Condition of survivors of the plane crash. “I didn’t feel my body.” Survivors of terrible plane crashes: amazing cases of rescue from a fall from a ten-kilometer height. High Risk Situations

July 7 passenger plane airlines Air Canada, flying from Toronto, mistakenly headed not onto the runway, but onto the taxiway, where four other airliners were at that moment. The controllers managed to stop the pilot in time, give the command to go around, after which the plane landed safely on the correct runway.

According to the head of Aero Consulting Experts and former pilot Ross Eimer's United Airlines, the incident threatened to become the worst disaster in aviation history: “Imagine a huge Airbus crashing into four passenger liners with full tanks."

Let's remember the most famous and unusual cases of survival in plane crashes.
Boeing 777 crash in San Francisco

On July 6, 2013, a Boeing 777 crashed in San Francisco. The Asiana Airlines Boeing 777-28EER was flying OZ-214 on the Seoul-San Francisco route, but when landing at San Francisco airport, it crashed into an embankment in front of the runway and collapsed.

The NTSB commission blamed the cause of the crash on the erroneous actions of the crew: the plane was descending too quickly. The pilots noticed that the rate of descent and airspeed were not adequate when the aircraft was 60 meters from the ground, but did not take action for a missed approach. More precisely, 1.5 seconds before the collision the crew decided to go around, but there was no longer an opportunity for this.


The impact tore off the plane's tail and left engine; the fuselage slid along the runway for about 600 meters and described an almost complete circle - it was turned 330 degrees.


Of the 307 people on board (291 passengers and 16 crew members), 3 schoolgirls died (two at the scene of the disaster, one died in the hospital), 187 people were injured. “Only three people” - it’s hard to believe when looking at the photographs of the wrecked liner.


This plane crash showed that serious damage to an aircraft does not mean large casualties. There is another interesting circumstance: contrary to the popular theory that the safest seats are in the back of the plane, all three crash victims were sitting there.

The cabin of flight 214 after the disaster:


Miracle in Toronto 2005

It was a high-profile case when all the people survived a completely destroyed liner.

August 2, 2005 around international airport In Toronto, an Air France A340 aircraft crashed while operating flight AFR358 on the Paris-Toronto route. There were 12 crew members and 297 passengers on board.


The approach was carried out in difficult weather conditions with large thunderstorms over the airport in heavy rain and lightning flashes on the runway. The landing was carried out in manual mode with the autopilot and autothrottle disabled.


Flying over the end runway significantly higher than established, the airliner landed further than a third of the beginning of the runway length. The pilots applied reverse, but were unable to stop within the runway, causing the plane to leave the runway and roll into a ravine. A fire broke out, which in a few minutes engulfed the airliner and destroyed it, but all 309 people on board were evacuated in time.

The evacuation of 309 people took less than 2 minutes, which many, including Canadian Transport Minister Jean Lapierre, later called a “miracle.”


Survive falling from 5 km height

Young student Larisa Savitskaya and her husband Vladimir were returning from honeymoon. On August 24, 1981, the An-24 plane on which the Savitsky spouses were flying collided with a Tu-16 military bomber at an altitude of 5220 m. After the collision, the crews of both aircraft died. As a result of the collision, the An-24 lost wings with fuel tanks and the top of the fuselage. The remaining part broke several times during the fall.

Passenger aircraft An-24:


At the time of the disaster, Larisa Savitskaya was sleeping in her seat at the rear of the plane. I woke up from a strong blow and a sudden burn (the temperature instantly dropped from 25 °C to? 30 °C). After another break in the fuselage, which passed right in front of her seat, Larisa was thrown into the aisle, waking up, she reached the nearest seat, climbed in and pressed herself into it, without having buckled herself in. Larisa herself later claimed that at that moment she remembered an episode from the film “Miracles Still Happen,” where the heroine squeezed into a chair during a plane crash and survived.

Bomber Tu-16K:


Part of the plane's body landed on a birch grove, which softened the blow. According to subsequent studies, the entire fall of the plane fragment measuring 3 meters wide by 4 meters long, where Savitskaya ended up, took 8 minutes. Savitskaya was unconscious for several hours. Waking up on the ground, Larisa saw in front of her a chair with the body of her dead husband. She received a number of serious injuries, but could move independently.

Two days later, she was discovered by rescuers, who were very surprised when, after two days they came across only the bodies of the dead, they met a living person. She later learned that a grave had already been dug for both her and her husband. She was the only survivor of 38 people on board. The reasons for the aircraft collision were unsatisfactory organization and management of flights in the area of ​​the Zavitinsk airfield.

Larisa Savitskaya was twice included in the Russian edition of the Guinness Book of Records:

like a person who survived a fall from a maximum height,
as a person who received the minimum amount of compensation for physical damage - 75 rubles. According to Gosstrakh standards in the USSR, 300 rubles were required. compensation for damages for the dead and 75 rubles. for survivors of plane crashes.
Larisa Savitskaya with her son Georgy.


Survive falling from a height of 10 km without a parachute

The DC-9 crash over Hermsdorf was an aircraft accident that occurred on January 26, 1972. The McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 airliner of Yugoslav Airlines was operating flight JAT367 on the route Stockholm - Copenhagen - Zagreb - Belgrade, but 46 minutes after departure from Copenhagen the liner exploded in the air. According to some reports, the bomb in luggage compartment The liner was abandoned by a Croatian group of extremists.

