Stories from plane crash survivors. Miraculous rescues: survivors of plane crashes. The most difficult situations

In some cases, passengers did not even receive any serious injuries. Some were simply late for the tragic flight, canceled the flight for any reason, while others remained relatively safe and sound after the crash. There were also cases when those who were not present on the fatal board, but died under its rubble, became victims of the disaster.

Four-year-old American girl who survived the disaster

In August 1989, an American airliner flying the route Saginaw - Detroit - Phoenix - Santa Ana took off from the airport in Detroit. A few minutes after the plane left the ground, it began to roll sideways, crashed into several lamp posts and burst into flames. The airliner crashed onto the road, drove along it, hit a railway embankment and crashed into an overpass. The plane was completely destroyed. One hundred and fifty passengers and crew members died in this disaster. Two people who were in the cars that were crashed by the plane died on the ground.

Four-year-old American Cecilia Sechan suffered significant injuries but survived the disaster. The child who survived the plane crash was flying with his parents and older brother. The girl was noticed by firefighter John Tied, who was working at the crash site. Cecilia suffered a fractured skull, third-degree burns, a broken collarbone and a broken leg. The girl underwent several operations, but was able to fully recover. Photos of the girl who survived the plane crash then spread all over America.

Cecilia Sechan was raised by her uncle and aunt. She has never given interviews, but broke her silence in 2013 by appearing in the documentary Sole Survivor. The girl says that she is not afraid to fly on airplanes. She is guided by the principle: if it happened once, it will not happen again. In addition, the girl got a tattoo of an airplane on her arm, which reminds her of that both tragic and happy day.

Larisa Savitskaya, survivor of the crash over Zavitinsk

In 1981, Soviet student Larisa Savitskaya was returning from a honeymoon with her husband on a Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Blagoveshchensk flight operated by an An-24 aircraft. The newlyweds had tickets for the middle part of the plane, but since there were many empty seats in the cabin, they decided to take seats in the back.

During the flight, the plane collided with a Tu-16K bomber. There were several reasons for this. These include errors by airport ground staff and dispatchers, and generally unsatisfactory organization of flights in the Zavitinsk area, and non-compliance with safety regulations, and unclear interaction between civilian and military aircraft. Everyone on board both planes died, except for the only girl who survived the crash.

At the time of the plane collision, Larisa was sleeping in her chair. The girl woke up from a burn caused by depressurization of the cabin, cold air (the temperature dropped to -30 degrees) and a strong blow. After the fuselage broke, the girl was thrown into the aisle, she lost consciousness, but a few moments later she woke up, reached the nearest seat and squeezed into it without wearing a seat belt. Larisa Savitskaya, who survived the plane crash, later claimed that at that moment she remembered the film “Miracles Still Happen,” the heroine of which miraculously escaped the crash by squeezing into a chair. But the girl did not think about salvation then, she just wanted “to die without pain.”

Part of the plane fell on a birch grove, which significantly softened the blow. Larisa fell on a piece of debris 3 x 4 meters. It was subsequently determined that the fall took eight minutes. The girl fell to the ground unconscious.

When she woke up, she saw in front of her a chair with the body of her dead husband. Larisa was injured, but was still able to move independently. The girl had to spend two days in the forest, alone, among corpses and the wreckage of the plane. The girl was wearing paint that was flying off the fuselage, and her hair was very tangled in the wind. She built a temporary shelter from the rubble, kept warm with seat covers, and protected herself from mosquitoes with plastic bags.

It was raining all this time, but search work was still carried out. Larisa waved at a passing helicopter, but rescuers, not expecting to find survivors, mistook her for a geologist from a camp nearby. Larisa Savitskaya, as well as the bodies of her husband and two other passengers, were the last to be found. She was the only survivor.

Doctors determined that the girl had a concussion, broken ribs, broken arms, spinal injuries, and in addition, she had lost almost all her teeth. Despite her injuries, she did not receive disability. Later Larisa was paralyzed, but she was able to recover. Larisa became the person who received the minimum amount of compensation, that is, only 75 rubles.

Serbian flight attendant who survived a plane crash in 1972.

Flight attendants who survive a plane crash are not uncommon. However, the only survivors are already a one in a million chance. Such a miracle happened to a flight attendant on a flight from Copenhagen to Zagreb. The plane exploded in mid-air over the village of Serbska in Czechoslovakia. The investigation named the cause of the crash as a bomb planted by Croatian terrorists.

When the explosives detonated, the plane exploded into several pieces and began to fall. In the middle compartment at that time there was flight attendant Vesna Vulović, who was replacing her colleague Vesna Nikolic. The luck of the girl who survived the plane crash was that she had a soft fall and that she was first discovered by a peasant who worked in a field hospital during the war and knew how to provide first aid.

The girl, who was soon taken to the hospital, spent 27 days in a coma, then 16 months in a hospital bed. She had amnesia, the girl for some time forgot every day that passed. But she still survived. Doctors attributed her miraculous salvation to low blood pressure. When a person finds himself at a high altitude, his heart breaks from high pressure. But Vesna, who always had very low blood pressure, was able to escape death in the air. It also helped that the girl lost consciousness. But no one knows how the flight attendant managed to survive hitting the ground.

After the tragedy, the flight attendant who survived the plane crash quit and never flew on planes again. She admitted to reporters that even before that disaster she was on the verge of life and death eight times. This was when Vesna was on vacation in Montenegro and met a shark that should not have been in those waters at all, when she was arguing with her mentally ill neighbor about politics (the man took a knife and tried to attack), when she had a severe case of ectopic pregnancy and etc.

Nine-year-old girl who survived the crash over Cartagena

In January 1995, an American plane was flying from Bogota to Cartagena with 5 crew members and 47 passengers on board. During landing, the altimeter failed and the plane crashed in a swampy area. Nine-year-old Erica Delgado was flying with her parents and younger brother. A girl who survived the plane crash said that her mother pushed her out of the falling plane.

