Air travel is the safest mode passenger transportation. Every day, more than 80 thousand aircraft around the world make about two hundred thousand flights and deliver more than three million passengers to their destinations. The percentage of accidents is extremely low, and therefore - it would seem - the fear of flying is of an irrational nature. Nothing like this! After all, we all understand perfectly well: if something happens at an altitude of ten kilometers above the ground, there is no chance of survival. At all. However, there is no need to despair completely. It’s small, but nevertheless there is still hope for salvation. This is evidenced by amazing cases where passengers managed to survive the most terrible plane crashes.

Perhaps the most famous case miraculous salvation happened in 1972. The airliner of the Yugoslav airline Yugoslav Airlines was flying on the route Stockholm - Copenhagen - Zagreb - Belgrade. The plane took off and climbed to an altitude of ten thousand meters in normal mode. The flight took place over East Germany. Suddenly the liner fell into pieces: bow with the cockpit separated from the main body. The main version of the crash was a terrorist attack, the organization of which was suspected of being organized by supporters of the Croatian nationalist organization Ustasha. However, who really became the organizer and executor of the terrorist attack has not yet been found out.

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Stewardess Vesna Vulović was the only survivor of the crash. A 22-year-old girl who fell from a height of ten kilometers was discovered by a peasant Bruno Honke. He provided first aid to the flight attendant and handed the victim over to the paramedics who arrived at the scene. Vesna received many injuries, but after sixteen months she recovered. Having regained consciousness after the disaster, the first thing the flight attendant asked for was a cigarette.

Surprisingly, after the experience, the girl had no fear of flying. She lived until 2016 and died at the age of 67. In 1985, the name of Vesna Vulović was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the person who survived a fall from a maximum height.

An equally famous incident occurred in the summer of 1981. The An-24RV board was flying from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk. At an altitude of 5220 meters, the airliner collided with a Tu-16 military bomber - civilian and military flight control centers poorly coordinated their actions. The crews of both aircraft were killed. Just like the passengers of the An-24. The exception was student Larisa Savitskaya - the girl miraculously managed to survive.

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Larisa was returning from honeymoon together with her husband Vladimir. The plane was half empty, so the newlyweds decided to sit on comfortable chairs in the rear of the plane. When the collision occurred, the girl was sleeping, but she instantly woke up from a strong blow and a sudden burn. The plane's fuselage broke right in front of Larisa's seat, and she was thrown into the aisle between the seats. The girl crawled to the nearest chair and pressed herself into it. Subsequently, she recalled that at that moment a scene from the film “Miracles Still Happen” came to her mind, in which the heroine squeezes into an airplane seat and survives the crash.

Larisa was saved by a favorable combination of circumstances. The shape of the fragment in which she found herself was such that when it fell, it glided like a leaf of a tree. The fall lasted a surprisingly long time - a full eight minutes. In addition, he fell into a birch grove, and the trees softened the blow. But, of course, Larisa lost consciousness at that moment.

Waking up on the ground, the first thing the girl saw was a chair with the body of her dead husband. A mystery - the remains of the passengers were scattered hundreds of meters around, and Vladimir was nearby.

Larisa received serious injuries, but was able to get to her feet. Rescuers found the girl only two days later. During this time, she built a temporary shelter from the wreckage of the plane, in which she waited for help. It was raining, the temperature did not rise above ten degrees - we had to use seat covers to keep warm. She was also plagued by mosquitoes, from which the girl protected herself with a plastic bag.

I don’t know, maybe from psychological shock I didn’t feel my body,” Larisa Savitskaya recalled. - But the ribs, arms, back were broken, teeth were knocked out... The body seemed just like cotton wool, and it was difficult to breathe. The pain is dull, as if not mine. And there was also some kind of constant hum: either there was a buzzing in my ears, or mosquitoes...

Larisa also got into the Guinness Book of Records. But not only as a person who survived a fall from a five-kilometer height, but also as a passenger who received minimal compensation. Only 75 Soviet rubles.

In a number of plane crashes, several passengers managed to survive at once. Thus, in the crash of the Boeing 747 airliner of Japanese airlines, which occurred on August 12, 1985, there were four survivors. That day the plane was flying from Tokyo to Osaka. Twelve minutes after takeoff, the vertical tail stabilizer, or, simply put, the fin, separated.