JAT DC-9-32, identical to the one blown up:


The explosion of the airliner occurred over German city Hermsdorf, and the wreckage of the plane fell near the city of Ceska Kamenice (Czechoslovakia). Of the 28 people on board (23 passengers and 5 crew members), only one survived - 22-year-old flight attendant Vesna Vulović, who fell without a parachute from a height of 10,160 meters. She is the holder of the world altitude record for surviving a free fall without a parachute, according to the Guinness Book of Records.

Vesna was in a coma and received many injuries: fractures of the base of the skull, three vertebrae, both legs and the pelvis. The treatment took 16 months, of which for 10 months the girl’s lower body was paralyzed (from the waist to the legs).


Miracle on the Hudson: emergency landing A320 aircraft

This aircraft accident occurred on January 15, 2009. The US Airways Airbus A320-214 was operating flight AWE 1549 on the route New York-Charlotte-Seattle, and there were 150 passengers and 5 crew members on board. 1.5 minutes after takeoff, the plane collided with a flock of birds and both engines failed. Commander Chesley Sullenberger, a former US Air Force pilot, decided that the only option to save the 155 people on board was to land on the Hudson River. The splashdown turned out to be successful.


The crew landed the plane safely on the waters of the Hudson River in New York. All 155 people on board survived, 83 people were injured - 5 seriously (one flight attendant was the most injured) and 78 minor.

In the media, the incident is known as the “Miracle on the Hudson.” In total, 11 cases of controlled forced landings of passenger airliners on water are known; this case is the fourth without casualties.

By the way, yesterday, July 17, 2017 plane " Ural Airlines"(flight U6-2932 Simferopol - Yekaterinburg) collided with a flock of birds, as a result of which the nose cone was damaged. It would seem like such a colossus and some birds, but... the plane ended up being repaired for 12 hours.

Here's what a bird strike looks like from the pilot's seat and from outside:


Tu-124 landing on the Neva

This splashdown event occurred in Soviet aviation in the skies over Leningrad on August 21, 1963. As a result of a combination of circumstances, passenger plane The engines of the Tu-124 failed, and the plane began to glide from a height of half a kilometer above the city center. The crew had no choice but to try to splash down on the surface of the Neva. All 52 people on board survived.

Initially, the commission investigating the circumstances of the accident placed responsibility for the emergency on the crew. But later it was decided not to punish the pilots.


Il-12 splashdown in Kazan

And 10 years earlier, on April 30, 1953, an Il-12 P aircraft from Aeroflot operated flight 35 on the route Moscow - Kazan - Novosibirsk. There were 18 passengers and 5 crew members on board. At 21:37, at the moment when the airliner, preparing to land in Kazan, was flying over the Volga, a very strong impact occurred. The crew members recalled that their vision darkened. Both engines lost power and flames appeared from the exhaust pipes.

Aeroflot IL-12:


The ship's commander decided to make an emergency splashdown. The IL-12 splashed down in the area of ​​the Kazan river port, after which the car began to rapidly fill up river water. the evacuation could not be carried out in time. The crew told passengers that the plane splashed down in shallow water, causing many to worry about taking personal belongings. In fact, the depth of the river in this place reached about 20 meters. As a result, people who had put on outerwear ended up in the water and began to drown. Of the 22 people, one passenger drowned. The investigation commission found that the cause of the emergency was a collision between the plane and a flock of ducks.

Miracle in the Andes

On October 13, 1972, an FH-227 plane crash occurred, which was called the “Miracle in the Andes.” A Fairchild FH-227D airliner of the Uruguayan Air Force performed chartered flight FAU 571 on the route Montevideo-Mendoza-Santiago, and on board were 5 crew members and 40 passengers (members of the Old Cristians rugby team, their relatives and sponsors). While approaching Santiago, the airliner was caught in a cyclone, crashed into a rock and crashed at the foot of the mountain.

Aircraft Fairchild FH-227D board T-571:


The survivors had minimal food supplies and no heat sources necessary to survive in the harsh cold climate at an altitude of 3,600 meters. Desperate from hunger and a radio message that “all efforts to find the missing plane are being stopped,” people began to eat the frozen bodies of their dead comrades. Rescuers learned about the survivors only after 72 days...


12 passengers died when they fell and collided with a rock, another 5 died later from wounds and cold. Then, of the remaining 28 survivors, 8 more died in an avalanche that covered their “home” from the fuselage of the plane, and later three more died from their wounds.

Boeing 737 accident over Kahului

This accident occurred on April 28, 1988. The Boeing 737-297 airliner of Aloha Airlines was performing domestic flight AQ 243 on the Hilo-Honolulu route, and on board there were 6 crew members and 89 passengers. But 23 minutes after takeoff, a significant part of the fuselage structure in the nose section of the plane was suddenly torn off. According to the report, the causes of the accident were metal corrosion, poor epoxy bonding of fuselage parts, and rivet fatigue.


94 out of 95 people survived. Senior flight attendant Clarabelle Lansing died - at the moment a part of the fuselage was torn off, she was in the middle of the plane, and she was thrown out by the air flow. Search teams could not find her body, as well as the detached fragment of the fuselage, about 5.4 meters long.

Flight attendant Vesna Vulović became famous throughout the world in the early seventies. In 1972, an event occurred after which her life completely changed. Vulovich’s name was included in the Guinness Book of Records, she met with political and public figures, met the idol of her youth, Paul McCartney, and other world-famous stars. What happened in the early seventies? What event made an ordinary flight attendant famous?

