The woman who survived the plane crash. memory

In August 1981, the spouses Larisa and Vladimir Savitsky were returning home after honeymoon trip. Their wedding was still in the spring, but they decided to postpone the honeymoon to the summer - after all, Larisa was a student and could not interrupt her studies.
The newlyweds flew from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to their native Blagoveshchensk. They settled down in the tail section of the An-24RV aircraft and peacefully dozed off...

Suddenly Larisa woke up from a terrible blow. At an altitude of 5,200 meters, their plane collided with a Tu-16 bomber! At passenger liner tore off the wings and cut off the upper part of the fuselage ...
“Screams were heard everywhere. I turned to my husband and saw that he was already dead - he was killed by shrapnel. I said goodbye to Volodya and began to wait for death, ”recalls Larisa about those events.
“While we were falling, frames from the American film “Miracles Still Happen” suddenly flashed before my eyes, which we recently watched with Volodya in the cinema. There, the girl also got into a plane crash and, shrinking into her chair, fell over the jungle. Following her example, I moved to a chair near the porthole to see how much was left to the ground, and grabbed it with a death grip.
A few hours after the fall, Larisa came to her senses. She was the only survivor of nearly forty passengers.

“When I opened my eyes, I saw my husband right in front of me a few meters away. It seemed that he wanted to see me and thus said goodbye to me, ”says Larisa about past events.
As a result of the fall, the woman received numerous injuries. Her spine, arm and several ribs were broken, her teeth were knocked out, and she also had a serious concussion. But because of the shock, Larisa did not feel pain. She built herself a small shelter, warmed herself with seat covers and covered herself with a piece of polyethylene from rain and mosquitoes.
The Woman spent three long days in the taiga before she was discovered by a ground search party. Prior to that, she was seen several times by helicopter pilots, but they mistook her for the cook of a geological expedition. No one could have thought that after such an accident there could be survivors.

The Soviet government classified the fact of the crash. Not a single line was written about the incident in any newspaper. And near the ward, where for three months Larisa came to her senses, two people in civilian clothes were constantly on duty, not letting any of her friends into her. However, that was a common practice: aircraft in the USSR of those years fell several pieces a year, and any information about disasters in the Union was always hidden.
“I learned from my parents that they had already dug a grave for me. The relatives of all passengers on that flight were notified of their deaths according to the list. In addition, my parents advised me not to tell anyone about what happened. The relevant authorities worked with them and insistently asked to be silent, ”said Larisa.

As a survivor of a fall from a height of 5200m,
- and as a recipient of the minimum amount of compensation for damage in a plane crash - 75 rubles
According to the standards of the State Insurance in the USSR, 300 rubles were supposed to be. compensation for damages for the dead and a quarter of it - 75 rubles. for survivors.
After the plane crash, Larisa was paralyzed, but she still managed to get out, although she was forced to do odd jobs and even starved.
In 1986, Larisa gave birth to a son, Gosha, and the two of them existed for a long time on child care allowance.
In the 2000s, Larisa Savitskaya gave interviews, albeit reluctantly. Difficult in her life, perhaps, were not those days in the taiga that she spent next to the remains of the plane and the body of her husband, but all subsequent years. But, extraordinary luck, combined with no less unusual composure, rescued her here too.
And once, in an interview, Larisa Savitskaya said: “If they left me here, then I have to do something else ...”.

“Just think,” says Vesna Vulovich from Serbia. “I fell from a height of 10 kilometers, survived and even continued to fly after that.”

On January 26, 1972, 22-year-old Yugoslav Airlines stewardess Vesna Vulovich was in a good mood, although she was mistakenly assigned to the Stockholm-Copenhagen-Zagreb-Belgrade flight. Smiling passengers - this was the last thing she remembered before a bomb exploded in a plane flying over what was then Czechoslovakia at an altitude of 10 thousand 160 meters. The plane was instantly blown to pieces - on one of them they found a broken, but alive Spring. The only one who did not die in this attack.

- A loud explosion, very bright light and unbearable cold - that's all I remember about that disaster, - Vesna Vulovich said in an interview with our publication. – I was stumbled upon by a local resident, the German Bruno, who during World War II served in the Wehrmacht (the armed forces of Nazi Germany. – Auth.). I felt for a pulse, realized that my spine was broken, so I did not move my body and immediately called for help.

