How to survive after a plane crash 5. Life after death: the only survivors of the plane crash. 4-year-old American woman who survived the crash

The statistics stubbornly show that aviation in terms of safety is significantly higher than motor vehicles. In the United States, more people die in car accidents every year than have died in plane crashes in the entire history of air travel.

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

Cecilia Xichan

On August 16, 1989, a regular Northwest Airlines flight McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 began taking off from Detroit airport. Onboard there were 154 people, including a 4-year-old girl Cecilia Sichan. Her parents and her six-year-old brother flew with her.

Worked at the crash site firefighter John Tiedheard a thin squeak and saw a child's pen among the rubble. A 4-year-old girl with a skull fracture, a broken leg and collarbone, and third-degree burns was the only survivor of the accident. She underwent four skin grafts but managed to fully recover.

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

Sessilia admits that she is not at all afraid to fly airplanes, guided by a principle that is well known in Russia - if this has already happened to her once, the likelihood of a repetition of this is negligible. Simply put, the shell does not hit the same funnel twice.

Larisa Savitskaya

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

Another break in the fuselage threw her into the passage, but Larisa managed to get back into the chair. As she recalled later, she remembered the Italian film Miracles Still Happen, where the heroine escaped in a similar situation, squeezing into a chair. Larisa herself admitted that she did not believe in salvation, but simply wanted to "die slightly."

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

From the blow, she lost consciousness for several hours, but then came to herself and was able to move independently.

In the forest alone, among the corpses and debris, the girl spent two days, 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 38 people who was lucky enough to survive this plane crash.

The search engines were so sure of her death that a grave was already prepared for the woman, as well as for other victims. Doctors diagnosed her with a concussion, spinal injuries in five places, and fractures of the arm and ribs. She also lost almost all of her teeth.

Larisa Savitskaya was 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 Vulovic

On January 26, 1972, a Yugoslav passenger plane Douglas DC-9, en route 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 aboard the airliner by Croatian Ustasha terrorists.

The plane, torn to pieces, began to fall down. In the middle section was the 22-year-old flight attendant Vesna Vulovich. Spring was not supposed to be on that flight - she replaced her colleague and namesake - Vesna Nikolic.

Immediately after that, the flight attendant, the only survivor of the crash, was taken to the hospital. Vesna Vulovic 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 - a member of the famous Beatles group Paul McCartney.

Erica Delgado

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

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

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 site of the disaster: from her, from the living, one of the local residents tore off a gold necklace and disappeared, ignoring requests for help. After a while, the girl was found by her screams and pulled out of the swamp by a local farmer. Erica Delgado, the only survivor of the crash, escaped with only a broken arm.

Julianne Dealer Cap

On December 24, 1971, the Lockheed L-188 Electra of the Peruvian airline LANSA fell into a vast thunderstorm area, was struck by lightning and was subjected to severe turbulence. The plane began to collapse in the air at an altitude of 3.2 kilometers and fell deep into the rainforest, about 500 kilometers from the capital of the country, Lima.

17-year-old schoolgirl Julianne Kepke was strapped to one of the chairs in a row that broke off from the rest of the hull. The girl fell among the raging elements, while the fragment rotated like a helicopter blade. This, as well as falling 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 swollen from the blow, her whole body was covered with 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 she found a stream and went downstream. After 9 days, she herself went to the fishermen, who saved Julianne.

Based on the real story of Julianne Kepke, several feature films were shot, including "Miracles Still Happen" - the one that will help Larisa Savitskaya survive in a plane crash ten years later.

Bahia Bakari

On June 30, 2009, the Airbus А-310-300 of the Yemeni airline flew flight 626 from Paris to the Comoros with a transfer in the capital of Yemen, Sana'a.

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

When she fell, she received multiple bruises and broke her collarbone. However, a new test awaited her - it was necessary to survive in the water until the rescuers arrived. The girl managed to climb onto one of the aircraft wreckage that remained afloat. She spent nine hours on it, according to Bakari herself, 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 by illegal immigrants, since Bahia has a suitable appearance.

