It is extremely probable that the aircraft was shot down by mistake by the Czechoslovak air force and in order to cover it up the secret police conceived the record plunge, Hornung said. Vulovic's record fall gained her celebrity status in her home country, A Yugoslav Airlines DC-9 identical to the one blown up in 1972, Harry: I always felt different to rest of family, US-made cheese can be called 'gruyere' - court, AOC under investigation for Met Gala dress, Alex Murdaugh's legal troubles are far from over, Walkie Talkie architect Rafael Violy dies aged 78, Mbappe breaks PSG goal record in win over Nantes, Saving Private Ryan actor Tom Sizemore dies at 61, The children left behind in Cuba's exodus. Vesna Vulovic's Ascendant in her annual horoscope for 1971/1972 is at the eighteenth degree of Gemini. When Vesna awoke from a coma two weeks after the crash her body was ravaged. Ms. Vulovic was the only one of 28 passengers and crew members to survive but just barely. Vulovic entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1985 for "the highest fall survived without a parachute.". Vesna Vulovi was born in Belgrade on 3 January 1950. She was a Serbian flight attendant, who came hurtling down towards the earth from 33,000 feet above and still survived the deadly fall. Vulovi was rescued by a woodsman who followed her screams in the dark forest. The explosion was determined to be from a briefcase bomb planted by the Ustae a Croatian separatist group seeking independence from Yugoslavia. Vesna Vulovi (2008) The cause of Flight 367's explosion and subsequent crash has been subject to several conspiracy theories over the years, the most popular of which suggested that the plane was mistakenly shot down by Czechoslovak anti-air missiles at a much lower altitude of 800 metres (2,600 ft). Her final years were spent in seclusion, and she struggled with survivor guilt. Vesna passed away at 66 in 2016 (Source: guinnessworldrecords.com) Fifty years ago, a 23-year-old woman fell 33,333 feet from the sky and survived, making it to the Guinness World Record (GWR) for 'Highest fall survived without parachute'. If I were lucky I would never have had this accident and my mother and father would be alive. [18] Although she was advised by physicians that her injuries would not have an adverse effect on her reproductive function, Vulovi experienced an ectopic pregnancy that nearly proved fatal and was never able to have children. [3][6], Air safety investigators attributed Vulovi's survival to her being trapped by a food cart in the DC-9's fuselage as it broke away from the rest of the aircraft and plummeted towards the ground. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Do not sell or share my personal information. From the crash, Vulovi had sustained two broken legs, three broken vertebrae, a fractured pelvis, broken ribs, and a fractured skull. Vesna's physicians later determined that . Air safety investigators attributed the explosion to a briefcase bomb. When the cabin depressurized, the passengers and other flight crew were blown out of the aircraft and fell to their deaths. She was in the rear of the plane with a food cart when the fuselage broke apart. Her recovery period was actually relatively short and incredibly successful a fact she attributes to a childhood diet that included chocolate, spinach, and fish oil.. [19] Vulovi continued taking part in anti-government demonstrations throughout the 1990s. Her cause of death was not immediately known . Vesna Vulovic, a Serbian air stewardess who miraculously survived a plunge from 33,000ft after her plane exploded in mid-air in 1972, has died aged 66. She was rushed to a hospital, where she fell into a coma for 10 days. She was rushed to a hospital, where she fell into a coma for ten days. Vulovic entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1985 for the highest fall survived without a parachute.. [3] Vulovi's parents had to sell both of their cars to pay for her treatment. Vulovic was rescued by Bruno Honke, a woodsman who heard her screaming in the dark while the debris came down around them. The cause of death was not immediately known. She had been working for the airline for only eight months when the accident occurred. FILE-In this Friday, Feb. 15, 2008 file photo, Vesna Vulovic, an ex-air stewardess, and survivor of a fall from 10,000 meters when in 1972 her plane was blown up in mid-fight by a bomb, gestures as she gives an interview to the Associated Press in Belgrade, Serbia. Three vertebrae were broken, and she was temporarily paralyzed from the waist down and in a coma for a time. Trapped in the planes tail cone, she plummeted to earth in sub-freezing temperatures and landed on a steep, heavily wooded slope near a village. "[21] Vulovi declined therapy to help cope with her experiences and instead turned to religion, becoming a devout Orthodox Christian. Vesna Vulovi (Serbian Cyrillic: , pronounced [sna loit]; 3 January 1950 - 23 December 2016) was a Serbian flight attendant who holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: 10,160 m (33,330 ft; 6.31 mi).She was the sole survivor after an explosion tore through the baggage compartment of JAT Flight 367 on 26 . "She looked