Plane crash

A terrible accident occurred on January 26, 1972. The McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 airliner was flying from Stockholm to Belgrade. At an altitude of more than ten thousand meters the liner exploded. Its debris fell on the Czechoslovakian city of Ceska Kamenice. All passengers and crew members were killed, with the exception of flight attendant Vesna Vulović.

On this day, all the world's media reported about the explosion of the plane. The cause of the tragedy that occurred over a small Czechoslovakian town was a bomb that was hidden on board an airliner by terrorists from Croatia. The chances of surviving such accidents are negligible. Reports of disasters in the sky usually end with the tragic phrase: “Everyone on board died.” But this time, news appeared in the media that shocked the world: Yugoslav Airlines flight attendant Vesna Vulović managed to survive. However, this case cannot be called absolutely unprecedented in

So, more than forty years ago, a sensation spread around the world - twenty-two-year-old flight attendant Vesna Vulovich remained alive after falling from a height of ten thousand meters. What saved her life? The planting was softened by the snow-covered tree crowns. However, the heroine of this amazing story herself could not tell about her flight. Flight attendant Vesna Vulović, who survived the terrible accident, remembered that terrible day vaguely. She came to her senses only two months later. What is known from the biography of the flight attendant?

Stewardess Vesna Vulovich

She became a flight attendant by accident. Vesna was born in Yugoslavia in 1950. She graduated from high school and entered university. Like many other young people of the sixties, the girl was a fan of the Beatles group, and therefore dreamed of mastering English language in excellence. In 1968, she could not imagine that she would ever meet Paul McCartney himself.

Vesna chose the English department for herself and began to study the language in which famous vocalists sang. After the first year of study, our heroine went for an internship in England. When she returned home, something happened that radically changed her whole life.

The girl met her school friend. By that time he had flown on airliners of a large Yugoslav company. A childhood friend advised Vesna to enroll in a flight attendant course. Working on international airlines gave me the opportunity to regularly visit the beautiful, foggy city of London. In addition, the salary of a flight attendant was several times higher than the income of an English teacher.

First flight

Vesna successfully completed her courses. In 1971, the girl took to the skies for the first time. When the tragedy occurred, which became the main event in her life, she was still a university student. She did not have a permanent job.

The last hours before the disaster

On that day, the crew in which Vesna interned arrived in Copenhagen. In the Danish capital, he replaced the pilots of the plane that flew in from Stockholm. Subsequently, Vesna Vulovich - the flight attendant who killed all her colleagues - recalled that the crew members, more experienced people, seemed to have a presentiment of something. They constantly talked about their families, went shopping a lot, and bought souvenirs for relatives.

Later, in the hospital, Serbian flight attendant Vesna Vulović tried to remember all the smallest events of that day. Who planted the bomb? Shortly before takeoff, she noticed one of the loaders. This man differed in both appearance and behavior from his colleagues. Outwardly, he looked like a resident of the Balkan Peninsula. The man’s behavior contrasted sharply with the behavior of the other loaders. He spoke loudly, was nervous, and fussed. According to Vulovich, it was he who planted the bomb on the plane. However, this realization came too late.

Bruno Honke

What happened to flight attendant Vesna Vulović in 1972 can safely be called a miracle. She was incredibly lucky twice. The first time was when she did not die in the explosion. In the second - when she managed to survive the fall.

However, the girl was saved not only by the fact that the dilapidated liner fell on snow-covered trees. The fact is that the first at the scene of the disaster was a local resident, Bruno Honke. This man worked in a German field hospital during the Second World War. He provided the girl with first aid. It is worth saying that Honka miraculously managed to discover a barely breathing young flight attendant among many dead bodies. He probably saved her life.

Treatment

The story of Vesna Vulović, a flight attendant from Yugoslavia who survived an accident that claimed 27 lives, instantly spread throughout the world. She was taken to the hospital. A long period of rehabilitation began. For about two months Spring did not come to her senses. For a long time, doctors did not believe that the girl would survive after such a terrible accident. But she still came to her senses. It is noteworthy that when I opened my eyes, the first thing I did was ask for a cigarette.

As the days passed, the young body coped with the injuries received from the fall more and more confidently. However, Vesna never remembered the last hours spent on board the plane. She could not say what she was doing at the time of the explosion. Most likely, at those minutes the girl was in the passenger compartment.

For ten months, Vesna was paralyzed. Doctors feared she would never be able to walk. However, another miracle happened - the only survivor of the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 plane crash got back to her feet.

After the disaster

Flight attendant Vesna Vulović, whose photo was shown on television almost every day in February 1972, was sent by plane to Belgrade two months after the accident. Doctors feared that the flight would negatively affect her mental state. A fall from such a height cannot pass without leaving a trace. However, everything turned out well. Moreover, Vesna had no fear of flying. She was not afraid of airplanes even later.

She spent some more time in a Belgrade hospital. A policeman was on duty at the entrance to Vulovich’s room day and night. She did not remember anything about the events of the last hours before the accident. However, she remained the only witness to the crime, which, by the way, was never solved. The authorities feared that terrorists would try to kill the surviving crew member.

The miraculous rescue of the flight attendant overshadowed the other details of the accident. Vesna was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the person who made the highest jump without a parachute. In the mid-eighties, Spring arrived in London. Paul McCartney was present at the ceremony for presenting the certificate of entry into the Guinness Book of Records. Spring finally met the idol of her youth.