The plane exploded and caught fire as it fell. Erica fell into the seaweed, which softened her fall. Immediately after the tragedy, looting began. Residents of a nearby village tore off a gold necklace from a living girl, ignoring her pleas for help. Some time later, the girl who survived the plane crash was found by a farmer.

One and a half dozen survivors and 72 days of struggle with nature

In the fall of 1972, a plane crashed while flying from Montevideo to Santiago. The survivors had virtually no chance of salvation, but they managed to cheat death. Several passengers were left in the snowy mountains, not knowing where they were or whether anyone was looking for them. It was cold in the mountains, people tried to somehow warm up, hiding in the remains of the fuselage. By morning, several passengers still had not woken up. The passengers managed to find some provisions: crackers, liqueur, several chocolates, sardines. Everyone understood that this would not be enough. The survivors later found a radio and heard that the rescue operation had been called off. Then they decided to eat the dead.

The next day there was an avalanche, some people were trapped under snow debris. They managed to get out from under the rubble three days later. People waited 72 days for salvation. Each new day was similar to the previous one. Soon the three survivors decided to go in search of some settlement. It was difficult for them to breathe and move in the snow; soon one of the group decided to return back to the plane.

When they reached the top of the mountain, they saw only snow-capped mountains around. They thought there was no hope, but decided that it was better to die on the road than near the plane. Moreover, the mother and sister of one of the guys had died earlier, and he knew that if he returned, he would have to eat their meat.

On the ninth day of the journey, the young people found a river, on the other side they saw a shepherd. He brought paper and a pen and threw it with a stone to the other side. The survivors wrote down everything that happened to them. The shepherd threw cheese and bread to the young guys, and he himself went to the nearest settlement, which was 10 hours away. He returned back with the military.

The rescue operation took two days. First, the military rescued two young people who went in search of the settlement. The survivors gave their first press conference in the mountains. The young people had to tell everything that happened. But the press turned out to be merciless, the newspapers were full of headlines “They ate the dead”, “Traces of cannibalism discovered” and so on. But both the rescuers and the survivors themselves understood that they had no other opportunity to survive.

Seventeen-year-old schoolgirl Juliana Diler Kepke

The plane crash happened at night. When the girl woke up, the hands of her watch were moving; the time was about nine in the morning. The surviving girl later said that her eyes and head hurt very much. She was sitting in the same chair. Juliana lost consciousness several times. The girl saw rescue helicopters, but could not give any signal.

Seventeen-year-old Juliana broke her collarbone, she had a deep wound on her leg, scratches, her right eye was swollen shut from the blow, and her whole body was covered in bruises. The girl found herself in a deep forest. Her father was a zoologist; as a child, he taught Juliana the rules of survival, she was able to get food, and soon found a stream. Nine days later, Juliana Diler Kepke herself came out to the fishermen.

Based on the story of Juliana’s miraculous rescue, the feature film “Miracles Still Happen” was made, which later helped Larisa Savitskaya survive.

Survivor of a plane that crashed into the Indian Ocean

People who survived a plane crash were usually able to fully recover from the tragedy. In 2009, a flight from Paris to the Comoros Islands crashed into the Indian Ocean. Thirteen-year-old Bahia Bakari was flying with her mother to visit her grandparents in the Comoros Islands. The girl does not know how exactly she managed to survive, since she was sleeping at the time of the disaster. The girl received fractures and multiple bruises from the fall. But she needed to hold out even before the rescuers arrived. She climbed onto one of the fragments, which was kept afloat. Bakari was found only fourteen hours after the disaster. The girl was taken to Paris on a special flight.

"Lucky Four" in the largest disaster in terms of number of victims

In Japan in 1985, the largest disaster involving a single aircraft occurred in terms of the number of victims. The Boeing took off from Tokyo to Osaka. There were more than five hundred passengers and crew members on board. After takeoff, the tail stabilizer came off, depressurization occurred, pressure dropped, and some of the airliner systems failed.

The plane was doomed; it became uncontrollable. The pilots managed to keep the plane in the air for more than half an hour. As a result, he crashed one hundred kilometers from the capital of Japan. The plane crashed in the mountains, rescuers were able to find the wreckage only the next morning; of course, they did not expect to find survivors at all.

But a rescue team discovered a whole group of survivors. They were flight attendant and passenger Hiroko Yoshizaki and her eight-year-old daughter, twelve-year-old Keiko Kawakami. The last girl was found on a tree. All four survivors were in the rear of the plane, exactly where the plane's skin ruptured. But more passengers could have survived the disaster. Keiko Kawakami later claimed that she heard the voices of passengers, including her father. Many passengers died on the ground from their wounds and injuries. The victims of the tragedy were 520 people.

Girl who survived the L-410 plane crash

The girl who survived the plane crash in Khabarovsk is three-year-old Jasmina Leontyeva. The girl was flying with her teacher along the route Khabarovsk - Nelkan, the plane was supposed to land, but it started to land, tilted and fell not far from the runway. Two crew members and four passengers on board were killed. The girl, who was found under the wreckage of the plane, was immediately taken to the hospital, and then transported by a special plane to Khabarovsk. There, the parents of the girl who survived the plane crash were already waiting for Jasmine at the hospital.

Flight technician who survived the Yak-42 crash

A few years ago, a Yak-42 plane crashed with the Lokomotiv hockey team on board. The flight engineer managed to survive this terrible tragedy. Alexander Sizov, a survivor of the plane crash (Lokomotiv), testified in court. The case of Vadim Timofeev, who was responsible for air transport security at the Yak Service company, was considered.

