Diaries of survivors of a plane crash in Siberia. They have already dug a grave for me. "Lucky Four" in the largest disaster in terms of number of victims

Statistics stubbornly show that aviation is much higher in terms of safety than motor transport. In the United States, more people die each year in car accidents than have died in plane crashes in the history of air travel.

But even those who suffer disaster in the air still have a chance. Even if it's a one in a million chance. Here are seven stories of those who pulled out their lucky ticket while on the verge of death.

Cecilia Sichan

On August 16, 1989, a regular flight began taking off from Detroit Airport - McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 of Northwest Airlines. There were 154 people on board, including a 4-year-old girl, Cecilia Sichan. Her parents and six-year-old brother were flying with her.

The airliner began to sway already on takeoff; its left wing touched the lighting mast, part of the wing broke off and caught fire. The plane then pitched to the right and the other wing crashed through the roof of a car rental office. The plane crashed onto the highway, broke into pieces, and caught fire. Debris and victims' bodies were scattered over an area of ​​more than half a mile.

Worked at the crash site firefighter John Tied I heard a thin squeak and saw a child’s hand among the rubble. A 4-year-old girl, who suffered a fractured skull, a broken leg and collarbone and third-degree burns, was the only one who managed to survive the disaster. She underwent four skin graft surgeries but managed to make a full recovery.

Cecilia was raised by her aunt and uncle. When the girl grew up, she got a tattoo on her wrist in the shape of an airplane, in memory of that tragic and happy day.

Cecilia admits that she is not at all afraid of flying on airplanes, guided by a principle that is well known in Russia - if it has already happened to her once, the likelihood of it happening again is negligible. Simply put, a shell does not hit the same crater twice.

Larisa Savitskaya

On August 24, 1981, 20-year-old student Larisa Savitskaya was returning from a honeymoon with her husband Vladimir. The An-24 plane was flying from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk. Over the city of Zavitinsk at an altitude of 5200 meters, the An-24 collided with a Tu-16 bomber. As a result of the collision, the crews of both aircraft were killed. The An-24 broke into several parts and began to fall. Larisa, who was sleeping in her seat at the rear of the plane, woke up from a strong blow and a sudden burn caused by depressurization of the cabin at altitude.

Another break in the fuselage threw her into the aisle, but Larisa managed to climb back into the chair. As she later recalled, she remembered the Italian film “Miracles Still Happen,” where the heroine saved herself in a similar situation by squeezing into a chair. Larisa herself admitted that she did not believe in salvation, but simply wanted to “die without pain.”

The surviving part of the plane's body fell onto a birch grove, which softened the blow. Experts subsequently established that Larisa Savitskaya fell for 8 minutes from a height of 5200 meters on a piece of aircraft measuring 3 meters wide and 4 meters long.

The blow caused her to lose consciousness for several hours, but then she came to her senses and was able to move independently.

The girl spent two days in the forest alone, among corpses and debris, managing to build herself even a semblance of shelter from the weather.

Rescuers who reached the crash site were shocked to see the girl. Larisa Savitskaya was the only one of the 38 people who was lucky enough to survive this plane crash.

The search engines were so sure of her death that a grave had already been prepared for the woman, as well as for other victims. Doctors determined she had a concussion, spinal injuries in five places, and broken arms and ribs. She also lost almost all her teeth.

Larisa Savitskaya is twice included in the Guinness Book of Records: as a person who survived a fall from a maximum height, and as a person who received the minimum amount of compensation for physical damage in a plane crash - 75 rubles (in 1981 money).

Vesna Vulovich

On January 26, 1972, a Yugoslav Douglas DC-9 passenger plane on a flight from Copenhagen to Zagreb exploded in the air near the village of Serbska Kamenice in Czechoslovakia at an altitude of 10,160 meters. The cause of the tragedy, according to the Yugoslav authorities, was a bomb hidden on board the airliner by Croatian Ustasha terrorists.

The plane, breaking into pieces, began to fall down. In the middle section was 22-year-old flight attendant Vesna Vulovic. Vesna should not have been on that flight - she was replacing her colleague and namesake, Vesna Nikolic.

The plane's debris fell on snow-covered trees, which softened the blow. But luck for the girl was not only this - she was first discovered in an unconscious state by a local peasant, Bruno Honke, who worked in a German field hospital during the war and knew how to provide first aid.