In the early autumn of 1972, Vulovich was discharged from the hospital. Surprisingly, she not only did not develop a fear of flying, but did not even lose the desire to work as a flight attendant. Vesna tried to get a job at the airline again. She was not hired as a flight attendant, but was offered a position in the office. Vesna Vulovich worked for the airline for many years: she was involved in the preparation of cargo contracts. Left my place of work former flight attendant eighteen years later due to disagreement with the policies of the Yugoslav leader S. Milosevic.

A flight attendant who survived a 1972 plane crash has become a national heroine. She was received by Marshal Tito himself, which was considered a great honor for a citizen of Yugoslavia at that time. Songs were dedicated to Spring, and she was invited to various television shows. Girls were named after her. To survive such a catastrophe, a lucky break is not enough. You need strength, an extraordinary desire to live. Vulovich became a symbol of good luck and optimism.

The former flight attendant used her fame for social and political purposes. She took an active part in protests against Milosevic’s rule and campaigned for one of the parties in the elections.

Death

Vesna Vulovich lived to be 66 years old. On December 23, 2016, she was found dead in her own apartment. Relatives and friends could not reach her for a long time. The police were called and they opened the door. The cause of death of the famous flight attendant is unknown. Friends claim that the woman’s health has recently deteriorated sharply.

The record of a flight attendant from Yugoslavia has not yet been broken. Not a single person has managed to fall from such a height and survive. However, history knows several equally interesting cases.

In 1942, a Soviet military plane was shot down, the pilot of which fell without a parachute. His life was saved by snow cover.

Another amazing event happened many years after the Second World War ended. World War. In December 1971, a passenger plane crashed near Peru. Half an hour after departure, the airliner ran into a thunderstorm. The plane caught fire and broke into pieces. The 17-year-old passenger survived. When she woke up, she found herself sitting in a chair hanging from a tree.

In August 1981, a collision occurred between An-24 and Tu-16 aircraft. Student Larisa Savitskaya and her husband were present on board the passenger airliner. There were several reasons for the disaster, including poor coordination between civilian and military dispatchers. Everyone died except Larisa.

She fell from a height of five kilometers. She received many injuries, but, according to Soviet laws, she was not entitled to disability. The woman spent her entire life doing odd jobs and sometimes went hungry. She also became a record holder in some way. Unlike Vulovich, Savitskaya did not become famous in her homeland. She received compensation from the state in the amount of 75 rubles, after which the story of the amazing fall was forgotten.

Despite the fact that thousands of times more people die in car accidents every year than in airplane crashes, the fear of flying lives in the public consciousness. First of all, this is explained by the scale of the tragedies - a fallen airliner means tens and hundreds of simultaneous deaths. This is much more shocking than several thousand reports of fatal accidents spread over a month.

The second reason for fear of a plane crash is the awareness of one’s own helplessness and inability to somehow influence the course of events. This is almost always true. However, the history of aeronautics has accumulated a small number of exceptions in which people survived falling with the plane (or its debris) from a height of several kilometers without a parachute. These cases are so few that many of them have their own Wikipedia pages.

Wreck Rider

Vesna Vulović, a flight attendant at Jugoslovenski Aerotransport (today called Air Serbia), holds the world record for surviving a free fall without a parachute. She entered the Guinness Book of Records because she survived the explosion of a DC-9 plane at an altitude of 10,160 meters.

At the time of the explosion, Vesna was working with passengers. She immediately lost consciousness, so she did not remember either the moment of the disaster or its details. Because of this, the flight attendant did not develop a fear of flying - she perceived all the circumstances from other people’s words. It turned out that at the time of the destruction of the plane, Vulovich was pinned between the seat, the body of another crew member and the buffet cart. In this form, the debris fell onto the snow-covered mountainside and slid along it until it came to a complete stop.

Vesna remained alive, although she received serious injuries - she broke the base of her skull, three vertebrae, both legs and her pelvis. For 10 months, the girl’s lower body was paralyzed; in total, treatment took almost 1.5 years.

After recovery, Vulovich tried to return to her previous job, but she was not allowed to fly and was given a position in the airline office.

Target selection

Surviving like Vesna Vulovich in a cocoon of debris is much easier than in solo free flight. However, the second case also has its own surprising examples. One of them dates back to 1943, when US military pilot Alan Magee flew over France in a heavy four-engine B-17 bomber. At an altitude of 6 km he was thrown out of the plane, and the glass roof of the station slowed his fall. As a result, Magee fell on the stone floor, remained alive and was immediately captured by the Germans, shocked by what he saw.

A great fall target would be a large haystack. There are several known cases of people surviving plane crashes if densely growing bushes got in their way. A dense forest also gives some chances, but there is a risk of running into branches.

The ideal option for a falling person would be snow or a swamp. A soft and compressible environment that absorbs the inertia accumulated during the flight to the center of the earth, under a successful combination of circumstances, can make injuries compatible with life.

There is almost no chance of survival if you fall on water surface. Water is practically not compressed, so the result of contact with it will be the same as in a collision with concrete.

Sometimes the most unexpected objects can bring salvation. One of the main things skydiving enthusiasts are taught is to stay away from power lines. However, there is a known case when it was a high-voltage line that saved the life of a skydiver who found himself in free flight due to a parachute that did not open. It hit the wires, bounced back and fell to the ground from a height of several tens of meters.

