Girl Falls 10,000 Feet From Plane And Leaves The Rescue Team Speechless
Teenager Juliane Koepcke didn't watch her life flash before her eyes as she plummeted 10,000 feet towards dense jungle terrain. That's because she was knocked unconscious, at the complete and total mercy of the storm that put her into that position to begin with. When she came to, somehow alive, a new mission not on her initial travel itinerary crystallized: find mom and find rescue — or die.
Juliane's Journey
In 1971, German citizen and respected South American bird researcher Maria Koepcke planned a holiday vacation with her 17-year old daughter, Juliane. Leaving from Peru, their itinerary was simple — but it turned completely deadly.
Family Time
Maria (left) planned to meet up with her husband (right) for Christmas, so she booked tickets on the Peruvian airline Lineas Aéreas Nacionales S.A., or LANSA. A time before Yelp and Google reviews, the ornithologist didn't know the airline's reputation.
Bad Omen
See, during the '60s and '70s, LANSA was the fastest way to travel from one Peruvian city to another; however, despite offering frequent flights, the airline was plagued with fatal mishaps.
Infamy
In 1966, for instance, LANSA Flight 501 careened into a mountain, killing all on board. A few years later, LANSA Flight 502 crashed. Of the 100 passengers, only one survived, and the crash took the lives of two more people on the ground.
Winter Flight
Yet, even with its history, LANSA was still the go-to airline. In December 1971, Flight 508 took off from the capital city of Lima. With a small crew and less than 100 passengers — including Maria and Juliane — the takeoff went as planned.
Lightening Strikes
But any hopes of a safe trip were dashed just 40 minutes into the flight, when the small plane flew into a thunderstorm. Suddenly, a bright light lit up the aircraft — lightning had struck the fuel tank!
Free Fall
The right wing of the plane broke away as passengers let out screams. Christmas gifts and luggage were sent flying into the storm as the pilot lost the last bit of control. The plane nosedived. Juliane and Maria held each other tight.
Her Last Moments
In an interview with BBC's Outlook, Juliane vividly remembered the crash. Her mother said, "That is the end, it's all over." Then, tragically, her daughter was ripped from her side as Juliane's seat was pulled from the carriage. She flew into the storm before plummeting to the earth. Everything went black.
Rare Luck
When Juliane awoke, she found herself still strapped to her seat — and completely alone. She was alive...somehow. It seemed the dense jungle had broken her fall, enough to allow her to survive. She took stock of her injuries.
Search Party
Her collarbone was broken, and there were deep wounds along her legs and arms. Even worse, with her glasses lost in the crash, the near-sighted Juliane had to navigate with bad vision. Her first instinct was to locate her mother.
Different Approach
Juliane called out, but the only sounds she could hear were that of the jungle. She had to think of a new plan. If she could find help, then maybe they could locate her mother and any other survivors.
Education Pros
Wearing only a short, sleeveless dress and sandals, Juliane tried to shake away any fears. After all, she had spent over a year with her family at a research center in the Amazon. She wasn't a stranger to the Peruvian jungles, so she pulled from her knowledge.
Survival Skills
Because her sight was limited, Juliane used her sandal to strike the ground before her in an effort to scare away any dangerous creatures. Half-blind, she stumbled into the crash site, where she searched for any food or water. The only thing she could find were some candies.
Jungle Landscape
So, she kept moving. After finding a creek, Juliane stayed in the waters and followed it downstream, a safer approach than staying on land. During the day, the sun burned her. At night, she froze. But she had a strong will to survive.
Birds of Prey
On the fourth day, Juliane recognized the sounds of a king vulture. She knew from her parents' research that from the predator bird, a large mass of dead flesh was nearby. Juliane was horrified when she saw what the birds had noticed.
Unmarked Graveyard
The crash site. Passengers were still strapped to their seat, but unlike Juliane, the fall had rammed them into the ground, headfirst. Juliane got close enough to see that her mother was not among them. She continued on, her injuries getting worse.
Hopes and Dangers
Maggots were all over her wounds, causing infection, and, on the 10th day, as she wandered into a river, Juliane questioned her sanity. Up ahead, she saw something that truly didn't make sense.
Good Fortune
There was a motor boat in the near distance, docked along the riverbank. A mirage, she thought. Who would live out in the dense Peruvian jungle? As she neared the boat, however, she realized it was very real. Her stomach turned. Did she want to meet the owner?
A Move For Help
Desperate and nearing death, Juliane investigated. After finding a small path, she found a hut with a gasoline can nearby. She remembered her father had used gasoline on the wound of a family pet once, which gave her an idea.
Gasoline
The pain was sharp as Juliane sucked gasoline out of the can and tried to clean her wounds as best as she could. Exhausted, she passed out right there in the hut, unaware she was crashing an occupied home.
The Boatmen
The next morning, local boatmen discovered her in the hut, bloody, covered in maggots, and smelling like gasoline. They were frightened, believing her to be a water spirit from their folk tales.