Air transport is one of the safest, but tragedies occur there from time to time. Fortunately, even in a plane crash there is a chance of survival, albeit one in a million. Evidence of this is a Soviet flight attendant who survived a plane crash, the only survivor of a crash over the Indian Ocean, the tragedy over Cartagena, the “lucky four” in Japan and other people.

One of the crew survived the plane crash, which took the lives of 71 people.

“I put all the bags between my legs and took the position recommended in case of emergency.” Erwin said that many passengers jumped out of their seats, began to scream and panic - this is what pushed them to death.

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Vesna Vulovich

The 22-year-old flight attendant holds the world altitude record for surviving a free fall without a parachute according to the Guinness Book of Records.

In 1972, the plane carrying Vesna Vulović exploded at an altitude of 10,160 meters. Vesna not only survived the destruction itself, but was also the only survivor of the 28 passengers and crew members.

The flight attendant should not have been on this flight at all, she was sent instead of another flight attendant simply due to an error by the airline. Vesna Vulović was working in the passenger compartment when the explosion occurred. She immediately lost consciousness and subsequently could not remember what she was doing or where exactly she was.

Vesna received many injuries: fractures of the base of the skull, three vertebrae, both legs and the pelvis. According to Vesna Vulovich herself, the first thing she asked for when she returned to consciousness was to smoke.

The treatment took 16 months, of which for 10 months the girl’s lower body was paralyzed. Vesna Vulović died in December 2016 at home in Belgrade.

Larisa Savitskaya

Young student Larisa Savitskaya was returning from a honeymoon with her husband Vladimir in the summer of 1981. The couple flew on flight 811 on board an An-24RV from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk and, since the plane was half empty, they took comfortable seats in the rear of the plane instead of their seats.

During the flight, the An-24 aircraft on which the Savitsky spouses were flying collided with a Tu-16 military bomber at an altitude of 5220 meters. The crews of both planes were killed.

At the time of the disaster, Larisa Savitskaya was sleeping in her seat at the rear of the plane. She woke up with a strong blow and a sudden burn due to the extreme temperature change.

The fuselage broke right in front of Larisa’s chair, and she was thrown into the aisle. The girl reached the nearest chair and pressed herself into it. Larisa subsequently 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.

Part of the hull collapsed into a birch grove, the trees softened the blow. Waking up on the ground, the first thing Larisa saw was a chair with the body of her dead husband. She suffered a number of serious injuries, but was able to move.

Rescuers found her two days later. During this time, the student built herself a temporary shelter from the wreckage of the plane, keeping warm with seat covers and hiding from mosquitoes with a plastic bag. She was included in the Guinness Book of Records not only as a person who survived a fall from a maximum height, but also as a person who received the minimum amount of compensation - 75 rubles.

Baia Bakari

A 13-year-old French girl is the only survivor of a plane crash off the Comoros Islands in 2009. On June 30, 2009, Baya flew with her mother on an Airbus A310 to Comoros to visit her grandparents.

The plane crashed into the Indian Ocean a few minutes before landing. Baya, sleeping during the disaster, believed that she had somehow fallen out of the porthole.

The newspapers wrote that she spent 12 to 14 hours in the shark-infested Mozambique Channel; Bahia herself claims in her autobiography that she was there for no more than 9 hours. Bakari was saved by a fisherman who took her to a Comorian hospital.

Besides her, there were 152 people on board - no one survived. Steven Spielberg himself wanted to film the story of her rescue, but Bakari refused.

Ruben van Assouw

A nine-year-old boy was the only survivor of an Afriqiyah Airways plane that crashed during landing. Ruben and his family were on a tourist trip to South Africa. On board the crashed plane were passengers from 10 countries, most of whom (62 people) were citizens of the Netherlands.

His father, mother and brother died along with the other 103 passengers. Ruben immediately lost consciousness. He broke both legs, but they were restored after surgery. He now lives with his aunt and uncle in the Netherlands.

Ever since man first took to the air, he has known falling. Every year, flight technology became more complex, more advanced and safer, but plane crashes still occur. The mass loss of life when a passenger airliner crashes becomes not only grief for the inconsolable relatives of the victims, but also a national tragedy.

Survivors of a plane crash become celebrities who are talked about and written about by the media in all countries of the world. This happens for the reason that there are very few of them.

Airplane crash statistics

If we take statistics for the entire historical period of development of passenger air transportation, we can conclude that they are extremely rare. The chance that a vehicle will crash during flight, takeoff or landing is 1/8 million. This means that it would take more than 20,000 years of daily travel on random flights for a person to get on that unlucky one.

If we take the statistics of the identified causes of equipment failure, then in percentage terms it will look like this:

• when the plane is loading, 5% of accidents occur (most often fire);
• during takeoff - 17% of accidents;
• when climbing only 8% of cases;
• during the flight 6%;
• when the aircraft descends - 3%;
• landing approach is the cause of 7% of cases;
• aircraft landing - 51%.

Statistics of all recorded cases of airliner crashes show that the greatest risk is present during takeoff and fall. This is probably why passengers applaud the pilots after they complete this stage of the flight.

Survivors of a plane crash most often indicate that something “suddenly” became wrong with the plane. In fact, meticulous statisticians and workers responsible for flight safety note that the reasons for the sudden breakdown of instruments or burning engines are defects that were not identified on the ground, which means that the reasons for the crash of airliners should first of all be sought there.

Causes of plane crashes

Whatever you say, the main cause of all plane crashes is the human factor. Machines do not damage themselves or disable them. Lack of proper attention during their assembly, during daily checks for malfunctions and conscious work of pilots and dispatchers - all this most often leads to the crash of equipment.

Is it possible to survive a plane crash if the experts did their job poorly? And in this case, the answer will be yes, since today there are cases when more than 1 person remained alive.