Pilots and children

Statistics on survival in plane crashes show that crew members and passengers under age are much more likely to cheat death. The situation with pilots is clear - the passive safety systems in their cockpit are more reliable than those of other passengers.

Why children survive more often than others is not completely clear. However, researchers have established several reliable reasons for this issue:

• increased bone flexibility, general muscle relaxation and a higher percentage of subcutaneous fat, which protects internal organs from injury like a pillow;
• small stature, due to which the head is covered by the back of the chair from flying debris. This is extremely important, since the main cause of death in plane crashes is brain injury;
• smaller body size, reducing the likelihood of running into some sharp object at the moment of landing.

Invincible fortitude

A successful landing does not always mean a positive outcome. Not every miraculously surviving person is instantly found by well-meaning people local residents. For example, in 1971, over the Amazon at an altitude of 3,200 meters, a Lockheed Electra aircraft collapsed due to a fire caused by lightning striking a wing with a fuel tank. 17-year-old German Juliana Kopke came to her senses in the jungle, strapped to a chair. She was injured, but could move.

The girl remembered the words of her biologist father, who said that even in the impenetrable jungle you can always find people if you follow the flow of water. Juliana walked along the forest streams, which gradually turned into rivers. With a broken collarbone, a bag of sweets and a stick with which she dispersed stingrays in shallow water, the girl came out to people 9 days later. In Italy, the film “Miracles Still Happen” (1974) was made based on this story.

There were 92 people on board, including Kopke. It was subsequently established that in addition to her, 14 more people survived the fall. However, over the next few days, they all died before rescuers found them.

An episode from the film “Miracles Still Happen” saved the life of Larisa Savitskaya, who in 1981 was flying with her husband from their honeymoon on the flight Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Blagoveshchensk. At an altitude of 5,200 meters, a passenger An-24 collided with a Tu-16K bomber.

Larisa and her husband were sitting in the back of the plane. The fuselage broke right in front of her seat, and the girl was thrown into the aisle. At that moment, she remembered the film about Julian Kopka, who during the crash reached a chair, pressed herself into it and survived. Savitskaya did the same. Part of the plane's body, in which the girl remained, fell onto a birch grove that softened the blow. She was in the fall for about 8 minutes. Larisa was the only survivor; she received serious injuries, but remained conscious and retained the ability to move independently.

Savitskaya's surname is included twice in the Russian version of the Guinness Book of Records. She is listed as the person who survived the fall from the greatest height. The second record is rather sad - Larisa became the one who received minimal compensation for physical damage. She was paid only 75 rubles - that’s exactly how much, according to State Insurance standards, survivors of a plane crash were then entitled to.

By far the fastest and comfortable view The modern mode of transport is the airplane. Moreover, quite often it is by airliner that passengers can get to the most remote place on the planet, and the journey will take very little time. However, many refuse this option because they consider plane crashes to be a frequent occurrence. And this is not at all surprising, because if you analyze numerous feature films about plane crashes, you can really come to the conclusion that planes crash almost every day and the passengers have practically no chance to survive. In fact, this is, of course, not the case, but this fact is confirmed by numerous survivors of the plane crash. We will present real stories about the lucky ones who managed to escape during plane crashes in this article as a convincing example.

Of course, the plane was and will be the most comfortable and in a safe way transport, but even such a powerful and reliable car should first of all be considered as technology. And as you know, problems can happen with any machine, which leads to emergency situations. According to analytical studies, the main cause of disasters, sad as it may be to admit, is the human factor. After all, technology cannot spoil itself and disable itself; this happens due to the inattention and negligent attitude of a person. If low-quality components were used when assembling the machine, this process was not given due attention, and daily technical inspection was carried out, as they say, in haste, then even the most reliable equipment may sooner or later fail.

Almost all survivors of a plane crash indicate that the car in the sky simply begins to behave somehow incorrectly, and at this time alarming “lights” begin to flash on board, which further escalates the already alarming situation. Experts say that any breakdown in the sky is a defect and specialists need to find it on the ground in order to prevent an emergency from occurring.

Most often, planes crash due to the following reasons:

• malfunctions of the aircraft or individual devices that were not identified during the technical inspection. According to statistics, approximately 23% of plane crashes occur precisely because of this reason, that is, due to ordinary human negligence and inattention;
• errors made by pilots and maintenance personnel;
• unfavorable conditions that can change dramatically along the airliner's route.

There are several other reasons that can lead to a plane crash, for example, terrorism, but this is a completely different topic for discussion. But so as not to create an emergency situation, there are still survivors in almost every accident after a plane crash. What helped them stay alive, what measures they took to save their lives, we will further analyze more carefully.

Names and stories of people who managed to survive plane crashes

Rescuers carry survivors from the scene of a plane crash near Jose Maria Cordova airport in Colombia.

It may seem to many that those who managed to survive the plane crash were simply lucky, that is, they were, as they say, born under a lucky star. In reality, this is not entirely true, because experts, having analyzed more than 2 thousand rescues, came to the conclusion that the survivors of the plane crash were able to save their lives not only due to a favorable combination of circumstances, but also thanks to the knowledge and rules that they took in a timely manner in extreme situation.

This applies to the surviving crew member of the Yugoslav airliner - flight attendant V. Vulovich, who was 22 years old at the time of the accident. Unfortunately, in the history of those who survived, it is not so often possible to come across the names of airline crew members, perhaps this is explained by the fact that in such a difficult situation the crew of the airship does not care about their own safety, but devotes all their strength to saving passengers.