The girl was taken to Paris by a special plane, 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. Six months after the disaster, Bakari published her autobiography The Survivor.

"Lucky Four"

On August 12, 1985, Japan suffered the largest casualty in the world aviation with the participation of one aircraft.

The Jepan Airlines Boeing 747SR left Tokyo for Osaka. Onboard there were 524 passengers and a crew member. 12 minutes after takeoff, during the climb to 7500 meters, the vertical tail stabilizer broke off the aircraft, resulting in depressurization, the pressure in the cabin dropped and all hydraulic systems of the airliner failed.

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

However, the search group found four alive at once - a 24-year-old stewardess Yumi Ochiai, 34-year-old Hiroko Yoshizakiwith her 8 year old daughter Mikiko and 12 year old Keiko Kawakami.

Rescuers found the first three on the ground, and 12-year-old Keiko - sitting in a tree. It was there that the girl was thrown 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 was torn.

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

Where to aim? Maggie crashed to the stone station floor, but his fall was slowed down when he broke through the glass roof the moment before. It hurts, but it is salutary. A haystack will do. Some lucky ones survived, ending up in a dense bush. Thicket is also good, although you can run into some branch. Snow? Just perfect. Swamp? A soft, vegetated bog is the most desirable option. Hamilton recounts an incident when a skydiver with an unopened parachute landed directly on high-voltage wires. The wires sprung and threw him up, keeping him alive. The most dangerous surface is water. Like concrete, it is practically incompressible. The result of falling on the ocean surface will be about the same as falling on the sidewalk. The only difference is that the asphalt, alas! - will not open beneath you to absorb the shattered body forever.

Without losing sight of your intended goal, take care of your body position. To slow down your fall, act like a skydiver on a skydive. Spread your legs and arms wider, throw your head back higher, straighten your shoulders, and you yourself will turn your chest to the ground. Your drag will increase immediately, and there will be room for maneuver. The main thing is not to relax. In your, frankly, predicament, the question of how to prepare for a meeting with the ground remains, unfortunately, not fully resolved. An article on this topic was published in the 1942 journal War Medicine. It said: “Load distribution and compensation play a big role in trying to avoid injury.” Hence the recommendation - you need to fall flat. On the other hand, a 1963 report published by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) argues that the classic skydiving grouping would be optimal for saving life: legs together, knees high, legs pressed to hips. The same source noted that training in sports such as wrestling or acrobatics greatly contributes to survival in a disaster. When falling on hard surfaces, it would be especially useful to have some skills in martial arts.

Japanese skydiver Yasuhiro Kubo trains like this: he throws his parachute out of the plane and then jumps out himself. By tightening the process to the limit, he catches up with his equipment, puts it on and then pulls the ring. In 2000, Kubo jumped at an altitude of 3 km and spent 50 seconds in free fall, until he caught up with his backpack with his parachute. All of these useful skills can be practiced in a safer environment, for example, in free fall simulators - vertical wind tunnels. However, simulators will not allow you to work out the most crucial stage - the meeting with the ground.

If a water surface awaits you below, prepare for swift and decisive action. According to the surviving amateurs to jump from high bridges, we can conclude that the optimal entry into the water would be a "soldier", that is, feet first. Then you will have at least some chance of getting to the surface alive.

On the other hand, the famous cliff divers who hone their skills near Acapulco believe that it is better to enter the water head first. At the same time, they put their hands with intertwined fingers in front of the head, protecting it from impact. You can choose any of these poses, but try to maintain the parachuting position until the very last second. Then, above the water itself, if you choose to dive like a soldier, we strongly recommend that you strain your buttocks with all your might. Explaining why would not be very decent, but you will probably guess yourself.

Whatever surface is waiting for you below, in no case land on your head. Researchers from the Institute for Highway Traffic Safety have concluded that head injury is the leading cause of death in such situations. If you are still being carried head first, it is better to land on your face. It is safer than hitting the back of the head or the top of the skull.