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For a long thirty-two minutes, the crew continued to try to stabilize the uncontrollable vehicle. But the plane, devoid of a keel, swayed along all three axes with ever-increasing amplitude. He continued to fly, then sharply gaining altitude, then suddenly descending. This continued until the last moment. Suddenly, before the eyes of the pilots, a mountain range. In an attempt to avoid a collision with the mountain, the commander increased the engine thrust and gave the order to release the flaps of the emergency electrical system. The plane sharply lifted its nose and almost fell into a tailspin, but it was still possible to level the plane. Unfortunately, the success was temporary. The out-of-control plane lowered its nose again and headed straight for the nearest peak. The rate of decline began to increase. The commander again tried to level the aircraft, but alas. The right wing hit the treetops and the Japan Airlines plane crashed into the wooded slope of Mount Otsutaka at high speed.

The disaster claimed the lives of 520 people and became the most... major disaster one aircraft in the entire history of aviation. The surviving passengers were two women and two little girls. 26-year-old Japan Airlines flight attendant Yumi Ochiai, 34-year-old Hiroko Yoshizaki with her eight-year-old daughter Mikiko, and 12-year-old Keiko Kawakami. Keiko was found sitting in a tree. All four were immediately taken to a Tokyo hospital.

After the tragedy, it became clear that a much larger number of passengers could have survived. Thus, Keiko Kawakami said that already on earth her father spoke to her, urging her not to lose heart, but then fell silent. The girl also heard moans and screams of other wounded people. Experts and doctors confirmed Keiko's words. They found that a large number of passengers died on the ground from wounds and cold, without receiving help. But help did not come for a long 14 hours. Reason terrible delay There was competition between numerous rescue services. For a long time they could not decide who would go to rescue the victims.

The cause of the plane crash was simple negligence. Seven years before the tragedy, the airliner was seriously damaged when its tail hit the runway, but repairs were not carried out properly. For the 506 passengers and 14 crew members of JAL flight 115, this circumstance was fatal.

The largest plane crash in terms of number of victims occurred on March 27, 1977 on the island of Tenerife. There were two airliners on the same runway. One is for the American airline Pan Am, the other is for the Dutch KLM. The tragedy claimed the lives of 583 people. 61 people were lucky to survive.

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The reason why both planes hit the same runway at the same time was due to bad weather. The radio communication between the dispatchers and the pilots malfunctioned, and the command staff of the aircraft could not correctly understand the instructions that came from the control center. In addition, heavy fog descended on the island, which reduced visibility to one hundred meters.

The planes were opposite each other. Was the first to take off Boeing airlines KLM. Having picked up speed, his crew saw another Boeing, an American Pan Am, moving towards him from the fog. The pilots tried to lift the car off the ground, but the distance did not allow them to perform the maneuver. The airliners collided head-on at full speed. Everyone on the Dutch plane died; there were survivors among the passengers of the American Boeing. Including the captain, co-pilot and flight engineer.

Today we decided to remember incredible incidents, list of air accidents that occurred with multi-seat aircraft, as a result of which, of all those on board, only one person survived.

On June 14, 1943, a plane carrying American soldiers on leave crashed in Australia. In conditions of poor visibility due to fog, the plane touched the tops of trees and crashed. Only Foy Kenneth Roberts survived (there were a total of 41 soldiers on board ), who received severe traumatic brain injuries. Doctors managed to save Roberts and he lived until 2004. However, as a result of his injuries, he forgot everything about the accident itself and lost the ability to speak.

Julianna Dealer Kopke survived a plane crash after falling from a height of 3 km

On December 23, 1971, 500 kilometers from the capital of Peru, Lima, as a result of being caught in a vast thunderstorm area, a passenger plane actually disintegrated in the air at an altitude of more than three kilometers.

“Suddenly an amazing silence reigned around me. The plane disappeared. I must have been unconscious and then came to. I was flying, spinning in the air, and could see the forest rapidly approaching below me.”

Seventeen-year-old girl Julianna Diller Kopke was the only survivor - she was fastened with a belt to a row of chairs and fell into the dense jungle. In the fall, she broke her collarbone, injured her arm and received a moderate head injury.For 9 days, Juliana wandered through the jungle, trying not to leave the stream, believing that sooner or later it would lead her to civilization. The stream also provided the girl with water. Nine days later, Juliana found a canoe and a shelter in which she hid and waited. Soon she was found in this shelter by lumberjacks.

