How did the air hostess who fell from a height of ten kilometers survive?

Exactly 50 years ago today, an air hostess fell 33,000 feet or ten kilometers after a plane crash, but later lived to tell her tale.

According to the Guinness Book of Records, this is the record for a person surviving a fall without a parachute.

It so happened that on January 26, 1972, a JAT Yugoslavian Airlines plane was traveling from Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, to Belgrade, Serbia. A total of 28 people were on board, with 23-year-old Vesna Vilkovic serving as an air hostess.

Now call it a coincidence or a twist of fate that Vesna was not on duty that day but the airline mixed up her name with another airhostess named Vesna and sent her on the flight.

Vesna says she didn’t mark the mistake. He told Aviation Security magazine in an interview that he was keen to go to Denmark: ‘That little mistake meant I got the chance to go to Denmark for the first time. I was very happy. I had always dreamed of staying at the Sheraton Hotel and I got a room there for one night.’

Just an hour into the flight and the plane was flying over Czechoslovakia, there was a loud explosion in its baggage compartment, which separated the cockpit from the plane’s fuse box and split the rear section in two. .

As to what happened next, Vaisna’s mind is completely blank. She told The New York Times in an interview in 2008 that she was chatting with passengers and then found herself in a hospital when she regained consciousness.

However, according to the authorities investigating the accident, Vesna was in the back of the plane at the time of the explosion. The tail section fell 33,000 feet down into a snow-covered mountain area.

Seeing pieces of the ship falling from the sky, a woodcutter named Bruno Hondke rushed to the spot and rescued Vesna from the wreckage. In this accident, all the remaining 27 people were killed on the spot.

According to a website called ‘Live Science’, a person falling from a height of ten kilometers takes about three minutes to reach the ground and his speed is around 190 kilometers.

The exact cause of the crash is not known, but according to Yugoslavian authorities, terrorists from the Croatian nationalist group Utsasha planted a suitcase bomb on the plane.

How to save Vesna after falling from such a height?

According to a website called ‘Live Science’, a person falling from a height of ten kilometers takes about three minutes to reach the ground and his speed is around 190 kilometers.

Not only gravity acts on people falling from a plane, but also the wind. The vertical travel of a person falling from a height of several kilometers is greatly influenced by the wind and a sharp gust in the middle can blow him from place to place and also reduce his speed.

Vesna was fortunate to have been trapped inside the tail section of the craft and it is assumed that this section would have come down due to the flapping of the wings and the relatively low speed from the time of impact with the ground. must have been Moreover, the part hit the trees first inside the snow-covered forest and then plunged into the thick layer of snow, which further reduced the intensity of the impact, helping to save Vesna’s life.

Another reason given was that Vesna’s blood pressure was naturally low. She said during the interview that when she went to take the medical test to become an air hostess, she drank a lot of coffee beforehand so that her blood pressure would increase and she would not fail.

According to doctors, if Vanessa’s blood pressure was high, there was a possibility of her heart bursting. In addition, due to low blood pressure, their blood also flowed less than normal people.

The soul of Vaisna must remain, not the body. He suffered multiple injuries after the accident and had to spend several months in hospital for treatment. “The biggest injury was to the brain,” she says. I had a fractured skull and three vertebrae in my spine. One of the joints was completely shattered, due to which I could not move my legs.’

Apart from this, both his legs and ankle bone were also broken.

The doctors put me back together

Vesna was unable to move her body below the waist due to spinal injuries, but after two months she was able to walk.

‘I was broken, and the doctors put me back together,’ she told The New York Times. Nobody expected me to survive.’

The most amazing thing is that Vesna has no recollection of the accident.

She says that when she regained consciousness, she saw her parents in the hospital and asked, “What are you doing here?”

She says that when I was being transferred from one hospital to another hospital by plane for treatment, the doctors said that they would inject me to make me sleepy so that I would not feel scared on the plane. ‘I refused. I was thinking of traveling by plane again. Remember that no memory of the accident was preserved in my mind. To this day I enjoy traveling by plane and I am not afraid of it at all.’

This accident made Vesna a celebrity. Newspapers around the world published this news with headlines. A multinational company took responsibility for their treatment.

When he returned to his country of Yugoslavia, the then ruler, Marshal Tito, honored him.

Vesna requested Yugoslav Airlines to resume her duties as an air hostess, but the airline gave her ground work.

Vanessa says that she became so popular that people would recognize her on the plane and try to sit near her so that if there was an accident like before, they would also be safe because of Vanessa’s good fortune. be saved

However, Vaisna himself does not consider himself lucky. ‘Everyone thinks I’m lucky, but they’re wrong,’ she says. If I was really lucky, this accident would not have happened to me.’

Other lucky ones falling from ships

As amazing as Vesna’s story is, there are many other people who have fallen off ships and survived.

Because more ships were destroyed during World War II, more records for falling from height were also set during that war.

Among such persons, the one who fell from the highest height is Lieutenant Ivan Chislov of the Russian Air Force, whose plane was destroyed by German fighter planes at an altitude of 23,000 feet in 1942.

Chislov says that he deliberately did not open his parachute so that he could escape from the enemy planes and go down to open the parachute, but in the process, due to lack of oxygen, he fainted and fell to the ground.

In 1943, American aviator Alan Magee’s plane crashed over France during World War II. From a height of 22 thousand feet or six and a half kilometers, he fell on the roof of a train station and was seriously injured but survived.

During World War II, Russian aviator Nicholas Alchemide survived a plane crash from a height of 18,000 feet.

The famous television adventurers Bear Girls have also fallen from a plane without a parachute.

In 1996, he was practicing skydiving in the African country of Zambia when his parachute broke and he fell from a height of 16,000 feet.

How to save yourself if you fall from a plane?

According to the NPR website, if you ever find yourself in such a situation, there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of survival.

Smaller and lighter objects fall more slowly than heavier objects due to air resistance. Therefore, Rhett Allen, professor of physics at Southeastern Louisiana State University in the United States, says that ‘smaller people fall at a lower speed, so they have a better chance of survival.’

It is not in your control to be lighter or heavier, but while falling from a height of ten kilometers you can slightly change the direction of your fall by moving your hands and feet. So if possible, choose something soft to fall on.

• Elaine says it’s best to crash into a tree because tree branches can slow you down.

Similarly, the roof of a house, power lines or snowfields have proven to be better than hard ground.

• Don’t fall on your head

According to Elaine, NASA research shows that it’s best to lie on your back, that is, with your face facing the sky.

However, other experts say it is better to fall on your feet. They say that this way you can save lives by sacrificing your legs.

• To fall in the water or not to fall?

According to some experts, when water falls from a height, it feels like a rock. So it is not a good idea to fall into the water. Another problem is that even if you fall into the water and survive, the second step is to reach the tip of the arrow. Because it is likely that if injured from a fall from a height of miles, it will be difficult to swim again. So there is no point in avoiding falling from the sky and then drowning in the water.

However, Elaine believes that falling into the water can be a good strategy, provided one makes oneself as sharp as a pencil. Not sure what they mean by this suggestion.

Experts can’t agree on the best way to fall, some say fall on your feet, some say fall in water, some say no fall. Therefore, our advice is that the best way is to avoid falling and if falling is so necessary, then carefully carry a parachute.