07:02:19 Height 300 meters

If, having fallen out of the plane, you started reading this article, then by now you have come just to these lines. You already have the initial course, and now it's time to pull yourself together and focus on the task ahead of you. However, here is some additional information.

Statistics show that in the event of a disaster, it is more profitable to be a crew member or a child, and if there is a choice, it is better to crash in a military plane. Over the past 40 years, at least 12 plane crashes have been recorded, with only one person left alive. On this list, four were crew members and seven were passengers under the age of 18. Among the survivors is Mohammed el-Fateh Osman, a two-year-old child who survived the crash of a Boeing in Sudan in 2003 after landing in the wreckage. Last June, when Yemenia Airways crashed near the Comoros, only 14-year-old Bahia Bakari survived.

The survival of the crew members can be associated with more reliable passive safety systems, but why more often children remain alive is not yet clear. The FAA studies show that children, especially those under the age of four, have more flexible bones, more relaxed muscles, and a higher percentage of subcutaneous fat, which effectively protects internal organs. People of small stature - if their head does not protrude from the backs of aircraft seats - are well protected from flying debris. With a low body weight, the steady-state falling speed will also be lower, and a smaller frontal section reduces the chance of hitting when landing on any sharp object.

07:02:25 Height 0 meters

So we arrived. Hit. Are you still alive? And what are your actions? If you escaped with minor injuries, you can get up and smoke, as did the British Nicholas Alkemeid, the rear gunner, who landed in a snow-covered thicket in 1944 after falling from a six-kilometer height. If it's no joke, then there is still a lot of trouble ahead.

Let us recall the case of Juliana Kopke. In 1971, on Christmas Eve, she flew in a Lockheed Electra. The liner exploded somewhere over the Amazon. The 17-year-old German woman regained consciousness the next morning under the canopy of the jungle. She was strapped into her seat, and there were piles of Christmas gifts lying around. Wounded, all alone, she forced herself not to think about her dead mother. Instead, she focused on the advice of her biologist father: "Once lost in the jungle, you will go out to the people, following the flow of water." Kopke walked along forest streams, which gradually merged into rivers. She walked around crocodiles and pounded in shallow water with a stick to scare away stingrays. Somewhere, having stumbled, she lost her shoe, only a torn mini-skirt remained from her clothes. She had only a bag of sweets to eat, and she had to drink dark, dirty water. She ignored the broken collarbone and the inflamed open wounds.

Many people believe that a plane crash leaves almost no chance of survival. Therefore, they do not consider it necessary to carefully study the safety instructions. Although, for example, the crash of the Boeing 777 of the South Korean airline Asiana Airlines proves: if the evacuation rules are followed, the number of victims can be significantly reduced. In an accident at the San Francisco International Airport, 305 of the 307 people on board were saved!

We have already discussed how you can improve your chances of surviving an airplane crash. But for special reasons, here are a few more rules, following which, you are more likely to survive in a plane crash.

1. Consider a travel suit

When going on a trip, choose clothes so that it is most comfortable for you in case of an emergency. Here's what Cynthia Corbett of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FACA) advises:

Imagine running out of a burning plane. For example, don't wear high-heeled shoes or light slippers - they are uncomfortable to run in. It is important that during emergency situations the shoes do not fall off your feet, and the exposed surfaces of the body are protected with a dense fabric, like denim.

Long sleeves and trousers can protect against shrapnel and burns: according to experts from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), 68% of casualties are caused by fires that occur after accidents.

2. Choose a seat in the cabin when buying a ticket

According to research by Popular Mechanics magazine, the safest seats are in the rear of the cabin. After analyzing the fatal plane crashes that have occurred over the past 40 years, experts cite the following statistics: on average, those sitting in the back of the cabin are 40% more likely to survive. Also try to stay close to the emergency exit and closer to the aisle.

Professor Ed Galea, a fire safety specialist at the University of Greenwich in England, found that surviving passengers usually sit within five rows of emergency exits:

During an emergency, it is better to sit closer to the aisle than at the window or in the middle.