The statistics of aircraft crashes in percentage terms are as follows:

• Pilot error is the cause of 50% of cases;
• errors by service personnel during flight were identified in 7% of tragedies;
• the influence of weather conditions accounts for 12%;
• malfunction of instruments and the machine as a whole - 22% (what was not properly identified before the flight);
• terrorism and others (unidentified causes or mid-air collision) - 9%.

Of the listed reasons, except for weather, everything else is human activity. This suggests that the tragedy could have been avoided, and the incidence of survivors of the plane crash was significantly higher. If we take the statistics of the largest crashes over the past 30 years, then their causes are:

• A DC-8 crashed in Newfoundland in 1985 on takeoff due to loss of speed, killing 250 passengers;
• the crash of a Boeing 747 in Japan in 1985 was caused by poor repairs, resulting in 520 casualties;
• Il-76, en route from Kazakhstan to Saudi Arabia, crashed in India in 1996 from a mid-air collision with a Boeing, resulting in 349 deaths;
• An Il-76 crashed in Iran in 2003 due to hitting the ground in poor visibility, killing 275 people;
• The 224 people who did not survive the Kogalymavia plane crash in October 2015 added to the sad statistics: the reason was a possible terrorist attack.

These are not all the major crashes that happened from 1985 to 2015, but even from them it is clear that they are most often caused by human carelessness or dishonesty. The list of plane crash survivors would be much longer if flight safety specialists did their jobs well and passengers knew what to do to stay alive.

What to do if a plane crashes

It turns out that there are rules that really help people survive during a plane crash. The most basic instructions are given by flight attendants before the start of the flight. Unfortunately, most passengers do not listen to them, much less be able to put them into practice. Among the simplest recommendations, the following are considered mandatory:

• be buckled up during takeoff and landing (ideally, it’s better to be buckled up for the entire flight);
• know where life jackets are and how to use an oxygen mask;
• in an emergency, do not leave your seat, much less try to get into the luggage compartment to save your belongings;
• concentrate and take the correct position before the plane collides with the ground or water (bend your head to your knees, covering it with your hands).

In addition to these simple rules, there are several conclusions of emergency specialists that people who survived a plane crash applied intuitively and did not suffer.

Most passengers die after the plane crashes and catches fire because they cannot get out of it in time. To prevent this from happening, you should know in advance:

• how to unfasten seat belts;
• exact direction to the exit (especially if there is smoke in the cabin);
• panic is 100% death.

For example, George Lamson, still a 17-year-old teenager in 1985, survived only because his seat was thrown out of the cabin when the plane he was flying with his father collided with. If the boy had not been fastened and had not pressed his head to his knees, and after the fall had not been able to quickly unfasten and run to a safe distance, he would have died, like the other 70 people.

As the cases of plane crash survivors show, if a person does not panic and knows what to do, then he has every chance of surviving. Studying examples of such tragedies, scientists came to the conclusion that many passengers, instead of getting off the plane, wait for someone's instructions or instructions. It is important to know that in such a situation everyone is responsible for their own safety.

High Risk Situations

Although it may seem that passengers who survive a plane crash are simply lucky, this is actually not the case. As data from scientists from England who studied more than 2,000 cases of rescue from such an accident showed, these people were helped not by a simple coincidence of circumstances, but by specific knowledge and actions, plus a bit of luck.

It turns out that there are high-risk areas and safer areas on airplanes, as evidenced by survival statistics:

• for example, those sitting in the first five rows at the front of the plane have a 65% chance of survival;
• it is even higher among those who sit in these rows on the outer seats (67%) and not near the windows (58%);
• passengers in the rear of the plane have a 53% chance of survival if they are also seated in the first five rows of the emergency exit;
• people who survived a plane crash and sat in the middle of the cabin are extremely rare.

In addition to risk areas in the cabin, the aircraft itself also plays an important role. Thus, statistics claim that 73% of all air crashes occur in small planes with up to 30 seats. The fatality rate of a single-engine or small aircraft crash is 68%, which suggests that the chance of survival for passengers and pilots of such transport is tantamount to a miracle.

There is only one conclusion - you should fly with large planes from reliable companies. It is unlikely that only the correct choice of a vehicle and the seat in it will save lives in an emergency, but its passengers will have a greater chance of survival, and rescuers in the crash of a large airliner do not ask the question “are there any survivors of the plane crash,” but save them.

The most difficult situations

The most difficult and dangerous part of a disaster is when the plane hits land or water. After this happens, people have only 1.5-2 minutes to stay alive. It is at this time that you need to take time to unfasten, find a way out and jump as far as possible.

The biggest threat to life is posed by fire and carbon monoxide filling the cabin, as confirmed by a woman who survived the plane crash. Larisa Savitskaya survived after the plane in which she was flying with her husband collided with a bomber. Having received burns from the fire that started, she managed to concentrate and take the correct position in the chair, which saved her life when she fell on it for 8 minutes from a height of 5200 m.

Her landing was “softened” by tree branches, but even after surviving such a fall, she had to endure a severe shock both from her injuries and from the fact that rescuers were in no hurry to search for the fallen plane, confident that no one had survived.

“Are there any survivors of the plane crash?” - this question should be foremost among those who deal with such situations. Larisa waited two days for help with a fracture of the cervical spine and a head injury. She is the only one who was included in the Guinness book twice for the same event:

• the first time as a survivor of a fall from a height of more than 5 km;
• the second - as having received the most meager compensation for the damage received - only 75 rubles.

An airplane colliding with water poses no less a threat to human life, although most passengers naively believe that it can soften the fall. Such ignorance of the elementary laws of physics has cost the lives of many people.

Falling into the ocean

It's not uncommon for a plane to crash over the ocean, but the number of passengers killed remains shockingly high, although there are survivors of a plane crash on the water.