so nice and had just been to London for the day," Vulovi recalled. I think he had checked in a bag in Stockholm, got off in Copenhagen and never re-boarded the flight. "So I had to go shopping with them. At 4:01 PM, there was an explosion in the baggage compartment. She joined JAT, the national flag carrier and dominant airline of Yugoslavia, in 1971. On the evening of January 26, 1972, Bruno Honke heard screaming coming from a hillside just outside of his village in Czechoslovakia. Air safety investigators believe that Vulovis position within the aircraft at the time of the explosion helped her survive the fall. date of death. Though no arrests were ever made, Yugoslav authorities suspected that a Croatian ultranationalist terrorist group, the Ustashe, were behind both bombings. FILE-In this Friday, Feb. 15, 2008 file photo, Vesna Vulovic, an ex-air stewardess, and survivor of a fall from 10,000 meters when in 1972 her plane was blown up in mid-fight by a bomb, gestures as she gives an interview to the Associated Press in Belgrade, Serbia. VESNA Vulovic, a Serbian air hostess who survived the highest ever fall after a plane exploded mid-air, has died aged 66. She remained an avid flyer and died in 2016 at the age of 66. Her cause of death was not immediately known. [3][d] She attributed the divorce to her chain smoking, which her husband disapproved of. On This Day in 1918: The tallest man ever is born, Prizes dont come any bigger: World's tallest man Sultan Kosen visits British school after competition win, Canadian confirmed as tallest teenager in the world, How to set or break a Guinness World Records title. Having divorced, Vulovi lived alone in her Belgrade apartment on a small pension until her death in 2016. I felt for them. She was thus officially acknowledged as having surpassed the records of other fall survivors, such as Alan Magee, Juliane Koepcke, Nicholas Alkemade, and Ivan Chisov. Oh yeah, except for the fact that she fell 33,000 fucking feet and lived to tell the tale. It was suspected that a bomb was planted inside the jet during a scheduled stopover in Copenhagen, but no arrests were ever made. Air safety investigators attributed the explosion to a briefcase bomb. Sole crash survivors: Children and crew stand out. [26] She was buried in Belgrade's New Cemetery on 27 December.[27]. The first of his numerous near-death experiences began on a cold January day in 1962, when Selak was on a train to Dubrovnik: it suddenly derailed into an icy river, killing 17 passengers. Serbia's state TV said Ms Vulovic was. Vesna Vulovic in her later years (via Twitter) According to another account, on this specific airliner, a terrorist cell known as Ustashe had planted a strong device. 'I felt different to the rest of my family - and my mum felt the same': Prince Harry opens up on his 'broken home' upbringing saying parents rowing in front of children 'is not a good idea' - but FAILS to mention William once in 90min toxic trauma chat, Maryland mayor arrested on 56 child pornography charges called Pete Buttigieg his 'buddy' and 'mentor' for helping him navigate politics as a gay man - and visited the White House at least six times, 'What does this mean!?' After learning about Vesna Vulovi and her record-breaking fall from the sky, check out Juliane Koepcke, who survived an extreme fall and then an 11-day trek through the jungle. He fell 18,000 feet (5500 m) to the ground below. She was fired from her job at the airline in 1990 after taking part in protests against President Slobodan Milosevic but avoided arrest. It was suspected that a bomb was planted inside the jet during a scheduled stopover in Copenhagen, Denmark, but no arrests were ever made. . Katie Serena is a New York City-based writer and a staff writer at All That's Interesting. The tail landed in a heavily wooded and snow-blanketed part of a mountainside, which was thought to have cushioned the impact. Ms. Vulovic returned to work at Yugoslav Airlines later in 1972, but to an office job in which she negotiated freight contracts, not as a flight attendant. Vesna Vulovic, an air stewardess who survived the highest ever fall by a human being after her plane broke up at 33,000ft (10,000m), has died aged 66. The crew had the entire afternoon and the following morning to themselves. Serbia's state TV reports Saturday Dec. 24, 2016, Vulovic was found dead by her friends in her apartment in Belgrade, aged 66. The Serbian flight attendant holds the Guinness record for highest fall survived without a parachute. She had a fractured skull, two crushed vertebrae and a broken pelvis, ribs and legs. Vulovic was working as a Yugoslav Airlines flight attendant on Jan. 26, 1972, when the Douglas DC-9 airliner she was aboard blew up high above the snowy mountain ranges of Czechoslovakia. "I am like a cat, I have had nine lives," she told the New York Times. Serbia's state TV said Saturday Vulovic was found dead by her friends in her apartment in Belgrade. These injuries resulted in her being temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. Eight months into her flight attendant career, Vesna Vulovi was told to join the crew of JAT Flight 367, flying from Stockholm to Belgrade with a stopover in Copenhagen. Vulovi wished to go sightseeing but her colleagues insisted that they go shopping. [19] In 1977,[c] she married mechanical engineer Nikola Breka after a year of dating. What makes a Guinness World Records title? Vesnas miraculous survival was attributed to her being pinned down by a food cart in the tail end of the fuselage (the aircrafts main body). Folk Figure. She never regained memory of the accident or her rescue. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. THIRTY-SIX years ago, Vesna Vulovic plummeted 33,300 feet in temperatures of 60 degrees below zero after an explosion ripped apart the DC-9 Yugoslav Airlines plane on which she was working as a. The fuselage tumbled through pine branches and into a thick coating of snow, softening the impact and cushioning its descent down the hill, crash investigators said at the time. As for people who have described her as lucky, Vulovic said they are mistaken. In response to the attack, airport security measures were tightened in the country. About 18 years after she returned to work, she said, the airline forced her to retire for trying to persuade co-workers not to vote for Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian nationalist and president known as the Butcher of the Balkans. She demonstrated in the streets against Mr. Milosevic, who died in jail before a verdict was reached in his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Credit: Alamy. She seems not to have lived the life of a celebrity at all and to have kept mostly to herself, Eric Gordy, a cultural and political sociologist at University College London who studies the former Yugoslavia, said in a phone interview. Anyone can read what you share. She said in 2008 that she could only recall greeting passengers before takeoff from the airport in Denmark, and then waking up in hospital with her mother at her side. WHAT MAKES A GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS TITLE? On the day of the crash, a bomb exploded aboard a train travelling from Vienna to Zagreb, injuring six. December 24, 2016 / 7:59 AM Ms. Vulovic was rescued by a woodsman who followed her screams in the dark forest. Vesna Vulovic was a stewardess back in the '70s working on a Serbian airline. The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, landed at Copenhagen Airport at 2:30p.m., whereupon Vulovi and her colleagues boarded the plane. Read about our approach to external linking. Mind-bending optical illusion that makes your brain IMAGINE a color that doesn't exist leaves the internet baffled, Kellyanne Conway's soon-to-be ex-husband George looks despondent without his wedding ring after couple announced they are divorcing, New heartbreak for Liz Hurley, 57, as third former partner dies: Actor Tom Sizemore, 61, suffers fatal brain aneurysm a year after her ex-fiance Shane Warne's death from a heart attack at 52 - while father to her son Damian lost his life to suicide in 2020, All 28 aboard died apart from Vulovic, who would break record for highest fall. Vesna Vulovic, a Serbian woman who in 1972 survived a reported six-mile fall after the plane she was on exploded over Czechoslovakia, died last week at age 66, according to several media reports. Read about our approach to external linking. The cause of death was not immediately known. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. When I told my parents I was living in the Swedish capital, they thought of the drugs and the sex and told me to come home at once." "But if nationalist forces in this country prevail, my heart will burst. Some sources suggest that Vulovi's employment was terminated in 1990. The cause of death was not immediately known. "People always want to sit next to me on the plane," she said. The fuselage tumbled through pine branches and into a thick coating of snow, softening the impact and cushioning its descent down the hill, crash investigators said at the time. [3] The last thing that Vulovi could remember from before the crash was greeting passengers as they boarded. [4] Vulovi attributed her recovery to her "Serbian stubbornness" and "a childhood diet that included chocolate, spinach, and fish oil". On 26 january 1972 an explosion on JAT Flight 367 (Jugoslavenski Aerotransport) caused the plane to break apart. "I am like a cat, I have had nine lives," she told the New York Times. Vesna Vulovic, a flight attendant who was the only one of 28 people to survive a jetliner blast over Czechoslovakia in 1972. Ms. Vulovic, who had been divorced, was living on a small pension, with three cats, at her death. Ms. Vulovic was working as a Yugoslav Airlines flight attendant on Jan. 26, 1972, when the DC-9 airliner she was aboard blew up high above the snowy . Vesna Vulovic in hospital in Prague following the crash. What we know so far about the Chinese spy balloon and other objects shot down by U.S. Ozempic-like drug Wegovy coming to the U.K. at a fraction of U.S. price. Miracle woman who survived '33,000ft fall', "Sestelen jugoslvskho letadla echy by se neutajilo, mn pamtnk od radaru", "Remembering Vesna Vulovi, flight attendant who survived 10,000-metre fall from plane", "Stewardesse overlevede fald p 10.000 meter", "Sahranjena legendarna