On January 26, 1972, Croatian terrorists blew up a McDonnell Douglas DC-9−32 passenger plane belonging to JAT Yugoslav Airlines over the Czech town of Serbska Kamenice. The plane was traveling from Copenhagen to Zagreb, with 28 people on board. Bomb planted in luggage compartment, detonated at an altitude of 10,160 m. 27 passengers and crew members were killed, but 22-year-old flight attendant Vesna Vulovich remained alive, falling from a height of more than 10 km.

Vesna Vulovich

Vesna Vulovich fell from a height of 10,160 m after a plane crash and survived

When falling from a height of 10160 meters (the case is a record for survivors of a fall from a great height ) received severe injuries to the spine and skull, and was unconscious when she was discovered. After that, she was in a coma for almost a month, the total duration of treatment was about one and a half years. After recovery she was transferred to ground work at the airline, in Yugoslavia she was considered a national heroine.

Larisa Savitskaya

On August 24, 1981, passenger and military aircraft collided over the territory of the USSR. The only survivor was passenger Larisa Savitskaya, who ended up in the wreckage of the plane, where there were seats in which she took refuge. When falling from a height of more than five kilometers, Savitskaya received serious spinal injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and lost almost all her teeth. For three days she waited for rescuers, as the debris fell in the taiga. Unlike Vesna, Vulovich did not receive special support from the state: the fact of the disaster was hidden, the injuries she received individually did not allow her to register for disability and receive support from the state, she was paid a lump sum of 75 rubles as a survivor of the plane crash.

Larisa Savitskaya spent three days in the taiga after the plane crash

On January 13, 1995, a plane crashed in Colombia. forced landing in a swampy area. The landing was unsuccessful; when it hit the ground, the ship broke into pieces and exploded. The only survivor was a nine-year-old girl, Erica Delgado, who was thrown from the plane by her mother as it began to fall apart. Erica fell into a pile of seaweed, but could not get out. According to her recollections, one of the local residents tore off her gold necklace and disappeared, ignoring requests for help ( the bodies of the victims were also robbed). After some time, the girl was found by her cries for help and pulled out of the swamp by a local farmer.

On August 27, 2006, a passenger plane crashed during takeoff in Kentucky, USA. The crash was caused by the captain mistakenly selecting a runway that was too short for this type of aircraft; as a result, only the co-pilot, James Polehink, survived, and as a result of numerous injuries ( severe concussion, many fractures, lung punctured by ribs) lost his memory and did not remember anything related to the plane crash.

4-year-old Cecilia Sichan managed to survive a plane crash in 1989

On August 16, 1989, a regular flight, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9−82 of Northwest Airlines, began taking off from Detroit Airport. There were 157 people on board, including a 4-year-old girl, Cecilia Sichan. Her parents and six-year-old brother were flying with her.

The airliner began to sway already on takeoff; its left wing touched the lighting mast, part of the wing broke off and caught fire. The plane then pitched to the right and the other wing crashed through the roof of a car rental office. The plane crashed onto the highway, broke into pieces, and caught fire. Debris and victims' bodies were scattered over an area of ​​more than half a mile.

Firefighter John Tied, who was working at the crash site, heard a thin squeak and saw a child's hand among the wreckage. A 4-year-old girl, who suffered a fractured skull, a broken leg and collarbone and third-degree burns, was the only one who managed to survive the disaster. She underwent four skin graft surgeries but managed to make a full recovery.

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

Baya Bakari

On June 30, 2009, a Yemeni airline plane crashed off the coast of the Comoros Islands, falling directly into the ocean. Of the 153 passengers, only thirteen-year-old Baya Bakari, a French woman who was flying on board, survived. Comoros from Marseille with his mother. When the girl was thrown out of the plane during its collision with water, she received multiple bruises and broke her collarbone. She managed to get out of the water onto one of the wreckage of the plane, on which she remained for 14 hours, until she was discovered by the crew of a passing ship, who took the girl, who was suffering primarily from hypothermia, to the hospital.

In January 2010, Bakari published her autobiography, Survivor, with journalist Omar Guendouz.. In May of the same year the newspaperAOL Newspublished information that Steven Spielberg Bakari offered to purchase the film rights to her book, but she refused.

Of course, the fastest and most comfortable mode of transport of our time is the airplane. Moreover, quite often it is on an airliner that passengers can get to the very remote location 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 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 in order 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 because of 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 in terrible plane crash, in which a passenger plane exploded in the sky due to a bomb on board 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 in 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 numbered in tens or even just a few - in this terrible disaster which happened in 1981, one 20-year-old passenger, L. Savitskaya, who was returning home with her husband after a honeymoon, was able to survive. 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 later explains, the plot of the film from the Italian directors “Miracles Still Occur” 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 in which the girl was located 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 they arrived at the scene of the tragedy. local residents, 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.