And V. Vulovich still managed to miraculously escape from a terrible plane crash in which a passenger plane exploded in the sky due to a bomb on board, which was planted by terrorists. This terrible tragedy occurred in 1972, during an air flight from Copenhagen to Zagreb, which was operated by a Yugoslav air carrier. Despite a terrible explosion in the sky, the flight attendant survived the plane crash. According to experts, such an incredible rescue can be explained by the fact that the flight attendant was in the safest place at the time of the explosion - in the middle of the cabin and at a decent distance from the bomb. By luck, the flight attendant who survived the plane crash was in a compartment separated from the body, which fell from a height of 10 thousand km onto the branches of snow-covered trees and thereby softened the blow.

But this is just the first part of the happy story of a Yugoslav flight attendant who miraculously escaped. If it weren’t for the help of a local resident, who, upon seeing the girl, immediately freed her from the wreckage of the plane and took her to the nearest hospital, Vesna Vulovich could have simply frozen to death in the cold forest. The surviving flight attendant, after the plane crashed from such a great height, lay in a coma for more than a month, and after that she still had to wage a desperate fight for her life for almost 1.5 years. The girl was able to withstand serious tests and soon fully recovered both physically and mentally, and her truly “fantastic” jump from a height of 10 thousand km without a parachute was listed in the Guinness Book of Records. The legitimate certificate to the world-famous flight attendant was presented by her idol, Paul McCartney, which brought the heroine to incredible delight.

The story of Cecilia Sichan, a 4-year-old girl

Cecilia Sichan

The story of the next heroine, Cecilia Sichan, took place in 1989 and is actively discussed even today. After all, in this terrible tragedy that happened to the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82, which was serviced by Northwest Airlines, only one passenger out of 154 people on board was able to survive - a 4-year-old little girl from America.

Cecilia went on an air trip with her parents. The problem that caused the plane crash showed itself on takeoff - the pilot was unable to turn the steering wheel correctly, as a result of which the left plane of the wing caught the lighting mast, and a terrible flame instantly engulfed the wing. Air transport changed the flight path, which led to the crash and explosion of the plane. The airliner fell onto the highway, and a terrible explosion followed immediately. Experts found the wreckage of the car and the mutilated bodies of those on board half a mile from the crash site.

Medics and fire services arrived at the scene of the tragedy immediately, but the horror of the picture that presented itself made it clear that there was no one to save in this place. However, the children's crying, which came from the wreckage of the plane, led the rescuers to real amazement. Firefighter D. Tied was the first to rush to the child’s voice. Seeing a small hand reaching out of the rubble, the fireman carefully took out the victim and carefully handed her over to the doctors.

Of course, during the crash the girl received numerous injuries to both her head and limbs, and her body was also severely burned. But despite everything, this little traveler was the only one who managed to survive the terrible tragedy. For a full recovery, the girl had to undergo several operations, including 4 skin grafts. Her aunt and uncle began to take care of Cecilia. As soon as the girl grew up, she decided to get an airliner tattoo on her arm as a constant reminder of the terrible and at the same time happy day in her life. Today, Cecilia continues to use modern aircraft, and when asked frequently whether you are afraid of air travel, she answers jokingly, “No, I’m not afraid, since a shell certainly doesn’t hit the same place twice.”

Russian accident

The tragedy with the An-24 plane, which was transporting 38 passengers from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk, has been discussed all over the world for a long time. After all, the survivors of the plane crash were not counted in dozens or even just a few - in this terrible disaster that happened in 1981, only one 20-year-old passenger, L. Savitskaya, was able to survive, who was returning home with her husband after a honeymoon. The name of the surviving passenger was included in the Guinness Book of Records, more than once:

1. For surviving a fall without a parachute from a height of more than 5 thousand km.
2. For receiving the very minimum compensation, in the amount of 75 rubles, which is paid by the state as damage to all victims.
3. She also collected many domestic awards from the authorities.

The cause of the plane crash was a collision with a bomber. Of course, the An-24, which is small in size, could not withstand the terrible impact and simply fell into pieces high in the sky. At the time of the collision, the happy passenger was resting in her seat, wearing a seat belt. She was brought out of her sleep by a severe burn caused by the fire, which was rapidly gaining strength due to depressurization.

Larisa was familiar with the rules of safe flight, so she did not unfasten her seat belts and sank into her seat as much as possible. As the girl will later explain, the plot of the film from the Italian directors “Miracles Still Happen” helped her survive, in which the main character was able to survive thanks to a fastened belt and the correct body position. The part of the plane the girl was in fell onto tree branches, which significantly softened the fall, which lasted about 8 minutes. After landing, Larisa lost consciousness, but after a while she woke up on her own, went down into the birch forest and even built a shelter for herself for a safe overnight stay. It took rescue teams 48 hours to find the lucky passenger, whose name had already been added to the list of dead.

This is not at all surprising, because those who arrived at the scene of the tragedy could not find a single survivor; there were only burnt bodies and plane wreckage around. The girl had serious head and back injuries; for a full recovery she needed to undergo several operations, which Larisa was able to cope with 100%.

Erica Delgado's Story

Erica Delgado

Many were worried about the recovery of 9-year-old, the only surviving passenger on the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-14, Erica Delgado. The air transport carried 47 passengers on board to Bogota from Cartagena. Only Erica managed to escape death. The cause of the plane crash was a breakdown of the altimeter, as a result of which the plane was unable to land safely and simply crashed in a swampy area.