Reunion
Weak, Juliane talked to the boatmen in the little Spanish she knew. Thankfully, they understood. The men did their best to treat her wounds, and, after a seven-hour boat ride, brought Juliane to a hospital. When she finally saw her father, they hugged in silence.
Survivor's Guilt
After a rescue party found Maria Koepcke's body, Juliane learned her mother had indeed survived the plane crash but for only a few days. Juliane is still haunted by what her mother's final days must have been like. No one fared well in the Amazon.
Experiences
Juliane kicked her own experience around in her head. Was there something she could've done differently to save her mother? The teenager managed to escape with her life and proved she had the gut instincts to survive the impossible. Even more impressive, she revisited the site of her near-death experience years later.
Epic Survival Story
Seeing the same Peruvian jungle again, this time, through adult eyes, was surreal to Juliane. Film director Werner Herzog documented her harrowing story in the documentary Wings of Hope. Fans couldn't believe that Juliane managed to survive the jungle let alone the 10,000-foot fall, which made them question the details of another epic flight mystery — the disappearance of Boeing 777.
A Vital Member Of Malaysian Airlines
Not just anyone can take the wheel of a massive commercial jetliner and safely maneuver it to a runway thousands of miles away. That skill was what made pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah such a vital member of Malaysian Airlines.
Senior Captain Credentials
Shah was 53 years old, and he was one of the senior captains of the airline. The experience he had under his belt was the reason he was tasked with accompanying a pilot-in-training on the morning the plane vanished.
Looking After A Trainee
The trainee was 27-year-old Fariq Hamid, and Malaysian flight 370 was slated to be his last training flight before his final certification and official membership into Malaysian Airlines. It was a certification he'd never receive.
No Reason For Suspicion
There was no reason to think anything suspicious was going to happen when the flight took off from the runway like it'd done hundreds of times before that. The passengers on board, like any flight, expected a safe trip.
An Enthusiastic Start
All 227 passengers, 10 flight attendants, and both pilots started the trip with enthusiasm. They hit their cruising altitude of 35,000 feet rather quickly, but not long after Shah bid goodnight to a Malaysian air-traffic controller, the plane vanished.
Didn't Make Sense
It didn't make any sense to the Vietnamese controllers watching the radar screen displaying planes flying through their airspace. Within 40 seconds of entering the area, the plane was completely undetectable.
Things Spiral Downward
Things soon became really chaotic. Kuala Lumpur’s Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Centre should have been contacted immediately, but they weren't. It took hours before any kind of emergency response was issued.
Terrorism Ruled out
People's heads started swirling. Terrorism was a natural theory, but the fact that the plane briefly popped back up on the radar heading in a completely different direction shortly after disappearing dispelled the theory. It was a path no hijacker would take.
One Man Steps Up
Regardless of where the plane was headed, it vanished, and everyone on board was classified as missing. Friends and families of the victims were destroyed, but one man refused to sweep anything under the rug.
Blaine Gibson
His name was Blaine Gibson, and from day one he was infatuated with the mystery. In fact, he actually attended flight 370's one-year commemoration in 2015 and grew close with Grace Subathirai Nathan, a woman whose mother was on board.
Private Beachcomber
Gibson made the decision to become the flight's private beachcomber, wandering up and down miles of shoreline hoping to come across some kind of debris that would act as a vital clue.
Malaysian Government Frustrations
Yet the Malaysian government wasn't exactly transparent when providing information to countries willing to help search for the wreckage. Investigators from Europe, Australia, and the U.S. began the search in the South China Sea but soon realized they were way off target.
Wasting Manpower
So much manpower was wasted in the early days of searching. Through scattered bits of information, the search teams eventually managed to narrow down the area to a section of ocean that still required an immense undertaking to explore.
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A Reunion Discovery
In the meantime, Gibson searched high and low on shorelines yet was always met with disappointment. However, on July 29, 2015, a piece of airfoil was found on the French island of Reunion. Was it part of flight 370?
Conspiracies Grow Strong
It was! But, it also meant that the plane did, in fact, completely break apart in a violent crash in the Indian Ocean. Any hope of the passengers having survived was now gone forever. The conspiracies, however, grew stronger.
Deep Dive Into The Pilot
One of the focal points of the doomed flight was the seasoned pilot, Zaharie Ahmad Shah. Even though he had a clean record people wanted to know more about him, so news crews flocked to his residence for more information.
A Sad And Lonely Man
The man who some had claimed was happily married was, according to those who knew him, actually sad and lonely. His wife had even left him, relocating to the family's second home.
Falling Into Depression
As investigators began to comb through the pilot's private life, they determined he may have been clinically depressed. This depression, some theorized, also had to do with his interactions on social media.
Rumors Abound
Shah apparently grew very fond of two internet models, even going as far as reaching out to them via Facebook messages. The girls did not respond, and tabloids began to wildly speculate that it caused Shah to crash the plane on purpose.
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