Immediately after this, the flight attendant, the only survivor of the crash, was taken to the hospital. Vesna Vulović spent 27 days in a coma and 16 months in a hospital bed, but still survived. In 1985, she was included in the Guinness Book of Records for the highest jump without a parachute, receiving a certificate from the hands of her musical idol, member of the famous Beatles group Paul McCartney.

Erica Delgado

On January 11, 1995, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-14 was flying from Bogota to Cartagena with 47 passengers and 5 crew members on board.

Due to an altimeter failure during landing, the plane literally crashed in a swampy area. 9-year-old Erica Delgado, who was flying with her parents and younger brother, was thrown out of the plane at the moment when it began to fall apart. The girl later said that her mother pushed her out of the plane.

The plane exploded and caught fire. Erica fell into a pile of seaweed, which softened the blow, but could not get out. According to her recollections, looting immediately began at the scene of the disaster: while she was alive, one of the local residents tore off a gold necklace and disappeared, ignoring requests for help. After some time, the girl was found by her screams and pulled out of the swamp by a local farmer. Erica Delgado, the only survivor of the disaster, escaped with only a broken arm.

Julianna Dealer Kepke

On December 24, 1971, a Peruvian LANSA Lockheed L-188 Electra was struck by lightning and subjected to severe turbulence. The plane began to disintegrate in the air at an altitude of 3.2 kilometers and fell into the depths tropical forest, about 500 kilometers from the capital Lima.

17-year-old schoolgirl Julianna Koepke was strapped into one of the seats in the row, which broke off from the rest of the frame. The girl fell amid the raging elements, while the fragment rotated like a helicopter blade. This, as well as the fall into the dense crowns of trees, softened the blow.

After the fall, Julianne's collarbone was broken, her arm was badly scratched, her right eye was swollen shut from the impact, and her entire body was covered in bruises and scratches. Nevertheless, the girl did not lose her ability to move. It also helped that Julianne's father was a biologist and taught her the rules of survival in the forest. The girl was able to get food for herself, then found a stream and went down its course. After 9 days, she went out to the fishermen, who saved Julianna.

Based real story Julianne Kepke made several feature films, including “Miracles Still Happen” - the one that ten years later will help Larisa Savitskaya survive a plane crash.

Bahia Bakari

On June 30, 2009, an Airbus A-310-300 aircraft of a Yemeni airline was flying flight 626 from Paris to the Comoros Islands with a transfer in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

Among the passengers was 13-year-old Bahia Bakari, who was flying with her mother from France to the Comoros Islands to visit her grandparents. The plane crashed in Indian Ocean in Comoros territorial waters just a few minutes before landing. The girl does not remember what exactly happened, since she was sleeping at the time of the disaster. Bahiya herself believes that she was thrown out of the porthole.

In the fall, she received multiple bruises and broke her collarbone. However, a new test awaited her - she had to survive in the water until rescuers arrived. The girl managed to climb onto one of the wreckage of the plane that remained afloat. She spent nine hours on it, as Bakari herself claims, although some sources claim that rescuers found her only 14 hours after the disaster.

The surviving passenger was found by fishermen, who took her to the hospital. Not everyone believed in the possibility of such a rescue - there were rumors that the girl was thrown out of the boat of illegal immigrants, fortunately Bahia has a suitable appearance.

The girl was taken by special plane to Paris, where the then President of France visited her in the hospital. Nicolas Sarkozy.

Bahia Bakari was the only survivor of the 153 people on board the plane. Six months after the disaster, Bakari published her autobiography, Survivor.

"Lucky Four"

On August 12, 1985, the world's largest aviation disaster involving a single aircraft occurred in Japan.

The Boeing 747SR airliner of Japan Airlines took off from Tokyo to Osaka. There were 524 passengers and crew members on board. 12 minutes after takeoff, while climbing to an altitude of 7,500 meters, the plane’s vertical tail stabilizer came off, resulting in depressurization, a drop in cabin pressure, and all the airliner’s hydraulic systems failing.

The plane became uncontrollable and was virtually doomed. Nevertheless, the pilots, with incredible efforts, managed to keep the plane in the air for another 32 minutes. As a result, he crashed near Mount Takamagahara, 100 kilometers from Tokyo.

The airliner crashed in a mountainous area, and rescuers were able to reach it only the next morning. They did not expect to meet survivors.

However, the search team found four people alive at once - a 24-year-old flight attendant Yumi Ochiai, 34 year old Hiroko Yoshizaki with my 8 year old daughter Mikiko and 12 year old Keiko Kawakami.