This happens for several reasons:

• firstly, people often cannot find and put on a life jacket due to panic;
• secondly, they activate it too early, and in an inflated state it prevents not only from moving, but also from floating out of the cabin if water has entered there;
• thirdly, they do not know that an airplane hitting the water is equivalent to a collision with a concrete surface, and they may not be buckled up to take a rescue position.

Except in cases where the pilot makes an emergency landing on water, falling into the ocean is just as dangerous as falling onto the ground, as confirmed by the only girl who survived the plane crash.

Bakari was 12 years old when he and his mother flew from Paris to Yemen. For an unknown reason, the plane crashed into the ocean 14 km from the coast of the Greater Comoros island. The impact with the water tore it into pieces, and the girl fell into the water. She was lucky that parts of the liner remained on her surface, on one of which she waited for 14 hours until she was picked up by a fishing boat passing nearby.

The girl’s story went around the whole world, as this is one of those examples when, perhaps, there would have been more survivors if help had arrived in time. Hypothermia and life jackets not being put on in time claimed the lives of the remaining passengers.

This is not the last time the sole survivor of a plane crash has had to fight for her life due to lack of help on the ground.

Fall in the jungle

Although there are examples when the fall of an airplane was softened by tree branches, the number of surviving passengers and crew members did not increase. How a person behaves during a tragedy still plays a big role.

An example of this is the story of a 17-year-old German schoolgirl traveling with her mother from Lima to Pucallpa (Peru) before Christmas 1971. In fact, it was a short flight that turned tragic when the plane encountered turbulence during a thunderstorm.

A lightning strike damaged the aircraft's systems and started a fire in the cabin. Juliana Koepke is the only passenger to survive the plane crash on this flight. At an altitude of 6400 m, both wings of the aircraft came off, after which the airliner, which went into a tailspin, began to fall apart in parts.

The girl was saved by the fact that she was fastened and took a rescue pose when a row of chairs along with her seat was “thrown” overboard. During the fall, it, along with the debris from the cabin, was rotated by a strong wind, which led to a descent down an inclined slope and a fall into the dense thickets of the Amazon jungle.

The consequences of the “landing” were a broken collarbone, abrasions and bruises, but even greater trials awaited her. Located 500 km from Lima, in the thick of the jungle, not knowing the way, this young plane crash survivor was forced to fight for life in an unfamiliar area.

For 9 whole days she walked down the river, afraid to go far from it, so as not to lose the source of water. Eating fruits and plants that she recognized and could pick, the girl went to the fishermen’s camp, who took her to the hospital.

If Juliana had remained waiting for help near the crashed plane, she most likely would have died. Based on these events, an Italian television company made a feature film “Miracles Still Happen,” which subsequently saved the life of the Soviet girl Larisa Savitskaya, who had been waiting for rescuers for two days.

Surviving crew members

It is quite rare to hear that crew members survived a plane crash. Perhaps they are busy rescuing passengers or are at that moment in the most “unsafe” part of the plane, but this is a fact.

But there are examples when a flight attendant who survived a plane crash was the only one saved. Vesna Vulović was only 22 years old in 1972 when, during a regular flight from Copenhagen to Zagreb, a Yugoslav airline plane disintegrated in the air as a result of a terrorist bomb explosion.

This case can be considered a “miracle”, since Vesna was able to survive being in the middle of the plane cabin when falling from a height of more than 10 km. A piece of the car she was in fell on snow-covered trees, which greatly softened the blow.

The second “miracle” was that while she was unconscious, a peasant from a nearby village found her and took her to the hospital. A flight attendant who survived a plane crash after falling from such a height was in a coma for almost a month, and then struggled for another 16 months to move around and live a normal life.

Vesna Vulović became the Guinness World Record holder for the person who jumped without a parachute from a height of 10 kilometers. It is unlikely that there will be a daredevil who, of his own free will, decides to surpass her result.

Russian plane crash in Egypt

One of the most pressing topics in the fall of 2015 was the plane crash in Egypt. Today, “are there survivors” is no longer the most important question in this tragedy. If at first there were rumors that not all of the 224 people died, now this is a sad fact.

Today the public is interested in the cause of the death of the airliner, and guarantees that this will not happen to Russian aircraft again.

Completely different versions of what happened are presented by Russian and foreign media. The airliner, which took off without delay, disappeared from air traffic controllers' radars for unknown reasons 23 minutes after takeoff.

One version of why survivors of the plane crash in Egypt have not been found is the explosion of a bomb on board. The plane was torn apart in the sky, so the passengers had virtually no chance.

Egyptian authorities say the presence of a bomb was not detected in the plane's wreckage. They published these data after experts from the USA, England and Russia came to a different conclusion.

The only reason for the discrepancy between the experts' conclusions is Egypt's reluctance to lose potential customers during the tourist season and to pay compensation to the Kogalymavia company for a plane crash in its airspace. If there were survivors, they would also receive compensation for damage.

It is to be expected what agreement both sides will come to, but looking back at the history of aeronautics, we can say that planes do not just fall apart in the air and do not disappear from radar. There are no final conclusions yet, but the world community understands what caused the plane crash in Egypt today. Are there any survivors? The answer to this question is unequivocal - “no”.

Positive statistics

Knowing the meticulousness of scientists in their desire to calculate and measure everything, there is no doubt that they also studied the question of why people do not survive plane crashes.

The reason is actually the most banal - the same human factor. If we take statistics on changes in the causes of plane crashes since 1908, it will look like this:

• at the dawn of aircraft construction from 1908 to 1929. 50% of crashes were due to technical problems, 30% due to weather conditions, 10% due to fire and 10% due to pilot error;
• by the second half of the 20th century, the air fleet came up with different statistics - 24% are related to technology, 25% are to blame for the weather, pilot error - 37%, fire - 7%, and terrorist attacks account for only 5%;
• in the 21st century, the statistics have completely changed - 45% are caused by the human factor, 13% by the weather, 32% by technical problems, fire - 3%, and terrorist attacks account for 4% of cases.