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People who are thrown overboard during a shipwreck almost never survive. And those who succeeded will never forget Asiana Flight 214 after its emergency landing in San Francisco.

In July this year, a plane of the South Korean airline Asiana Airlines flew emergency landing at the San Francisco airport. A moment before the plane touched the runway, its tail fell off, with five people inside. A teenage girl from Korea almost finished sixth.

She was sitting in the 41st row, where there was a fault line along which the tail section broke away from the rest of the plane.

“Everything that was behind me disappeared in an instant,” she told reporters from the Mercury News in broken English. And she asked not to use her name. In the fallen tail sat two girls and three flight attendants sitting behind them. “One moment there were two toilets and suddenly there was nothing, just a blinding light.”

One of the girls fell out of her seat later than the other four and ended up near the left wing of the plane. Experts believe she was covered in firefighting foam and then hit by a fire truck arriving at the scene.

A second girl from row 41 died from injuries sustained after she was dragged along the runway for about 400 meters.

Miraculously, all three flight attendants survived, having been dragged along the ground for more than 300 meters. They were found next to a Boeing 747 waiting to take off. The pilot of this plane saw all this from his cockpit:

“The two survivors, although with difficulty, moved... I saw one of them get up and walk a few steps, but then squat down. The other, also a woman, seemed to be walking, then fell on her side and remained on the ground until rescuers arrived.”

They were so far from the main part of the plane that it took rescuers 14 minutes to find them.

Modern commercial aircraft transport hundreds of people 10 times faster than they could travel in cars, which in turn is 10 times faster than a person can travel on foot.

And although flying has become a familiar part of our lives, it is difficult for us to even imagine the physical forces that the body of the aircraft we are sitting inside has to withstand. If a person were outside the porthole, he would die almost instantly under the influence of several factors at once: barotrauma, friction, impact with a blunt object, hypoxia - they would still compete to see which one would kill us.

And yet, very rarely, those who find themselves on the wrong side of the plane’s skin survive. Some survived being thrown out of flying aircraft. high altitude passenger aircraft. Some were thrown back by the explosion, others were torn out of their seats at the fracture site. It happened that people jumped on their own, and sometimes that someone pushed them.

There are real reasons why surviving a crash is becoming increasingly common, even when thrown from an airplane at high altitude.

If a commercial airliner crashes, there is a good chance of survival. One widely cited statistic puts the survival rate at about 80 percent, and the numbers rise with each new generation of aircraft.

The plane on Asiana Flight 214 was a Boeing 777, one of the newest and safest aircraft to fly. The 777 seats in which the flight attendants "drove" along the runway were designed to withstand up to 16 Gs of force before being lifted off the floor.

In many previous accidents with less secure seats, these detached seats actually became missiles in the cabin. The substantial bracing would have kept the Asiana's seats in place, likely also making them a safe "sled" for the Asiana's crew.

Oddly enough, the earliest documented case of surviving a commercial flight ejection is strikingly similar to the Asiana accident, even though the safety science was half a century younger.

In April 1965, a British United Airways plane was descending towards Jersey, an island off the coast of the Normandy coast of France. The pilot, as on the Asiana, misjudged the approach. Moreover, as with Korean plane, the rear part crashed into an object on the ground, the entire tail section was torn off, and the flight attendant was thrown out. Twenty-two-year-old Dominique Sillier was found near the wreckage, seriously injured but alive. She is the only one left alive.

In the 48 years between these two accidents, the number of people also thrown out of the airliners and surviving is less than ten (according to data published by the media and collected in amateur databases).

Society reacts to survivors with things like, “You’re so lucky!” But we cannot even imagine what a terrible trauma this is for them. Survivors are generally not very willing to share their stories.

Particularly worth highlighting are cases where people fell out of flying airplanes and remained alive. The most famous case involved Juliane Kepke, a German teenager who was thrown from a plane that exploded over Peru on Christmas Eve 1971.

While in her seat, she flew about 3,000 meters before falling into the jungle. Bruised and missing one shoe, she walked along streams and rivers for 11 days before finding help.