3. Takeoff and landing

Experts say that the most dangerous time is the first three minutes after take-off and eight minutes before landing: force majeure occurs more often at these stages of the flight - at this time it is better not to take off your shoes and not to lose sight of the two nearest emergency exits. Place your carry-on baggage under the seat of the passenger in front - it will help to avoid injuries, as it will not allow you to slip under the seat in front, because leg fractures are quite common among victims of plane crashes.

If a crash or crash landing is unavoidable, be calm and don't panic. Take the so-called "survival pose": cross your palms, place them on the back of the seat in front, then press your forehead against your palms - this way you are more likely to survive in an accident, if there is no seat in front, lean forward and hug your knees with your hands.

Also, remove any sharp or angular objects such as pens and keys from your pockets: in an emergency, even a regular comb can be harmful.

4. Rule of 90 seconds

Remember, if after a plane crash you can leave the cabin within 90 seconds, the chances of escape increase significantly: some passengers in a state of panic are not even able to unfasten their seat belt - their bodies are then found sitting in their seats.

In an interview with WebMD, Cynthia Corbett said:

It is important to know how to behave in emergency conditions, even if there are no instructions from the crew: it sometimes happens that people just sit and wait to be told what to do, and in the meantime the situation gets worse.

In the accident with Flight 217, most of the victims were avoided because the victims were able to quickly evacuate from the aircraft. John Hansman, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and head of the university's International Air Transport Center, said:

If someone hesitated, things could be much worse.

And Corbett adds:

Do not try to track down and collect your luggage, it can take valuable time.

5. No more dangerous than an escalator in the subway

Transportation safety experts are encouraging: According to NTSB statistics (author's note: National Transportation Safety Board - National Transportation Safety Board), only one in 1.2 million commercial flights has an accident. Aircraft crews are carefully working out measures to prevent various emergency situations, new safe non-toxic materials and more advanced fire-fighting systems of winged vehicles are being created.

The chance of dying in a plane crash is 1 in 11,000,000, while, for example, in a car crash - 1 in 5,000, so now it is much safer for humans to fly than to drive a car.

John Hansman states:

While on board an airliner, you risk no more than going down the subway on an escalator.

Cynthia Corbett of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration sums up:

I believe that air travel is the safest way to get around. But during the flight, we must not forget about safety measures and rules of conduct on board. Don't be afraid to fly, just follow the instructions carefully.

Is it very typical for Russian planes to fall from Ukrainian missiles? Have you counted a lot?

The mention of the Ukrainian missile after such events sounds blasphemy:

1 Malaysian Boeing shot down by a beech (Dutch prosecutor's report proves this irrefutably)

2 On the night of June 14, 2014, a military transport aircraft of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Il-76 was shot down by a shot from an anti-aircraft missile system and a long burst from a large-caliber machine gun while landing at an airfield in Lugansk. On board the Il-76 were 40 Ukrainian servicemen and 9 crew members. They all died. This feat was noted wagnerians, at that time located in Ukraine. The Ukrainian secret service has documentary information that part of the "Wagnerites" almost daily in the summer of 2014 fired at the Lugansk airport.

And if you remember the history?

On September 1, 1983, a tragedy occurred in the skies over the Pacific Ocean, which some Russian sources still shamefully refer to as an "incident": a Soviet air defense fighter shot down a South Korean civilian airliner that violated the USSR air border. All 269 people on board, including 23 children, were killed.

Crash of Boeing 707 at Karelui

Everyone is now hearing about the crash of the Malaysian Boeing over the Donbas. Less known, but nevertheless known about it, is the story of how a South Korean Boeing was shot down over the Soviet Far East on September 1, 1983. It turns out that this is not the first South Korean Boeing shot down over the Soviet Union. There was one more.