This is how the causes of air accidents in the air have changed over 100 years. Nevertheless, today this is the safest form of transportation, because crashes occur with a probability of 0.00001%. In addition, facts are increasingly appearing when, when an airplane crashes, not just one person survives, but a significant part of the passengers.

For example, 4 people survived a plane crash that occurred in Japan in 1985. 12 minutes after takeoff, the plane experienced depressurization in the tail section. The pilots managed to keep the car in the air for 32 minutes, after which the board crashed 100 km from the capital of Japan. As survivors said, there could have been more saved, as people asked for help, but by the time the rescuers arrived, who were in no hurry at all, 520 people were dead. They were killed by hypothermia and wounds received in the fall.

Unfortunately, information about those saved does not always correspond to the truth. This was the case when it was reported that 4 people survived a plane crash over Egypt. In this case, one can only sympathize with people who found hope for a miracle, but then lost it again.

There are also examples in Russian aviation history when passengers survived a plane crash. Thus, the people who survived the Kogalymavia plane crash in 2011, when the plane caught fire as it was taxiing to the runway, only three people died out of 116 passengers and 6 crew members, while the Tu-154 was completely burned out.

Is it possible to survive a plane crash? This question is asked not only by those who are planning to cross space by air, but also by those who have lost their loved ones in such disasters. This can only be answered theoretically. But history knows numerous cases of saving people. And the word “numerous” is not a typo here.

A little history

Today you can find a lot of information on the Internet about survivors of plane crashes. But we will focus on major accidents in which the number of victims exceeded a hundred people.

1. In 1970, Flight 502 from Cusco to Lima crashed in the Peru region, which is located near Cusco. There were 102 people on board the plane (8 crew members and 94 passengers). At the time of the crash, 99 people were killed, three survived. On the way to the hospital, two of the survivors died from their injuries. One person survived.
2. On December 23, 1984, a Tu-154b-2 took off from Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk, but it did not reach its destination. During the climb, one of the engines was damaged, which led to a fire in the third, and then in the second engine. There were 104 people on board the plane, 103 of whom died. One person survived.
3. In August 1987, a McDonnell Douglas MD-82 plane flew from Detroit to Phoenix. There were 155 people on board (149 passengers and 6 crew members). The plane crashed on takeoff for unknown reasons (possibly pilot error - National Transportation Safety Board). During the crash, the plane hit three other vehicles on the ground, killing 2 people. 154 people died on the plane itself. Small girl Cecilia Sichan, who was then 4 years old, survived , although she received numerous injuries.
4. On October 5, 1991, Indonesian special forces soldiers were returning on a flight from Jakarta to Bandung. There were 134 people on board the plane, 12 of whom were crew members, and 122 were passengers. On takeoff, the plane caught fire and crashed into the city, crashing into the building of the Ministry of Labor. Of the 134 people on the plane, 133 died, and two building security guards also died. One passenger on the plane survived .
5. In March 2003, a Boeing 737-200 left Algiers airport, but it did not reach its final destination. During takeoff, one of the plane's engines failed, and the command was unable to correct the problems in a timely manner and perform an emergency landing. There were 103 people on board the plane, 102 of whom died. One person left alive .
6. At the end of June 2009, flight iy 626 took place from Sana'a to Moroni. There were 153 people on board the plane. During landing, the pilots made a mistake, which caused one of the largest disasters in mankind and claimed the lives of 152 people. In this tragedy a 13-year-old girl survived Baya Bakari. She waited for help in the open ocean for almost 13 hours.
7. On May 12, 2010, in Tripoli, the capital of Libya, a plane crashed during landing, with 104 people on board. The cause of the crash was a pilot error who turned on the autopilot too late. In tragedy 9 year old boy survived , who received a huge number of injuries and fractures.
8. Another recent incident that will probably not soon be forgotten is the death of the entire Lokomotiv hockey team in the city of Yaroslavl. There were 45 people on board the Yak-42d airliner. 44 people died in the disaster. Only one crew member survived.

Common causes of crashes

According to experts involved in the study of plane crashes, most often the cause of such tragedies is human factor . It is often confused with pilot error, but these are two different categories of causes. The human factor refers to the mistakes and shortcomings of not only pilots, but also airport ground workers, which can also lead to plane crashes. That is, if the controller oriented the pilot incorrectly, and he, in turn, was unable to land the plane, then this will be a human factor. As a result, hundreds of lives and another sad mark on history.

The second common reason is engine problems . According to statistics, most plane crashes occur during takeoff and landing. Perhaps this is why there is a tradition among passengers to applaud pilots after landing. It is believed that the first 1.5 minutes after takeoff are the most dangerous. After this time, the risk of a crash is reduced several times. In these seconds, in principle, anything can happen, but according to statistics, most tragedies happen as a result of engine problems.

Another common cause of plane crashes is fuel shortage . It is for this reason that an impressive proportion of crashes occur during landing or in the last minutes of the flight. The plane simply remains in the air with empty fuel tanks. Of course, before departure, the transport undergoes a thorough check, including the presence of a sufficient amount of fuel. However, engine problems can lead to increased consumption and, as a result, premature emptying of the tanks.

Well, and finally, one of the most “harmless” causes of plane crashes is weather . The definition of “harmless” was chosen here because it is difficult to blame anyone for plane crashes for this reason. So, in 2007, a Tu-134 plane crashed at the Samara airport. The cause was unfavorable weather conditions and pilot error. The crash killed 6 people. The pilots survived and received various suspended sentences.

Act of terrorism occupy almost the last place in the ranking of the most common causes of aircraft crashes. On average, about 4% of all plane crashes are caused by terrorists.