German director Werner Herzog was also supposed to fly on that flight and after the tragedy visited the crash site to film his documentary film 2000 “Wings of Hope”.

Nine-year-old Colombian Erica Delgado survived a similar fall in 1995 when her mother pushed her from a burning plane. castaway near Cartagena. The exact numbers are unknown, but another pilot reported an explosion of the plane, breaking into two parts at an altitude of about 3.5 thousand meters. The Delgados landed in the swamp next to the rest of the debris.

In 1985, a Galaxy Airlines plane crashed on takeoff from Reno. Lamson, 17, had his row of seats ripped out completely and landed upright on a nearby road. The teenager unfastened his seat belts and began to run until the billboard he saw brought him back to reality.

Later, Lamson tried to figure out how he managed to survive such a scrape. Lamson had been diving for a long time, so he followed his instinct and buried his head in his knees, as if he had somersaulted when the plane tossed up for the first time. When a row of seats vomited, his legs protected him, and his father, who was sitting next to him, died from a head injury.

This is the answer to the “how” question. Many of them will never be able to get an answer to the question “why”.

(Collected from various Internet sites)

Alexander Andryukhin

If what happens in the cockpit during a disaster can be judged by the recordings flight recorders, then there are no “black boxes” in the cabin. Izvestia tracked down several people who survived plane crashes or were involved in serious flight accidents...

The story of Larisa Savitskaya is included in the Guinness Book of Records. In 1981, at an altitude of 5220 meters, the An-24 plane in which she was flying collided with a military bomber. 37 people died in that disaster. Only Larisa managed to survive.

I was 20 years old then,” says Larisa Savitskaya. - Volodya, my husband, and I were flying from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk. We were returning from our honeymoon. First we sat in the front seats. But I didn’t like the front, so we moved to the middle. After takeoff, I immediately fell asleep. And I woke up from noise and screams. My face burned with cold. Then they told me that our plane’s wings were cut off and the roof was blown off. But I don’t remember the sky above my head. I remember it was foggy, like in a bathhouse. I looked at Volodya. He didn't move. Blood was gushing down his face. I somehow immediately realized that he was dead. And she prepared to die too. Then the plane fell apart and I lost consciousness. When I came to my senses, I was surprised that I was still alive. I felt like I was lying on something hard. It turned out to be in the aisle between the chairs. And next to it is a whistling abyss. There were no thoughts in my head. Fear too. In the state I was in - between sleep and reality - there is no fear. The only thing I remembered was an episode from an Italian film, where a girl, after a plane crash, soared in the sky among the clouds, and then, falling into the jungle, remained alive. I didn't expect to survive. I just wanted to die without suffering. I noticed the rungs of the metal floor. And I thought: if I fall sideways, it will be very painful. I decided to change position and regroup. Then she crawled to the next row of chairs (our row was near the rift), sat down in the chair, grabbed the armrests and rested her feet on the floor. All this was done automatically. Then I look - the ground. Very close. She grabbed the armrests with all her strength and pushed herself away from the chair. Then - like a green explosion from larch branches. And again there was a loss of memory. When I woke up, I saw my husband again. Volodya sat with his hands on his knees and looked at me with a fixed gaze. It was raining, which washed the blood from his face, and I saw a huge wound on his forehead. Under the chairs lay a dead man and woman...
Later it was established that the piece of the plane, four meters long and three meters wide, on which Savitskaya fell, glided like an autumn leaf. He fell into a soft, marshy clearing. Larisa lay unconscious for seven hours. Then for two more days I sat in a chair in the rain and waited for death to come. On the third day I got up, started looking for people and came across a search party. Larisa received several injuries, a concussion, a broken arm and five cracks in the spine. You can’t go with such injuries. But Larisa refused the stretcher and walked to the helicopter herself.
The plane crash and the death of her husband remained with her forever. According to her, her feelings of pain and fear are dulled. She is not afraid of death and still flies calmly on airplanes. But her son, who was born four years after the disaster, is terrified of flying.

Arina Vinogradova is one of the two surviving flight attendants of the Il-86 plane, which in 2002, barely taking off, crashed into Sheremetyevo. There were 16 people on board: four pilots, ten flight attendants and two engineers. Only two flight attendants survived: Arina and her friend Tanya Moiseeva.