In addition to three vertebrae, the flight attendant broke her arms, legs and skull in several places. She lost her memory every day - in the morning she forgot about what happened to her from the moment she got on board (the memory was restored after a few months, and the woman remembered the explosion only after 25 years). Doctors assured: Spring will never be able to walk. She was able to - however, she studied this for 4.5 years.

“I don't know how I survived,” Vulovich says. – After all, at such a height a person dies almost instantly

The heart is torn from lack of air. Doctors suggest that the reason for the luck may be my low blood pressure. But why I didn’t break soft-boiled - no one can understand this at all. No other way than God saved me.

Having finally left the hospitals, where she spent more than one year, Vesna went to work - to be reinstated as a flight attendant. Colleagues looked at her as if she was crazy: to survive this and fearlessly board the plane again? They categorically refused to take her on a flight, offering to quit and forget about aviation forever.

But Vulovich insisted on her own: nothing particularly terrible happened, she loves flying and does not intend to change him.

- But the officials did not heed my arguments - they gave me an office job in the airline, - Vesna complains. - It's a pity. I so wanted to go back to heaven! So since then I have only flown as a passenger.

Vesna Vulovich is also a Guinness World Record holder. She holds the world altitude record for freefall survivors without a parachute. And in the first place in the Russian Guinness Book of Records - Larisa Savitskaya. In 1981, the plane in which she was returning from her honeymoon collided in the air with a military bomber. Within 8 minutes, a fragment of the plane on which Larisa was sitting fell from a height of 5200 meters. The girl landed on a birch grove. She received several fractures, lost almost all her teeth, but was able to build herself a temporary shelter, in which she waited for help for two days. Savitskaya, by the way, is twice a record holder: as a survivor after a fall from the maximum height and as having received the minimum amount of compensation for physical damage - 75 rubles.

Undoubtedly, the fastest and most comfortable mode of transport of our time is the plane. Moreover, quite often it is on an airliner that passengers can get to the most remote place on the planet, and the journey will take very little time. However, many refuse this option, as they consider aircraft crashes to be a frequent occurrence. And this is not at all surprising, because if you analyze numerous feature films about air crashes, you can really come to the conclusion that planes crash almost every day and there is practically no chance for passengers to survive. In fact, this, of course, is not so, but this fact is confirmed by the numerous survivors of the plane crash. Real stories about the lucky ones who managed to escape from plane crashes, we will give in this article as a convincing example.

Of course, the plane has been and will be the most convenient and safe view transport, but even such a powerful and reliable machine should primarily be considered as a technique. And as you know, problems can happen with any machine, which leads to emergencies. According to analytical studies, the main cause of disasters, however sad it is to admit, is the human factor. After all, technology cannot spoil and disable itself on its own, this happens due to carelessness and negligence of a person. If low-quality components were used when assembling the machine, this process was not given due attention, and the daily technical inspection was carried out, as they say, in haste, then even the most reliable equipment can fail sooner or later.

Almost all the survivors of the plane crash indicate that the car in the sky simply starts to behave somehow incorrectly, and at that time alarm “lights” begin to flash on board, which further aggravates the already alarming situation. Experts say that any breakdown in the sky is a flaw and it is necessary for specialists to find it on the ground in order to prevent the occurrence emergency.

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 air crashes occur precisely because of this reason, that is, due to ordinary human negligence and inattention;
• mistakes made by pilots and maintenance personnel;
• adverse conditions that can change dramatically on the route of the airliner.

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 become the cause of an emergency, the survivors of the plane crash in almost every accident still remain. What helped them to stay alive, what measures they took to save their lives, we will analyze further and more carefully.

Names and stories of people who managed to survive after a plane crash

Rescuers carry survivors from the crash site of a plane that crashed near Jose Maria Cordova Airport in Colombia

It may seem to many that those who managed to survive a plane crash were just lucky, that is, they are said to have been born under a lucky star. In fact, this is not entirely true, because experts, after analyzing 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 set of circumstances, but also thanks to the knowledge and rules that they took in a timely manner in extreme situation.

This refers 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 the survivors, the names of airliner crew members are not so often found, perhaps this is due to the fact that in such difficult situation the airship crew does not care about their own safety, but gives all their strength to save passengers.