There are also very unusual causes of crashes, for example, birds getting into the engine, collisions with ground or air objects, etc. And on average, about 30% of air transport-related disasters remain unsolved.

Why do people die

It would seem a rhetorical question: why do people die in a plane crash? In fact, death does not come to everyone and not immediately during a crash. As practice shows, it is possible to survive a collision of an airplane with the ground. To do this, you must take the desired position and strictly follow the instructions. Of course, fractures and injuries are almost inevitable, but they are compatible with life.

Passengers often die in the air. These are the cases when a fire or depressurization occurs in the cabin. According to experts from the Federal Air Transport Agency, during a fall a person is most often unconscious. This is due to sudden changes in pressure in different atmospheric layers and lack of air in the cabin.

It has been proven that about 40% of those killed in plane crashes had a high chance of survival. So what happened and why didn't they take advantage of these chances? It's simple - panic, confusion and simple ignorance of the basics of safety during a plane crash.

How to survive a plane crash

The question of whether it is possible to survive a plane crash was fully answered in the previous part of the article. It is possible to survive. But how to do that? Of course, each case is unique in its own way, and it is quite difficult to create a clear description of the behavior of a passenger in a disaster. But there are a few golden rules that will help you survive.

1. "Golden 90 seconds" This period is important not only during take-off, but also during fall. Experts say that after a plane crashes, passengers have 90 seconds to get out of the plane. After this, the interior will be completely engulfed in fire.
2. Correct position . There are two options for positioning the body in a chair that reduce the risk of death and injury from a fall.

• First option: rest your hands on the back of the front seat, press your head tightly to your hands. The rest of the body should be in a normal sitting position.
• Second option: Climb completely onto the chair, bend your knees, clasp your legs with your arms and press your head to your knees.

1. The right clothes . Despite the fact that air transport is considered the safest of all types of passenger transport, it is recommended to prepare for a possible accident at the assembly stage. You should wear comfortable shoes, without heels or platforms. Clothing must cover as much of the body as possible. The best option for a flight would be a denim suit - this material has fire-resistant properties, which will avoid burns.
2. Calm. This is perhaps the most important rule. If you give in to panic, then all other rules will be instantly forgotten, and actions will become chaotic and useless.
3. Selfishness. It is selfishness that will allow you to maintain composure and calm during a plane crash. This even applies to passengers with children. You shouldn’t immediately rush to save your children. Even if all safety measures are taken for them, they most likely will not be able to independently attempt to get out of the cabin after a fall. Therefore, first of all, a parent or parents must take care of their own safety, because by saving their own life, they get a chance to save their child.
4. Forget about personal belongings. Don't fuss and try to save your personal belongings. Even if all the savings and documents are there. All this will be restored. The main thing here is to save lives.

Procedure in case of an airplane crash

If the plane begins to crash due to some problems, then in this case an action plan has been developed that will significantly increase the chances of survival.

1. First of all, you need to arm yourself with an oxygen mask. Even if depressurization of the cabin has not yet occurred, it should always be ready.
2. It is recommended to place hand luggage under the seat of the passenger in front. This will reduce the risk of being pinned between the seat and the floor during shaking.
3. Follow commands from the flight attendant or electronic display. Seat belts must remain fastened even if the display goes out.
4. When you fall, you must put on an oxygen mask and secure it to your head.
5. If there is a fire or smoke in the cabin, you must, if possible, go lower and cover yourself with thick fabric.
6. Keep all available exits visible. After the plane lands, you must immediately begin to move towards it, trying to avoid crowds and blocked passages.
7. After leaving the cabin, you need to move as quickly and far away from the plane as possible.

What to do if a plane is hijacked by terrorists

When an airplane is hijacked by terrorists, there are no specific procedures to follow. Each such situation is unique, and none of the passengers can know about the intentions of the terrorists. Experts say that in this case it is necessary to remain calm. However, many remember the film "Flight 93", based on real events, which tells the story of passengers who thwarted terrorists and possibly saved thousands of lives by changing the course of the plane.

For cases of terrorist acts, there are also several rules that are aimed at preserving the life and health of hostages:

1. Do not enter into dialogue with invaders. Do not negotiate or discuss with them, do not provoke them, do not shout, do not cry, do not make sudden movements and do not create sudden noises.
2. If someone is injured during the capture, try to provide him with first aid. If terrorists do not allow this to be done, then stop trying.
3. All movements must be smooth. If terrorists force hostages to move, then this must be done in strict accordance with their instructions.
4. If the assault begins, you should take a lying position and cover your head and ears with your hands. If possible, move closer to walls or corners.

What to do if the plane crashed into the water

When an airplane crashes into open water, the same rules must be followed as when it crashes onto land. After a fall, you must immediately get out of the cabin and try to swim away from the plane. It is not recommended to jump into the water if there is no ladder. It is better to slide down the wings feet first, after filling the life jacket with air. If there is no land nearby, then you will have to wait for help on the water. This is where plane wreckage can come in handy to serve as a temporary raft. If there are no debris, then you need to constantly move in the water to avoid hypothermia.

All these tips and rules have been developed over the years. Many of them have already saved lives. This is how the rules of behavior when falling into water helped 13-year-old girl Baya Bakari survive in 2009.

Aviation accidents appeared along with aeronautics, but only in the 40s of the 20th century these cases began to be recorded. The rating included people who survived plane crashes. 10 cases were considered when out of all the passengers only one person survived.