They say that in the last seconds your whole life flashes before your eyes. This didn’t happen to me,” Arina tells Izvestia. - Tanya and I were sitting in the first row of the third salon, near emergency exit, but not in service seats, but in passenger seats. Tanya is opposite me. The flight was technical - we just needed to return to Pulkovo. At some point the plane began to shake. This happens with IL-86. But for some reason I realized that we were falling. Although nothing seemed to happen, there was no siren or roll. I didn't have time to get scared. Consciousness instantly floated away somewhere, and I fell into a black void. I woke up from a sharp jolt. At first I didn’t understand anything. Then I gradually figured it out. It turned out that I was lying on a warm engine, littered with chairs. I couldn't unfasten myself. She started screaming, pounding on the metal and disturbing Tanya, who then raised her head and then lost consciousness again. The firefighters pulled us out and took us to different hospitals.
Arina still works as a flight attendant. The plane crash, she said, did not leave any trauma in her soul. However, what happened had a very strong impact on Tatyana Moiseeva. Since then, she no longer flies, although she has not left aviation. She still works in the flight attendant squad, but now as a dispatcher. She doesn’t even tell her close friends about what she experienced.

The Lyceum group is known throughout the country. But few people know that two singers from this group - Anna Pletneva and Anastasia Makarevich - also survived the fall on the plane.

This happened about five years ago,” Anna Pletneva tells Izvestia. “I was always terrified of flying by plane, but now I became brave.” I flew with Nastya Makarevich to Spain. We had a great time. In a cheerful mood we returned to Moscow on a Boeing 767. The neighbors were with the child. The minute we started descending and the flight attendants told us to fasten our seat belts, the child was in my arms. And then the plane went down sharply. Things fell on their heads, the flight attendants shouted: “Hold the children! Bend down!” I realized that we were falling and hugged the baby to me. A thought flashed through my head: “Is this really all?” I used to think that when it’s so scary, my heart should be pounding. But in reality you don’t feel the heart. You don’t feel yourself, but you look at everything as if from the outside. The worst thing is hopelessness. You can't influence anything. But there was no panic like they show in the movies. Deathly silence. Everyone, as if in a dream, buckled up and froze. Some prayed, some said goodbye to their relatives.
Anna doesn't remember how much time has passed. Maybe seconds... Or minutes.
“Suddenly the plane gradually began to level out,” she recalls, “I looked around: was it really just me? But no, others also perked up... Even when we stopped on the runway, I couldn’t believe that everything ended well. The commander announced: “Congratulations to everyone! We were born in a shirt. Now everything will be fine in your life.”
“What’s surprising is that I’m no longer afraid of flying on airplanes,” she says. - And on charter flights pilots often let us into the cockpit and let us taxi. I like it so much that I want to buy my own small plane in the near future. We will fly it on tour.

Izvestia journalist Georgy Stepanov also survived the fall.

This happened in the summer of 1984, he recalls. - I flew on a Yak-40 plane from Batumi to Tbilisi. When I entered the plane, I felt like I was in a gypsy camp - there were so many things there. They filled all the compartments on top, as well as the passage of the cabin. Don't overcrowd. There were, of course, also more passengers than expected. We took off and gained altitude. Below is the sea. I felt drowsy. But then it was as if the fuselage had been hit with a sledgehammer, the noise of the turbine became different, and the plane went down sharply, almost vertically. Everyone who was not wearing a seat belt flew off their seats and rolled around the cabin, interspersed with their things. Screams, squeals. A terrible panic began. I was wearing a seat belt. I still remember my state of horror. Everything in me broke down, my body seemed numb. I had the feeling that everything was happening not to me, but that I was somewhere on the side. The only thing I thought was: poor parents, what will happen to them? I could neither scream nor move. Everyone nearby was completely white with fear. Their dead, motionless eyes were striking, as if they were already in another world.
We actually fell for no more than a minute. The plane leveled off: the passengers began to come to their senses and pick up their things. Then, when we were approaching Tbilisi, the pilot came out of the cockpit. He was like a zombie. We began to ask: what happened? In response, he wanted to laugh it off, but somehow it turned out to be a pity; he felt embarrassed for him.
This fall still haunts me to this day. When I board a plane, I feel like a completely helpless creature in an insecure shell.

The world knows more than a dozen cases of happy salvation

No matter how much experts, citing statistics, assure us that air transport is the safest, many are afraid to fly. The earth leaves hope, the height does not. How did those who did not survive the plane crash feel? We will never know. According to research by the Interstate Aviation Committee, the consciousness of a person in a falling plane is switched off. In most cases - in the very first seconds of the fall. At the moment of the collision with the ground, there is not a single person in the cabin who would be conscious. As they say, the body’s defense reaction is triggered.