On April 20, 1978, in the Kola Peninsula area over the territory of the USSR, another South Korean Boeing 707 was shot down, flying on the route Paris - Anchorage - Seoul
On April 20, 1978, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Kola Peninsula, a passenger Boeing-707-321B (HL7429) of Korean Air Lines (KAL), performing flight 902 - Paris-Anchorage-Seoul, crossed the border of the USSR.
The Korean Boeing continued to fly to Severomorsk. Dmitry Tsarkov, who held the post of commander of the 21st Air Defense Corps of the USSR in 1978, reports to Vladimir Dmitriev, who at that time was the commander of the 10th Air Defense Army of the USSR, that the air defense is ready to shoot down the intruder. Dmitriev did not give permission, saying that we could shoot down our plane, the exact identity of the plane was not yet clear. The intruder walked at a speed of 15 kilometers per minute (900 km / h). At this time, the intruder crossed the border of the USSR. A flight of fighters was raised into the sky.
The aircraft was detected by Soviet air defense radars and was initially identified as a Boeing 747. An anti-aircraft missile system was put on alert. A Su-15TM ("Flegon-F") fighter under the command of Captain A. Bosov was sent to intercept.

According to the testimony of the captain of the liner, Kim Chang Ki, the interceptor approached his plane from the right side (and not from the left, as required by the rules of the International Civil Aviation Organization - ICAO). The captain claims to have reduced speed and turned on navigation lights to indicate readiness to follow the Soviet fighter for landing. Captain Kim Chang Ki's attempts to contact the interceptor pilot on 121.5 were detected by the air traffic control tower in Rovaniemi, Finland. According to the official statement of the Soviet side, the liner evaded the requirement to land. When the pilot of the interceptor reported that the intruder was actually not the 747th, but the 707th Boeing, the command decided that it was an RC-135 electronic reconnaissance aircraft (produced on the basis of the Boeing-707 liner) and gave the order to destroy goals.

According to the American radio intercept, the interceptor pilot for several minutes tried to convince the command to cancel the order, as he saw the emblem of the KAL airline on the liner and inscriptions in hieroglyphs, however, after confirming the order, he fired two P-60 missiles at the liner. The first of them missed the target, and the second exploded, tearing off part of the left wing, causing the plane to depressurize and killing two passengers with shrapnel.

Due to the depressurization of the cabin, the liner began an emergency descent and disappeared from the radar screens of the Soviet air defense system. The interceptor pilot also lost a damaged liner in the clouds.

Over the next hour, emergency flight 902 flew at low altitude across the entire Kola Peninsula, looking for a place for an emergency landing and, after several unsuccessful attempts, landed in the deepening twilight on the ice of Lake Korpiyarvi, already in Karelia. Throughout this time, the air defense did not have any information about the fate and location of the aircraft.

The USSR refused to cooperate in the investigation of this incident with international experts and did not provide data from the black boxes seized from the plane. The plane itself was disassembled and taken out in parts. The Korean airline abandoned it in order not to pay for the evacuation of the plane. 95 passengers were taken to Kem and then to Murmansk airport. On April 23, 1978, they were handed over to representatives of the US Consulate General in Leningrad and Pan American Airlines and sent to Helsinki. Su-15 pilot Captain A. Bosov was awarded the Order of the Red Star for completing a combat mission.

The Boeing commander, the highest-class pilot Lee Chang Hugh, a former military pilot, managed to land a little-controlled 200-ton aircraft on a frozen lake. This saved the lives of the rest of the passengers. The Boeing commander was later interrogated. He reported that he had fought as a fighter pilot back in Vietnam. He graduated from the war with the rank of colonel. Then he worked for 10 years in a civilian airline, and the experience of flying on the route of flight 902 is also 10 years. He has been flying with this crew for 7 years. The last flight before this flight on this route was a week ago. The weather was good during the flight. When asked how you could go so off course, the commander replied that the navigation equipment allegedly failed.

Many years later, the flight map of Flight 902 was published based on declassified black box data, showing that the plane, passing the Amsterdam-Anchorage section, began a smooth wide right turn shortly after reaching Iceland. This turn was too smooth to be done manually, and the explanation can only be a malfunction of the navigation equipment.