And V. Vulovich, nevertheless, miraculously managed to escape in a terrible plane crash, in which a passenger plane exploded in the sky due to a bomb on board, which was planted by terrorists. This terrible tragedy happened in 1972, during a flight from Copenhagen to Zagreb, which was operated by a Yugoslav air carrier. Despite a terrible explosion in the sky, the stewardess survived after the plane crashed. According to experts, such an incredible rescue can be explained by the fact that the flight attendant at the time of the explosion was in the very safe place- in the middle of the cabin and at a decent distance from the bomb. By a lucky chance, the surviving stewardess, when the plane crashed, was in a compartment separated from the hull, 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 a happy story about a miraculously saved Yugoslav flight attendant. If not for the help of a local resident, who, upon seeing the girl, immediately released her from under the wreckage of the plane and took her to the nearest hospital, Vesna Vulovich could simply freeze in the cold forest. The surviving stewardess, 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 fight desperately for her life for almost 1.5 years. The girl was able to withstand serious trials and soon fully recovered both physically and mentally, and her really “fantastic” jump from a height of 10 thousand km without a parachute was listed in the Guinness Book. The legal certificate of the world-famous stewardess was presented by her idol - Paul McCartney, which led 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, even today it is actively discussed. Indeed, in this terrible tragedy that happened to McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82, which was operated by Northwest Airlines, only one passenger out of 154 people on board, a 4-year-old little girl from America, was able to survive.

Cecilia went on air travel with her parents. The malfunction that caused the plane crash showed itself on takeoff - the pilot could not turn the steering wheel correctly, as a result of which the left wing plane caught on the mast for lighting, a terrible flame instantly engulfed the wing. Air transport changed the flight path, which led to the fall and explosion of the aircraft. The airliner crashed highway, a terrible explosion followed immediately. The wreckage of the car and the mutilated bodies of those on board were found by experts 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 into real amazement. The first to rush to the child's voice was fireman D. Tied. Seeing a small hand that was reaching out from the wreckage, the fireman carefully took out the victim and carefully handed her over to the hands of the doctors.

Of course, during the crash, the girl received numerous injuries to both her head and limbs, in addition to this, her body was badly burned. But despite everything, it was this little traveler who managed to survive the terrible tragedy. For a full recovery, the girl had to undergo several operations, including 4 skin transplants. Her aunt and uncle took 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 to the frequently asked question whether you are not afraid of air travel, she jokingly answers - “No, I’m not afraid, because a shell certainly doesn’t hit the same place twice.”

Russian accident

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

1. For survival during a fall without a parachute from a height of more than 5 thousand km.
2. For receiving the most minimal compensation, in the amount of 75 rubles, which is paid by the state as damages 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 blow and simply broke into pieces high in the sky. At the time of the collision, the happy passenger was resting in her seat, fastened with a seat belt. The strongest burn caused by fire, which was rapidly gaining strength due to depressurization, brought her out of her state of sleep.

Larisa was familiar with the rules of a safe flight, so she did not unfasten her seat belts and pressed herself into her chair as much as possible. As the girl later explains, the plot of the film from the Italian directors “Miracles still occur” helped her to survive, in which the main character was able to survive thanks to the fastened belt and the right position of the body. The part of the plane, in which the girl was, fell on the branches of trees, which largely 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. Rescue teams took 48 hours to find the lucky passenger, whose name has already been added to the list of the 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 charred bodies and aircraft wreckage around. The girl had serious head and back injuries, for a full recovery she needed to undergo several operations, with which Larisa was able to cope 100%.

Erica Delgado's Story

Erica Delgado

Many worried about the recovery of 9-year-old, one surviving passenger of the McDonnell Douglas DC-9-14, Erica Delgado. The air transport carried 47 passengers on its board to Bogotá from Cartagena. Only Erica managed to escape death. The cause of the crash was a breakdown of the altimeter, as a result of which the plane could not land safely and simply crashed in a swampy area.

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

More stories from Russia

When crashed Russian aircraft 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 the crash of the air transport, rescuers found two survivors - athlete A. Galimov and A. Sizov - the flight engineer of the crashed aircraft. Unfortunately, the efforts of the doctors did not help save the hockey player's life, as he received serious burns to his body that were incompatible with life. The flight engineer was much more fortunate, despite numerous fractures and bruises, Alexander was able to fully restore 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 should be aware of the rules for a safe flight, use this knowledge in an emergency, remain calm even in a seemingly hopeless situation, strictly follow the instructions from the crew members. Be sure to soberly assess the current situation and slowly make the right decision.

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On December 23, 2016, at the age of 66, the legendary stewardess Vesna Vulovich died, who in 1972 was present at the explosion in the cabin of the aircraft, and then fell along with the debris from a height of 10 km.

She received numerous fractures and injuries, fell into a coma for several days, but then recovered, entered the Guinness Book of Records and became a world celebrity.