The ancient Greek poet Theognis wrote: “What is not destined by fate will not happen, but what is destined, I am not afraid of.” There are also cases of miraculous salvation. Larisa Savitskaya is not the only one who survived the plane crash. In 1944, the English pilot Stephen, shot down by the Germans, fell from a height of 5500 meters and survived. In 2003, a Boeing 737 crashed in Sudan. A two-year-old child survived, although the plane was almost completely burned down. The world knows more than a dozen such cases.

From the material " Komsomolskaya Pravda", released after the AN-24 crash at Varandey airport:

24 people survived the disaster, another 28 died.
Many of those rescued are still in shock and refuse to talk. But according to the words of three survivors - Sergei Trefilov, Dmitry Dorokhov and Alexei Abramov - KP correspondents reconstructed what happened in the cabin of the falling plane.

According to official reports, the An-24, tail number 46489, disappeared from radar screens at 13.43 during landing approach.

13.43
Sergey:
- Commander Viktor Popov said over the speakerphone: “Our plane has begun to descend. In a few minutes we will land at the airport in the village of Varandey.” The voice was completely calm. He announced landing in Usinsk in exactly the same way. Immediately the flight attendant walked through the cabin and sat down on a folding chair in the back. Everything was as usual - this is the 10th time I’ve been flying on this watch.

Dmitriy:
- The plane began to shake violently. But there was no panic. Around me people were talking in low voices. We talked about football, about the shift. A neighbor said he felt sick when he landed. But there were no words about the plane crashing.

13.44 - 13.55
Sergey:
- We were flying low. Very. We saw that there was no runway- only snow. A man behind me asked: “Where are we going to sit? In field?"

13.56
Sergey:
- The plane fell on its left side somehow too much. And then there was a sound outside the window - an iron sound, as if something was being torn off. People started looking at each other.

Dmitry Dorokhov escaped with a slight fright: “The leg will heal! The main thing is that he’s alive.”

Dmitriy:
“We were waiting for the pilots to announce that everything is fine.” But there was silence in the cabin. And then the plane went down steeply. Someone shouted: “That’s it, f...! We're falling!"

Alexei:
“I was shocked that only one person screamed in the cabin.” The rest silently squeezed into their chairs or began to hide their heads between their knees.

Sergey:
- They didn’t say anything over the speakerphone. Only some strange sound, as if the pilots turned on the microphone, but then turned it off. The flight attendant was also silent - she did not try to calm the people down.

13.57
Sergey:
- I saw through the window how the plane touched the ground with its wing. I couldn’t close my eyes, I just stared. After this, the pilots clearly tried to level the plane, and we jumped up a little. And crashed into the snow!

Alexei:
- They fell silently. Very fast. Everyone sat in stunned silence. Now many newspapers are saying that the pilots were blinded by a flash of sunlight reflected from the icy strip. That's bullshit! There were no outbreaks. Just a blow.
I didn't lose consciousness. It was only dark in my eyes for about two seconds. Well, you know, like after being hit in the jaw. For about five seconds there was complete silence in the cabin. And then everyone moved at once and groaned.

13.58 - 14.00
Alexey Abramov saved four people from a burning plane. His godmother says: “He is a real hero!”

Sergey:
- The plane lay on its side, and there was a hole in the wall. In the salon, someone kept wailing: “It hurts! Hurt!" I scrambled out and crawled along the aisle.

Dmitriy:
“The worst thing was that all the people were sick with the plague—they couldn’t come to their senses. They just didn't understand what happened. I shake my neighbor: “Are you alive?” And he hums. And then the gas tank caught fire. There was no explosion. The flames gradually crawled through the cabin.

Sergey:
- People sitting closer to the nose began to light up and scream. Clothes caught fire instantly. And these “living torches” jumped up and ran to the rear. On us.
Someone shouted: “Take the things, put them out!” We started grabbing sheepskin coats and jackets from the luggage racks and throwing them on people. They fiddled around for about three minutes and put it out. But I was shocked: even when people were burning, they did not panic. They screamed in pain, not in fear...

14.01 - 14.08
Sergey:
“Then someone commanded: “We’re climbing out!” Now everything here is going to fucking explode...” Me and someone else got out through a hole in the fuselage.

Dmitriy:
- The flight attendant saved us all. She kicked out the emergency hatch and led people out through it.