Rescuers found the first three on the ground, and 12-year-old Keiko was found sitting in a tree. It was there that the girl was thrown out at the time of the death of the liner.

The four survivors were nicknamed the "Lucky Four" in Japan. During the flight, all of them were in the tail compartment, in the area where the plane's skin ruptured.

Much more people could have survived this terrible catastrophe. Keiko Kawakami later said that she heard the voice of her father and other wounded people. As doctors later established, many of the Boeing passengers died on the ground from wounds, cold and painful shock, since rescue teams did not try to reach the crash site at night. As a result, 520 people became victims of the crash.

In August 1981, the spouses Larisa and Vladimir Savitsky were returning home after their honeymoon. Their wedding was still in the spring, but Honeymoon They decided to postpone it until the summer - after all, Larisa was a student and could not interrupt her studies.
The newlyweds flew from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to their native Blagoveshchensk. They settled down in the tail section of the An-24RV aircraft and dozed off peacefully...
Suddenly Larisa woke up from a terrible blow. At an altitude of 5,200 meters, their plane collided with a Tu-16 bomber! U passenger airliner the wings were torn off and the upper part of the fuselage was cut off... “Screams were heard everywhere. I turned to my husband and saw that he was already dead - he was killed by shrapnel. I said goodbye to Volodya and began to wait for death,” Larisa recalls about those events.
“While we were falling, footage from the American film “Miracles Still Happen,” which Volodya and I recently watched in the cinema, suddenly flashed before my eyes. There, the girl also got into a plane crash and, huddled in her seat, fell over the jungle. Following her example, I moved to the chair near the porthole to see how much was left to the ground, and grabbed it with a death grip.”
A few hours after the fall, Larisa came to her senses. She was the only survivor of nearly forty passengers.

“When I opened my eyes, I saw my husband right in front of me, a few meters away. It seemed that he wanted to see me and thus said goodbye to me,” Larisa says about past events.
As a result of the fall, the woman received numerous injuries. She suffered a broken spine, arm and several ribs, knocked out teeth and a serious concussion. But due to shock, Larisa did not feel pain. She built herself a small shelter, warmed herself with seat covers and covered herself with a piece of polyethylene from the rain and mosquitoes.
The woman spent three long days in the taiga before she was discovered by a ground search team. Before this, she had been seen several times by helicopter pilots, but was mistaken for the cook of a geological expedition. No one could have imagined that after such an accident there could be survivors.


The Soviet government classified the fact of the plane crash. Not a single line was written about what happened in any newspaper. And near the ward, where Larisa came to her senses for three months, two people in civilian clothes were constantly on duty, not allowing any of her friends to see her. However, this was a common practice: planes in the USSR of those years crashed several times a year, and any information about disasters in the Union was always hidden.
“I learned from my parents that they had already dug a grave for me. The relatives of all passengers on that flight were notified of their deaths according to the list. In addition, my parents advised me not to tell anyone about what happened. The relevant authorities worked with them and persistently asked them to remain silent,” said Larisa.


After a terrible plane crash, Larisa Savitskaya was included in the Guinness Book of Records twice:
- as a survivor of a fall from a height of 5200m,
- and as a recipient of the minimum amount of compensation for damage in a plane crash - 75 rubles
According to Gosstrakh standards in the USSR, 300 rubles were required. compensation for damages for the dead and a quarter of it - 75 rubles. for the survivors.
After the plane crash, Larisa was paralyzed, but she was still able to get out, although she was forced to do odd jobs and even went hungry.
In 1986, Larisa gave birth to a son, Gosha, and the two of them lived for a long time on child care benefits.
In the 2000s, Larisa Savitskaya gave interviews, although reluctantly. The most difficult things in her life, perhaps, were not those days in the taiga, which she spent next to the remains of the plane and the body of her husband, but all the subsequent years. But extraordinary luck, combined with no less unusual composure, helped her out here too.
And once, in an interview, Larisa Savitskaya said: “If they left me here, it means I have to do something else...”.


The same place where the plane crashed

In August 1981, the spouses Larisa and Vladimir Savitsky were returning home after their honeymoon. Their wedding was still in the spring, but they decided to postpone their honeymoon to the summer - after all, Larisa was a student and could not interrupt her studies.
The newlyweds flew from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to their native Blagoveshchensk. They settled down in the tail section of the An-24RV aircraft and dozed off peacefully...