10.Julianne Diller Koepke(December 24, 1971) - the only survivor of the plane crash, a seventeen-year-old girl . On that terrible night, she was on board a Peruvian airline with her parents. A thunderstorm began and the plane was struck by lightning. The aircraft began to fall apart at an altitude of 3,200 meters and fell into the tropical forest. The piece on which Julianna's chair was mounted fell off while still in the air. He flew down through the raging elements and rotated at breakneck speed in a circle. The fragment, along with Julianne, landed on the treetops, which saved the girl. She had a broken collarbone and numerous wounds. The survivor found the strength to get up and go look for help. Having stumbled upon a stream in the jungle, she went down its course. On the tenth day, Julianna came out to the settlement. The story of the heroic girl formed the basis of several feature films.

9.Vesna Vulovich(January 26, 1972) - a twenty-two-year-old flight attendant who survived a plane crash and was included in the Guinness Book of Records for falling from a height of 10 kilometers without a parachute. At the moment when the airliner was flying over Czechoslovakia at an altitude of 10,160 meters, an explosion occurred on the ship. By the will of fate, the Yugoslav stewardess ended up on board that day - she was replacing her colleague. The branches of the trees on which the girl fell softened the blow. Vulovich did not come to her senses for almost a month and lay in a hospital bed for a year and a half. Despite this, the forced record holder was able to return to normal life and continued working in aviation, but only in ground service.

8.Larisa Savitskaya - twenty-year-old girl who survived a plane crash (August 24, 1981). Together with her husband, a young woman was returning home from a honeymoon. Over the city of Zavitinsk at an altitude of 5220 meters, a bomber crashed into their AN-24 plane. All the people on the two planes (37 people) were killed. The girl was in the tail section of the broken AN-24. From a height of five thousand, Larisa fell on a large piece of debris. The fall lasted 8 minutes. A piece of the airliner, along with the victim, fell onto birch trees, which softened the force of the impact. Plane crash survivor Larisa spent two nights alone in the forest. Despite a concussion, numerous abrasions and injuries, she was able to move independently. Graves were prepared for all passengers, including Larisa. The search engines were taken aback to see her alive. The woman was included in the Guinness Book of Records twice: as the only person to survive a plane crash and as a passenger who received a minimum compensation of 75 rubles.

7.George Lamson ( January 21, 1985) - the only survivor of a plane crash that occurred in the US state of Nevada. A seventeen-year-old boy was returning with his father on a Lockheed L-188 Electra plane from a ski resort. Suddenly, the aircraft tilted heavily to one side and began to fall. George pulled his knees to his chest the moment the plane hit the ground. He and his seat were blown out of the fuselage moments before the explosion. It was this factor that saved the young man’s life. The cause of the tragedy, in which 70 people died, was a pilot error in assessing the situation, as a result of which the Lockheed L-188 Electra lost speed and fell.

6.Cecilia Sichan(August 16, 1989) was a four-year-old girl who survived a plane crash in Detroit that killed 154 people. The plane never managed to gain altitude. While still on takeoff, he caught the lighting tower with his wing, causing it to fall off and catch fire. The airliner veered to the right, and with its second wing it pierced the roof of the building. The aircraft simply fell apart into pieces, which were scattered over almost a kilometer area. Cecilia was found under the rubble by a firefighter. After numerous fractures and burns, the girl was able to recover. Cecilia's parents became victims of the same tragedy. Now the girl is not afraid to fly, believing that “a projectile does not hit the same place twice.”

5. Nine year old Erica Delgado ( January 11, 1995) was on the list of people who were the only survivors of plane crashes thanks to her mother. She and her family were on board a flight from Bogota to Cartagena (Colombia). The cause of the terrible disaster was a malfunction of the ship's instruments, which crashed to the ground during landing. At the moment of the fall, the mother pushed the child out of the collapsing airliner, and the girl fell into a lake overgrown with algae. A local farmer saved her after hearing cries for help. Erica escaped with a broken arm, the remaining passengers and crew members (52 people) died.

4.Youssef Jillali(March 6, 2003) - the only survivor of a plane crash that occurred in the city of Tamanrasset (Algeria). The Boeing 737-200 crashed during takeoff due to engine failure. While in the airspace due to an engine fire, the ship began to rapidly lose speed. The Boeing crashed in a rocky area not far from the airfield and broke into pieces. Of the 104 crew members, only twenty-eight-year-old soldier Djillali managed to escape. The victim suffered numerous fractures and was in a coma. But a day later the young man came to his senses, and his life was not in danger.

3. On Sunday morning (August 27, 2006), a fire broke out on board a Lexington-Atlanta flight in Kentucky. The car crashed a kilometer from the airport. All passengers and crew members (49 people) were killed. The fire was so intense that it was impossible to identify the bodies. Only the second forty-four-year-old pilot James Polehink managed to escape. Firefighters pulled him out of the cabin burning. The cause of the disaster was the use of a shorter runway by the pilots. As a result of this, the aircraft rammed an iron fence and crashed into a tree, collapsed and caught fire.

2. Thirteen years old Bahia Bakari- the only surviving passenger on the Paris-Comoros flight (June 30, 2009). Just minutes before landing, the aircraft began to rapidly fall and crashed into the waters of the Indian Ocean. The girl cannot describe the circumstances of what happened because she was sleeping. Presumably, she was thrown through the porthole. Bahia waited 14 hours for rescuers to help, drifting in the open ocean on an unsunk wreck of the liner. So she turned out to be the only survivor of 153 people.

1. Flight engineer Alexander Sizov - survivor of a plane crash that occurred on September 7, 2011 near Yaroslavl. On that fateful day, the Yak-42 aircraft was supposed to deliver Lokomotiv hockey players to a match in the city of Minsk. Having missed the entire runway, the plane began to rise from the ground, falling sharply onto the left wing. After this, the car collapsed, breaking into pieces that were thrown several hundred meters in the area. Alexander only came to his senses when he found himself in a river burning with kerosene. Despite numerous fractures and subsequent operations, the fifty-two-year-old passenger managed to survive. The cause of the tragedy that occurred on board the Yak-42 was a crew error during takeoff of the aircraft.