The girl was on board with her parents and brother; according to her, she was pushed out of the plane, which literally began to fall apart before her eyes, by the hands of her mother. Literally a few seconds later, the air transport was engulfed in flames and a terrible explosion occurred. Erica fell on the seaweed, but she could not get out of the swamp on her own. According to the girl, within a few minutes local residents arrived at the scene of the tragedy, but not to save the victims, but for the purpose of profit. According to Erica, they ignored her pleas for help, but the looters quickly tore the gold jewelry from her neck and hurried away. But her rescuer turned out to be a local farmer, who, having heard the child’s cry, hurried to the girl’s aid. Surprisingly, in such a terrible accident, Erica escaped with only a broken arm.

More stories from Russia

In a crash Russian plane Yak-42, flying on the route Yaroslavl - Minsk, in 2011, there were two survivors. The plane was supposed to deliver a hockey team to Minsk after it crashed air transport Rescuers found two survivors - athlete A. Galimov and A. Sizov, flight engineer of the crashed aircraft. Unfortunately, the efforts of doctors did not help save the life of the hockey player, as he received serious burns to his body that were incompatible with life. The flight engineer was much luckier; despite numerous fractures and bruises, Alexander was able to fully regain his strength and did not even give up aviation. Of course, the flight engineer does not agree to work in the air, but he very carefully checks each aircraft for technical serviceability before departure.

Experts say that it is quite possible to save your life in a plane crash; the most important thing is that passengers must know about the rules of safe flight, use this knowledge in an emergency, remain calm even in a seemingly hopeless situation, and strictly adhere to instructions from crew members. You definitely need to soberly assess the current situation and slowly make the right decision.

Valery Valiulin

Is it necessary, really?!

Based on real events. First and last names are excluded.

Arriving early in the morning for duty to carry out the next training flights, I was very upset - the flights were canceled. Flights are canceled infrequently, mainly due to weather conditions that do not allow them to be carried out, in the absence of weather at alternate airfields, in case of accidents and catastrophes of similar aircraft, and you never know other reasons for rescheduling flights to another day. The reason for the cancellation of flights stunned me - in the unit from which I had transferred three years earlier, my friend, the commander of the ship with whom I had flown for two years in the same crew, died.

Subsequently, the flight and engineering personnel of all aviation units were informed of the results of the investigation of the disaster, the reasons that led to the death of people and the loss of the combat vehicle, and recommendations for measures to prevent the recurrence of similar tragedies in the future.

A colonel who arrived from Moscow, hanging a “sheet”* in front of the aviation squadron, measuring “two hundred twenty by one hundred eighty”, with the crew’s unfinished route from the take-off airfield to the point of the disaster marked on it, tried to convince us that a slow depressurization had occurred at high altitude cockpits. That all crew members, in violation of instructions, flew at high altitude with relaxed oxygen masks, and lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen and decreased pressure in the cabin. That the plane, having become uncontrollable, fell into a tailspin, went to supersonic speed, broke up in the air, and fell to the ground. Of the six crew members, only the ship's navigator ejected.

I listened carefully to the flight safety inspector's speech and did not believe what I heard! So that such an oversight could be made by the commander, with whom we once deliberately carried out a five-hour cross-country flight on an airplane with a faulty cabin pressurization system, which was always notified in the air about the well-being of the crew members?! And now I hear his voice: “Crew, tighten up the oxygen masks, report on your health!” No! This is a lie in the name of preserving the positions of the commanders, hiding the true cause of the death of five crew members and the loss of the combat vehicle.

Years passed. Until my death, grief for my lost friend and his crew will not leave me. I often dream about him. I dream about his face, tense in his work, his eyes intently watching the instruments, his hands in leather gloves not letting go of the steering wheel.

I asked all the comrades from the former regiment with whom the flight service later brought me together about the details of this incident. Everyone agreed on one thing - the authorities hid the true cause of this disaster, but no one could know it for sure; they only expressed their assumptions.

Fellow soldiers who tried to “talk” the navigator, the survivor who was able to reveal the true cause of the incident, with the help of cognac and vodka, could not squeeze anything out of his lips, sealed by the command.

When the rescue team, in the snowy mountains, on a frosty February day, took the ship's navigator, who had landed by parachute, from the scene of the death of the crew, he was not wearing a headset! The headset could only be torn off from his head in one case, if it was not fastened. Consequently, during the flight the navigator was not wearing an oxygen mask, which is attached to the headset, and was breathing cabin air, but did not lose consciousness! Repeatedly during flights, I, as the navigator of the ship, had to unfasten the oxygen mask with the permission of the commander; it prevents me from leaning tightly against the rubber tube of the radar sight screen, and prevents me from clearly seeing the flare from ground landmarks and targets. So it’s possible for a navigator to find himself without a mask at any stage of the flight.