stjuardesa koja je preivela pad sa 10 hiljada metara", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vesna_Vulovi&oldid=1142131761, Survivors of aviation accidents or incidents, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing Serbian-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 28 February 2023, at 17:58. Trapped in the plane's tail cone, she plummeted to earth in sub-freezing temperatures and landed on a steep, heavily wooded slope near a village. Amid the wreckage was a woman wearing a bloodstained turquoise flight attendants uniform and no shoes. "I thought, 'Why shouldn't I be an air hostess? This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Vesna Vulovi (Yugoslavia, b. Vulovi was fired from JAT in the early 1990s after taking part in anti-government protests during the breakup of Yugoslavia, but avoided arrest as the government was concerned about the negative publicity that her imprisonment would bring. Vesna Vulovic, was a flight attendant on Yugoslav Airlines DC-9 enroute from Stockholm to Belgrade. Vulovis doctors concurred with the air investigators and added their own conclusions. One man seemed terribly annoyed. In the morning, during breakfast, the co-pilot was talking about his son and daughter as if nobody else had a son or daughter. Nobody ever expected me to live this long.. BELGRADE, Serbia Vesna Vulovic, a Serbian stewardess who miraculously survived a plunge from 10,000 meters after her plane exploded in mid-air in 1972, has died. Vesna Vulovi . However, her dream almost didnt come true. Vesna Vulovic, a flight attendant who alone, and miraculously, survived the midair explosion of a jetliner over Czechoslovakia in 1972 after plummeting thousands of feet onto a snowy hill, was. [4] Vulovi was the only survivor of the 28 passengers and crew. The theory has also been dismissed by the Civilian Aviation Authority and Czech army experts. After arriving in hospital, Vulovic fell into a coma for 10 days. The cause of Flight 367s explosion and subsequent crash has been subject to several conspiracy theories over the years, the most popular of which suggested that the plane was mistakenly shot down by Czechoslovak anti-air missiles at a much lower altitude of 800 metres (2,600 ft). "Everybody wanted to buy something for his or her family," she recalled. The same type of aircraft that Vesna Vulovi was on before her fall. "I was broken, and the doctors put me back together again," she told the New York Times in 2008. Belgrade New Cemetery. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. "The man who found me told me that I was in the middle part of the plane," she said. DR ELLIE CANNON: My breast has not got lumps but it's itchy, should I be concerned about cancer at age 72? Trees broke the fall of the fuselage section and snow on the hill cushioned its landing. She avoided arrest because the government was concerned about the negative publicity that her imprisonment would bring. As he went to investigate, he came across a grisly sight: the wreckage of an airplane, torn apart by an explosion. Everyone except Vesna, who survived a fall of 33,333 feet (10,160 metres; 6.31 miles). YouTubeThe wreckage of the JAT Flight 367 crash. What science tells us about the afterlife. State TV in Vulovic's home country of Serbia said she was found dead in her apartment in Belgrade. Initially paralyzed from the waist down, Vulovic eventually made a near-full recovery and even returned to work for the airline in a desk job. He didn't want to go out at all. One part of my body with my leg was in the plane and my head was out of the plane. . Vulovi became a celebrity in Yugoslavia and was deemed a national hero. The Czech authorities concluded that explosives in a suitcase had detonated and tore the jet apart. Serbia's state TV said Saturday Vulovic was found dead by her friends in her apartment in Belgrade. She was 66. The stewardess was temporarily paralysed from the waist down by the fall but in time she made a near-full recovery and returned to work for the airline in a desk job. [22] Hornung-Andersen conceded that the pair's evidence was only circumstantial. The cause of death was not immediately known. 3 January 1950; d. 23 December 2016) was 23 and working as a Jugoslavenski Aerotransport hostess when she survived a fall from 10,160 m (33,333 ft) over Srbsk Kamenice, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic), on 26 January 1972. It is certain that the other passengers and crewmembers had similar horoscopes, as well. She had a fractured skull, two crushed vertebrae and a broken pelvis, ribs and legs. She recalled that she should not have been there; another flight attendant, also named Vesna, was supposed to be on the roster. A week after Anthony Veasna So, an emerging author on the cusp of success, died unexpectedly at age 28, a far-flung but tightknit literary community is in shock and mourning over what might have . 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. The accident ruined their lives, too. People Most Convinced They're Always Right About Politics Overrate Their Knowledge The Most, The Seven Unbelievable Survival Stories Of Frane Selak, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch.