Yugoslav Airlines in 1972, set a Guinness world record when she fell some 33,000 feet and lived.Vulovic's odds-defying plunge, which happened following an explosion of the DC-9 she was flying in, is one of the most remarkable accident-survival stories of all time, and made her a national hero in Yugoslavia. An airplane that is still intact usually only achieves this in a parabolic flight, during aerobatics, and maybe you can say its free falling when you put it into a stall during training. Next, the fuselage separated from the rest of the plane and hurtled towards the ground in a heavily wooded area. "I am like a cat, I have had nine lives," she told the New York Times. "If you can survive what I survived," she said, "you can survive anything. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. The world's highest stuff: notes, basketball shots, backflips and more! The investigation said it was because she was away from the blast in the back, but Vulovi and eyewitnesses deny this. The aircraft, piloted by captain Ludvik Razdrih and first officer Ratko Mihi, broke into three pieces and spun out of control, crashing near the village of Srbsk Kamenice in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic ). Talking about the same, Craig Glenday, Editor and Chief, Guinness World Records said, Vesna Vulovis story, for me, is one of the most incredible survival stories if, in fact, not the most impressive that we have here at Guinness World Records. All Rights Reserved. JAT Flight 367 - Wikipedia FacebookTwitterYouTubeInstagramLinkedInSnapchatPinterestTiktok, Registered Office: Ground Floor, The Rookery, 2 Dyott Street, London, WC1A 1DE, United Kingdom, Otto - Longest human tunnel travelled through by a skateboarding dog, Ashrita Furman - Most Guinness World Records titles held. Read about our approach to external linking. Vesna Vulovic's miraculously survived a fall of 10,058 metres without a parachute a world record and fearlessly flew afterward, having no memory of the event Author of the article: The . A catering trolley was pinned against my spine and kept me in the plane.". [6] Nobody ever expected me to live this long. However, she never regained any memory of the incident or her subsequent rescue. A young Vesna Vulovi in her flight attendant uniform. In the first paragraph of her Wikipedia entry and every news article about her, it says that she is in the Guinness Book of Records for surviving the highest fall without a parachute. Vesna Vulovi (Yugoslavia, b. Their theory suggested another case of mistaken identity, with the Czechoslovak authorities covering up the evidence of what really happened. The incredible story of Vesna Vulovi, a flight attendant who fell 33,333 feet and survived "She wasn't even supposed to be on duty on the day of the fatal flight. ex JU ops employee. [5] The explosion caused the aircraft to break apart over the Czechoslovak village of SrbskKamenice. [4], Vulovi's parents both died within a few years of the crash. If I were lucky I would never had this accident," she said. Vesna Vulovic, from Serbia, was working as a flight attendant on a Yugoslav Airlines DC-9 plane when a bomb brought the plane down in Czechoslovakia on 26 January 1972. As the cabin depressurized, the passengers and other flight crew were believed to have been sucked out of the plane into freezing temperatures, falling to their deaths. I felt for them. After leaping out of a plane with his instructor, thrill-seeking Brad's chute ripped after opening at 4,000ft and he was left spiralling helplessly towards the ground. Theres no reference to Vesna Vulovi at all and the category simply doesnt exist. Vesna Vulovi was found dead by her friends in her. Doctors had never expected her to live that long, and indeed from the moment she awoke, she surprised them all. But heres the oddity that caught my eye. This brought the aircraft close to a sensitive military area, where it was perceived as a threat and shot down by Czech aircraft. On This Day in 1918: The tallest man ever is born, Prizes dont come any bigger: World's tallest man Sultan Kosen visits British school after competition win, The tragic death of Robert Wadlow, the tallest man ever, How to set or break a Guinness World Records title. And rightly, she is celebrated as being one of the most remarkable human beings that have ever lived, Glenday added. Highest fall survived without parachute | Guinness World Records Vesna Vulovi: The Woman Who Fell From Heaven. Vesna, however, seemed to have been trapped at the rear of the aircraft, probably pinned into the back of the fuselage by the drinks trolley, he revealed. That is all. We're loathe to start on a negative note, but the chances of an average individual surviving a plane crash are slim to none. In Yugoslavia she was celebrated as a national hero. I'm interested, but, "The four crew members were held in custody for two weeks as they were deemed a flight risk." [13] "Nobody ever expected me to live this long," she recounted in 2008. [6] She received the recognition at a London gala from musician Paul McCartney. Remembering Vesna Vulovi, flight attendant who survived 10,000 - CBC State TV in Vulovic's home country of Serbia . Im afraid that both of these statements are untrue. ", Fighter jets are roaring over my home in Sudan, Russia launches missile attacks on Ukraine, MasterChef Australia host Jock Zonfrillo dies. [4], Vulovi told reporters that she did not think of her fall every day, but admitted to struggling with survivor's guilt. No. Although she passed away in December 2016 at the age of 66, Vesna Vulovi will live on forever as an anti-nationalist heroine. Although Vulovic sustained a fractured skull, two crushed vertebrae, a broken pelvis, two broken legs, and several broken ribs, she was still conscious and her cries for help had been heard in the dark by a woodsman who was among the rescue team. In her home country of Yugoslavia, Vesna Vulovi became a national icon, honoured by the President of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito. Last year, exactly 40 years after the incident, Czech magazine Technet wrote about the incident and referred to the report as a conspiracy theory.