Suddenly Larisa woke up from a terrible blow. At an altitude of 5,200 meters, their plane collided with a Tu-16 bomber! The wings of the passenger airliner were torn off and the upper part of the fuselage was cut off...
“Screams were heard everywhere. I turned to my husband and saw that he was already dead - he was killed by shrapnel. I said goodbye to Volodya and began to wait for death,” Larisa recalls about those events.
“While we were falling, footage from the American film “Miracles Still Happen,” which Volodya and I recently watched in the cinema, suddenly flashed before my eyes. There, the girl also got into a plane crash and, huddled in her seat, fell over the jungle. Following her example, I moved to the chair near the porthole to see how much was left to the ground, and grabbed it with a death grip.”
A few hours after the fall, Larisa came to her senses. She was the only survivor of nearly forty passengers.

“When I opened my eyes, I saw my husband right in front of me, a few meters away. It seemed that he wanted to see me and thus said goodbye to me,” Larisa says about past events.
As a result of the fall, the woman received numerous injuries. She suffered a broken spine, arm and several ribs, knocked out teeth and a serious concussion. But due to shock, Larisa did not feel pain. She built herself a small shelter, warmed herself with seat covers and covered herself with a piece of polyethylene from the rain and mosquitoes.
The woman spent three long days in the taiga before she was discovered by a ground search team. Before this, she had been seen several times by helicopter pilots, but was mistaken for the cook of a geological expedition. No one could have imagined that after such an accident there could be survivors.

The Soviet government classified the fact of the plane crash. Not a single line was written about what happened in any newspaper. And near the ward, where Larisa came to her senses for three months, two people in civilian clothes were constantly on duty, not allowing any of her friends to see her. However, this was a common practice: planes in the USSR of those years crashed several times a year, and any information about disasters in the Union was always hidden.
“I learned from my parents that they had already dug a grave for me. The relatives of all passengers on that flight were notified of their deaths according to the list. In addition, my parents advised me not to tell anyone about what happened. The relevant authorities worked with them and persistently asked them to remain silent,” said Larisa.

As a survivor of a fall from a height of 5200m,
- and as a recipient of the minimum amount of compensation for damage in a plane crash - 75 rubles
According to Gosstrakh standards in the USSR, 300 rubles were required. compensation for damages for the dead and a quarter of it - 75 rubles. for the survivors.
After the plane crash, Larisa was paralyzed, but she was still able to get out, although she was forced to do odd jobs and even went hungry.
In 1986, Larisa gave birth to a son, Gosha, and the two of them lived for a long time on child care benefits.
In the 2000s, Larisa Savitskaya gave interviews, although reluctantly. The most difficult things in her life, perhaps, were not those days in the taiga, which she spent next to the remains of the plane and the body of her husband, but all the subsequent years. But extraordinary luck, combined with no less unusual composure, helped her out here too.
And once, in an interview, Larisa Savitskaya said: “If they left me here, it means I have to do something else...”.

In Belgrade, former flight attendant Vesna Vulović died at the age of 67, having survived a fall from a height of 10 thousand meters after a plane crash that occurred in January 1972 over German city Hermsdorf.
She did not answer calls from friends, which is why they became worried and asked the police to check her apartment. Law enforcement officers found the body of the former flight attendant on December 23 in the bathroom. Death occurred a few days ago.

Vesna Vulović was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the person who survived a fall without a parachute from the most high altitude in history. All crew members and passengers, except Vesna, died in the plane crash. Rescuers found a 22-year-old flight attendant under the rubble. She received numerous injuries, but miraculously survived.

The 44-year-old plane crash suffered by Vulović is believed to have been caused by a bomb carried aboard the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 by Croatian Ustasha nationalists.

Vesna Vulovich became a flight attendant by accident. After graduating from high school, she entered the university. Enchanted, like many other young people of that generation, by the songs of the Beatles, Vesna chose the English department for herself and began to study English in order to understand her idols. After her first year, she went on an internship to England to improve her language. But after her return home, a meeting took place that radically changed Vulovich’s life. One of her school friends had by that time trained to be a pilot and flew planes of the Yugoslav company JAT. It was he who advised Vesna to master the specialty of a flight attendant international airlines to visit his beloved London once a month. And the girl’s finances required replenishment. In 1971, she took to the skies for the first time. At the time of the tragedy, she had not yet completed her studies and did not have a permanent job.