Alexei:
- I was one of the first near the hatch. He helped four people get out, it was clear that they couldn’t do it themselves - their arms and legs were broken. I shout at them: “Crawl!” - and I pull. They pulled me out. Then he jumped out himself.

14.09
Sergey:
- There were some warehouses near the plane. And people from there immediately ran to the plane. And everyone who got out of the salon was dragged away. And they shouted all the time: “Come on! Let's!"

Dmitriy:
- They immediately drove up the Ural. They loaded those who could not get up on their own and took them to the village. And we sat down in the snow and looked around like newborn babies.

Alexei:
- No one remembered about things then - jackets, bags, mobile phones. I didn’t even feel cold, although I was only wearing a sweater. And only in the hospital, when the first shock passed, I saw that many had tears rolling down their faces...

And here’s how it happens on earth (from reports on the TU-154 disaster Anapa - St. Petersburg):

Eyewitness testimony

Residents tell Donetsk region who saw the Tu-154 fall
The Pulkovo Airlines plane took off from Anapa yesterday afternoon.
There were almost fifty children on board among the 160 passengers, because Anapa is a popular children's resort.
At approximately 15.30 Moscow time, the ship's commander transmitted an SOS signal to the ground. And literally two minutes after that, the plane disappeared from the radar.
We reached residents of the village of Novgorodskoye, not far from the place where the plane crashed.
“It circled around the ground for a long time, and just before landing it caught fire,” Galina STEPANOVA, a resident of the village of Novgorodskoye, Donetsk region, near which this tragedy happened, told us. - Behind our village there are fields of the Stepnoy state farm. It was on them that the plane crashed. It turned over several times in the air, stuck its nose into the ground and exploded. Our local residents, until the police arrived and cordoned off everything, went to watch. They say everything there was charred. Well, wow, it was so hot for a month and a half, everyone was waiting for rain. We waited. There was such a downpour and a thunderstorm - it was breathtaking. Most likely, the disaster happened because of the thunderstorm.
“Just before the crash, a strong thunderstorm began,” says eyewitness Gennady KURSOV from the village of Stepnoye, near which the plane crashed. - The sky was overcast. Suddenly there was the sound of a low-flying airliner. But until the last moment he was not visible! We and the residents of other surrounding villages noticed it only when there were 150 meters left to the ground. I thought that it would collapse right on us. It was spinning around its axis like a helicopter...

In an Aeroport

Information about flight 612 disappeared from the display as soon as contact with the plane was lost
The flight from Anapa was supposed to land at Pulkovo at 17.45. But at about 16.00 the line “Anapa - Petersburg” suddenly went out on the scoreboard. Few people paid attention to this - the greeters had not yet arrived at the airport.
And this was the very moment when the dispatchers and the crew lost contact forever...
When it became clear that the plane had died, the calm voice of the announcer sounded at Pulkovo:
- Those meeting flight 612 from Anapa are invited to the cinema premises...
- Why a cinema hall? - Those who greeted me became worried and, not yet understanding anything, but already suspecting the worst, rushed there. And there are lists of passengers who have registered for this flight, posted on the glass doors of the cinema. People stood silently in front of these sheets of paper for several minutes. They didn't believe it.
And only when almost all the bars of the Pulkovo airport started playing televisions with terrifying news at once, the first heartbreaking scream was heard in the corridors of the airport.

From the words of a passenger flying on the same days:

we flew from Anapa on August 13th, I was there with my family...
and before leaving I wrote a will for the apartment...
and for a car - so that it would be easier for my friends who are loan guarantors to pay for me in case something irreparable happens...
how they laughed at me and how they didn’t call my action
laughed - until yesterday, when dozens of families went into eternity
now almost everyone has called back and my action no longer seems so “wild” to them
it hurts me to think about it
that these people also sat on the same benches in the storage tank of the Anapa port
sat and watched the runway, planes, takeoffs and landings...
and now they are no longer there, and the world lives on as before, but without them...
how painful it is to realize that death does not change the world as a whole, but only breaks the destinies of individual people.
I already wrote this somewhere here on the threads, but these thoughts don’t go away, they go around in circles all the time and don’t give me peace.
and the mother has been crying for the 2nd day - she says that she has a feeling that WE have “slipped through”
past death, although we are separated from the catastrophe by 9 days...
I will repeat again and again:
May the passengers rest in peace
eternal clear sky crew
let the lost children become angels.