Being already retired, I told my neighbor, a retired colonel, about my disbelief in the results of the investigation of this disaster, with whom we shared common hobbies for literature and, in the past, joint service. Already ready for his imminent departure from life, stricken by cancer, he told me the true reason that led to the tragic death of the friend of my youth:

“You are right, Valera, in not recognizing this false version of this catastrophe. The engineering and technical staff installed “KPZh-30” with unacceptable alcohol vapor residues in it! Those who cleaned the oxygen equipment, which was important for the life support of the crew in flight, did not comply with the requirements laid down in the instructions and installed KPZh-30 on the aircraft without purging it until it was completely cleared of alcohol vapors. The flight lasted 52 minutes. The crew breathed oxygen mixed with alcohol vapor during the flight and were simply poisoned! This is the second case in our Air Force where people died due to such a violation bordering on a crime. First similar case with the death of the crew happened so long ago that they stopped remembering it or, as this time, hid the true cause of the disaster in order to preserve the “skins” of those responsible. Due to the official position I held in those years, I was aware of the true cause of this disaster. Most of the flight and engineering personnel were then given false information about the causes of that disaster. Blame the dead so as not to destroy the families of many living people - this principle has always been pursued by the Air Force. Until now, no one knows how many of the first cosmonauts died in space before Yuri Gagarin’s flight.”

The era of digital civilization has arrived. I found on the Internet everything I could find about the effects of alcohol vapor on the human body when inhaled, and drew conclusions about how pilots could behave under the influence of alcohol that penetrated into the blood and brain of a person directly through the lungs, bypassing the stomach. The performances are terrible!

During the initial intoxication, a person’s muscular activity is activated and the pilots could do anything, unreasonably “dragging the helm”, increasing and decreasing engine speed, taking the plane beyond critical angles of attack and roll, beyond unacceptable flight speeds. Subsequently, a person intoxicated by alcohol vapor falls asleep and may simply die! I know of two cases of people dying in the air when: one - he drank heavily on the eve of the flight as a passenger; the other took a flat bottle of cognac into the air so as not to get bored on a long flight in his single-seat suspended cabin and did not have a task for this flight in his specialty. There were even more cases of loss of consciousness in flight by those who took off “with a hangover”, having managed to “skip” the pre-flight medical control.

For the rest of my life, I imagined myself in the place of the ship’s navigator on that ill-fated flight, trying to “see” the actions of the pilots poisoned against their will by alcohol fumes.

The cause of a similar plane crash in the Air Force, which killed people many years earlier, was either hidden or forgotten. It was the lack of awareness of the incident by the flight and technical crew that led to its repetition many years later. I don’t remember that when checking the equipment before departure, the instructions required sniffing the oxygen supplied to the masks from the KPZh-30. “Yes, he always smells of alcohol!” – anyone who has flown will say.

Traffic police officers are equipped with a device that detects the presence of alcohol in the body of motor vehicle drivers, but aircraft crews do not have a device that can determine before departure the presence of alcohol in the oxygen that they will breathe in flight. Maybe breathalyzers of traffic police officers are suitable for such monitoring of the oxygen equipment of aircraft and can protect the flight crew from forced intoxication in flight?! Then why is no such check carried out?!

Once every six months, the KPZh-30 is removed from each aircraft. Every six months they are washed with alcohol to remove dirt and fats from the system (pure oxygen can ignite when combined with fats!) Then “KPZh-30” is purged with air under a certain pressure, dried before being filled with liquid oxygen. This means that a similar tragedy can be expected every six months if the engineering and technical staff violates the requirements for their maintenance established by the instructions.

How can you hide the truth about the true causes of disasters from people whose lives depend on their awareness?! In my twenty-two years of service in aviation, I have never heard of such alcohol poisoning - through the oxygen system!

Later, I asked many colleagues whether they had to deal with the presence of alcohol vapor in oxygen equipment during flight? And I heard: “We once fell out of the plane with the whole crew under the canopy, having flown over the aircraft after it was repaired at the aircraft factory! The day before, the authorities accused aviation technicians the fact is that they save alcohol when washing KPZh-30 for the sake of flushing their stomachs with it, so they left enough alcohol vapor in KPZh to prove that this is not so.”

I also discovered on the Internet an altercation between the navigator of the ship who had ejected at that time and one of his colleagues, who tried to accuse the deceased commander of the ship and his crew members of illiterate action during the depressurization of the aircraft cabin at high altitude:

Navigator to the “Accuser”: “I would never have written what I am writing now, but you affected our crew, and there is no one else to answer.” I continue to be ironic about the system for determining the best crew, but at the time of the disaster, our crew was determined to be the best in the regiment. KK* had his mask on and fully pulled up. And he lost consciousnessfor a completely different reason before my eyes.

I also spent two years as a navigator for an innocently accused crew commander and, too, joining the navigator who survived a terrible accident, I can defend him without naming his name. Our deceased commander was a competent pilot, he knew aerodynamics and aircraft better than many of his colleagues, he was a first-class pilot who valued the lives of the people he lifted into the air. We repeatedly got into difficult situations with him in the air, from which we got out of them competently. Once we avoided an obvious collision in the air with a huge Aeroflot airliner. Then the air traffic controllers made a mistake, bringing the sides together at the point of intersection of our route with the air route at the same level (same flight altitude), without separating the planes according to the time of its intersection. The commander was the first to see the IL-62 approaching us and dived under it. I even saw the faces of the passengers pressed to the windows, we were so dangerously close.

“Killed! Killed!” – the commander’s wife shouted, running to the regiment headquarters, having learned about the death of her husband, the father of two boys preschool age, and four other members of his crew. How right she was when they tried to convince her of something completely different.

* Air Force- air Force.

* KK – ship commander.

* "sheet" (in the Air Force)– diagram, drawing, visual tutorial, made on a Whatman paper measuring 220 cm by 180 cm.

* "KPZh-30"– liquid oxygen is stored on the aircraft in oxygen gasifiers arranged likeDewar vessels (KPZh-30, SKG-30, etc.).