22-year-old Vesna Vulović was not supposed to be on this flight, but due to an error by the airline, she was assigned to it instead of another flight attendant with the same name (Vesna Nikolić). On the day of the disaster, Vesna had not yet completed her training and was on the crew as a trainee.
On January 25, 1972, the crew in which Vulovich trained arrived in Copenhagen, where they were supposed to replace the pilots who had brought the plane from Stockholm. As Vulovich herself later recalled, she had the impression that her more experienced colleagues seemed to have a presentiment of something - they talked a lot about their families, bought them souvenirs...

On January 26, 1972, a DC-9-32 Jugoslovenski Aerotransport (JAT, international name- Yugoslav Airlines) was flying on the route Stockholm - Copenhagen - Zagreb - Belgrade on the Copenhagen - Zagreb section. There were 28 people on board, including 5 crew members, including flight attendant Vesna Vulović, and 23 passengers. Take-off, climb and access to the air route took place as usual. The flight took place at an altitude of about 10 thousand meters.
An hour after takeoff, the DC-9 passed the next route point: the Hermsdorf radio station in East Germany and reached an altitude of 10,160 meters. Soon the plane unexpectedly collapsed: bow with the cockpit separated from the main body. The debris fell near the village of Serbska Kamenice in Czechoslovakia (now the territory of the Czech Republic). At the same time, large parts of the fuselage turned out to be no more than a kilometer apart from each other, whereas usually destruction at high altitudes leads to a significant dispersion of fragments.

According to the official investigation, before the destruction in the air, the aircraft's systems were operating normally, and the pilots were in their seats. The examination did not find any alcohol or drugs in the pilots’ blood. No distress signals or breakdown messages were transmitted to the ground. The plane was relatively new: it began operation less than a year before the disaster.
The cause of the tragedy was identified as an explosion in the luggage compartment in the front part of the fuselage. 10 days after the disaster, the Czechoslovak State Security Service presented fragments of an alarm clock, which was determined to be part of an explosive mechanism. Followers of the Croatian far-right organization Ustasha were suspected of organizing the terrorist attack. However, the crime remained officially unsolved, and the names of the terrorists were not established...

When the explosion occurred, Vesna Vulović was working in passenger compartment. She immediately lost consciousness, and subsequently could not remember what she was doing and where exactly she was (in the middle part of the fuselage or in the tail).
Of the 28 people on board, only the Serbian flight attendant survived. She fell without a parachute from a height of 10,160 meters and survived, which was recognized as a world record.

Local residents arrived at the crash site before the rescuers. They disassembled the fragments and tried to find survivors. All crew members and passengers, except Vesna, died. Rescuers found a 22-year-old flight attendant under the rubble. Peasant Bruno Honke discovered Vesna, gave her first aid and handed her over to the arriving doctors. Surprisingly, the girl miraculously remained alive after falling from such a height.
- A loud explosion, a very bright light and unbearable cold - that’s all I remember about that disaster, – said Vesna Vulovich. - Stumbled upon me local, German Bruno, who served in the Wehrmacht during World War II. I felt my pulse and realized that my spine was broken, so I didn’t move my body and immediately called for help.

Vesna was in a coma and received many injuries: fractures of the base of the skull, three vertebrae, both legs and the pelvis.
The girl was in a coma for 27 days; it took her 16 months to fully recover.
According to Vesna Vulovich herself, the first thing she asked for upon returning to consciousness was to smoke...

She lost her memory every day - the next morning she forgot about what happened to her from the moment she came on board (her memory was restored after a few months, and the woman remembered the explosion itself only 25 years later). The doctors assured that Vesna would never be able to walk. She did it - although she studied for 4.5 years.
– I don’t know how I managed to survive, said Vulovich. – After all, at such a height a person dies almost instantly - the heart breaks from lack of air. Doctors suggest that the reason for my luck may be my low blood pressure. But why I didn’t break into pieces - no one can understand that. No other way than God saved me.

According to the memoirs of Vesna Vulovich, she did not develop a fear of flying, since she did not remember the moment of the disaster. Therefore, after recovery, the girl tried to return to work as a flight attendant in Yugoslav Airlines, but ended up getting an office position at an airline, where she continued to work.
Having finally left the hospital, where she had spent more than one year, Vesna went to work - to be reinstated as a flight attendant. Her colleagues looked at her as if she was crazy: to survive this and fearlessly board a plane again? They categorically refused to take her on the flight, suggesting that she quit and forget about aviation forever. But Vulovich insisted on her own: nothing particularly terrible happened, she loves flying and does not intend to change it.
– But the officials did not listen to my arguments - they gave me an office job at the airline., - Vesna complained. – It's a pity. I so wanted to go to the sky again! So from then on I flew only as a passenger.
She got married in 1977 (divorced in 1992). Have no children.

The miraculous rescue brought Vesna Vulović fame. The Guinness Book of Records in 1985, 13 years after the disaster, recognized her as the person who survived a fall without a parachute from the highest altitude in history. An interesting detail: when Vesna arrived in London for the ceremony of presenting a certificate of entry into the Book of Records, at the same time Paul McCartney, the idol of her youth, received a similar document.
And in the Russian Guinness Book of Records, Larisa Savitskaya is in first place. In 1981, the plane in which she was returning from her honeymoon collided with a military bomber in mid-air. Within 8 minutes, a piece of the plane on which Larisa was sitting fell from a height of 5200 meters. The girl landed on a birch grove. She received several fractures and lost almost all her teeth, but was able to build herself a temporary shelter, where she waited for help for two days. Savitskaya, by the way, is a record holder twice: as a survivor of a fall from a maximum height and as someone who received... the minimum amount of compensation for physical damage - 75 rubles!

In the nineties, Vesna Vulovic became one of the prominent critics of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. In 2000, Vesna Vulović actively participated in the events that led to his resignation.

Vesna Vulović died in December 2016 at home in Belgrade. On December 23, her body was discovered after the police opened the apartment, where the woman’s friends turned, concerned that she had not appeared on the street for several days and did not answer phone calls. The cause of death has not been disclosed by authorities.

On December 23, 2016, at the age of 66, the legendary flight attendant Vesna Vulović, who in 1972 was present at the explosion in the aircraft cabin and then fell along with the debris from a height of 10 km, died.

She received numerous fractures and injuries, fell into a coma for several days, but then recovered, entered the Guinness Book of Records and became a world celebrity.

On January 26, 1972, 22-year-old Vesna Vulović was flying from Stockholm to Belgrade on a Yugoslav Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32. When the plane flew over Hersdorf, Germany, it disappeared from radar, and 46 minutes after takeoff it exploded in the air. It is assumed that the bomb was carried on board by Croatian nationalists - the Ustasha. The debris fell near the village of Serbska Kamenice in Czechoslovakia.

Of the 28 people on board, only Vulovich survived. As a result of the fall, she received fractures of the base of her skull, three vertebrae, both legs and pelvis; she remained in a coma for several days, but then she woke up and the first thing she did was ask for a cigarette. Interestingly, due to an error by the airline, the girl got on the flight instead of another flight attendant with the same name (Vesna Nikolic). At the time of the disaster, the flight attendant had not yet completed her training and was on the crew as a trainee.

What saved Vulovich, who spent three minutes in free fall? Perhaps the fact that she was sandwiched in the tail of the plane, between corpses and pieces of luggage. In addition, the blow was softened by pine branches and a thick layer of snow.

Her screams in the forest were heard by forester Bruno Henke, who was a doctor during World War II German army. He helped the girl hold out until medical help arrived.

Vulović spent 10 months with paralysis of the lower body (from the waist to the legs). After that, she was treated for another six months, but then recovered and even asked to fly with JAT again. She was turned down and given a job in the airline office instead.

Such fearlessness is explained by the fact that Vesna did not remember either the accident or her rescue. In a 2008 interview, she admitted that she only remembers greeting passengers after takeoff from Copenhagen, and then waking up in the hospital and seeing her mother.

Vulović became a national heroine: she was given a reception by Marshal Tito, which was then considered a great honor for a citizen of Yugoslavia. Songs were dedicated to the woman and she was invited to the most popular television shows. It became popular to name girls after the flight attendant who survived: it supposedly brought them good luck.

Vesna Vulović used her fame for political purposes: she protested against the power of Slobodan Milosevic, and later campaigned for one of the parties in the elections.

The peak of Vulovich's international fame came in 1985, when she was invited to London on behalf of the Guinness Book of Records. There, Vulovich received an award as the person who survived a fall without a parachute from a maximum height. The woman was presented with the prize by musician Paul McCartney, the idol of her youth.
Vesna said that she was as much a “survivor” as other residents of Serbia: “We Serbs are truly survivors. We survived communism, Tito, war, poverty, NATO bombing, sanctions and Milosevic. We just want a normal life."

On December 23, Vesna Vulović was found dead at home in Belgrade: police opened the woman’s apartment at the request of her friends, alarmed that she was not answering calls. The cause of death is unknown, but according to Vulovich's friends, her health has recently deteriorated.

 

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