On January 26, 1972, 22-year-old Vesna Vulovich flew from Stockholm to Belgrade on a Yugoslav Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32. When the plane flew over the German Hersdorf, he disappeared from the radar, and 46 minutes after takeoff exploded in the air. It is assumed that the bomb was carried on board by Croatian nationalists - the Ustashe. Debris fell near the village of Serbska Kamenice in Czechoslovakia.

Of the 28 people on board, only Vulovich survived. As a result of the fall, she received fractures of the base of the skull, three vertebrae, both legs and the pelvis, spent several days in a coma, but then woke up and first of all asked for a cigarette. Interestingly, by mistake of the airline, the girl got on the flight instead of another stewardess with the same name (Vesny Nikolic). By the time of the disaster, the flight attendant had not yet completed her training and was in the crew as a trainee.

What saved Vulovich, who spent three minutes in free fall? Perhaps the fact that she was squeezed in the tail of the plane, between the corpses and pieces of luggage. In addition, pine branches and a thick layer of snow softened the blow.

Her cries in the forest were heard by the forester Bruno Henke, who during the Second World War was a doctor in the German army. He helped the girl hold out until the arrival of medical help.

Vulovich spent 10 months with paralysis of her lower body (from the waist to her legs). After that, she was treated for another six months, but then recovered and even asked to fly again on flights with JAT. She was turned down and instead given a job at the airline's office.

Such fearlessness is explained by the fact that Vesna did not remember either the accident or her salvation. In a 2008 interview, she admitted that she only remembers how she greeted passengers after taking off from Copenhagen, and then how she woke up in the hospital and saw her mother.

Vulovich became a national heroine: she was given a reception by Marshal Tito, which was then considered a great honor for a citizen of Yugoslavia. Songs were dedicated to the woman and she was invited to the most popular television shows. It became popular to name girls after a flight attendant who survived, as if it brought them good luck.

Vesna Vulovich used her fame for political purposes: she protested against the power of Slobodan Milosevic, and later campaigned for one of the parties in the elections.

The peak of international fame Vulovich came in 1985, when she was invited to London on behalf of the Guinness Book of Records. There, Vulović received an award for surviving a maximum height fall without a parachute. The prize was presented to the woman by musician Paul McCartney, the idol of her youth.
Vesna said that she was just as much a “survivor” as the other inhabitants of Serbia: “We Serbs are truly survivors. We have lived through communism, Tito, war, poverty, NATO bombings, sanctions and Milosevic. We just want a normal life."

On December 23, Vesna Vulović was found dead at her home in Belgrade after the police broke into the woman's apartment at the request of her friends, who were alarmed that she was not answering her calls. The cause of death is unknown, but, according to Vulovich's friends, her health has recently deteriorated.

Can you survive in a plane crash? These questions are asked by engineers, rescuers, even employees of insurance companies. But the most ordinary people who sometimes have to become passengers on airplanes often think about this. Larisa Savitskaya, a survivor of a plane crash, quite possibly also asked herself a similar question. But she could hardly have known that fate would give her the opportunity to answer him with her own example.

Dry words of information

This incredible story happened on August 24, 1981. On board an ordinary AN-24 flying to Blagoveshchensk from Komsomolsk-on-Amur, there were a crew and passengers - a total of 38 people. In the passenger compartment, closer to the tail section, a young married couple was sitting: Larisa and Vladimir. Their wedding took place just a few months earlier. At an altitude of just over 5200 meters, the liner collided with a military aircraft.

We will not discuss now how and through whose fault the tragedy occurred - this is a separate topic for a big conversation. It is important for us that as a result of the impact, the passenger ship instantly lost wings, fuel tanks and part of the fuselage. The remaining huge fragment flew to the ground, while large pieces fell off it several times.

No one survives such terrible catastrophes. The wreckage of the plane fell into the forest and scattered hundreds of meters. Rescuers did not even immediately appear at the crash site, as they believed that there was no chance of seeing the living. When they nevertheless arrived at the place, an ominous picture appeared before their eyes: fragments of corpses hanging on the branches of trees, blood, bodies mixed with metal and seats ... Two days have passed since the crash.

And suddenly, among the broken birches, people saw a living woman! Wounded, covered in dirt and blood, but alive and even walking on her own! It was Lyudmila Savitskaya.

Miracles still happen

Subsequently, the woman spoke more than once and in detail about her incredible salvation. During the impact, she was thrown into the aisle (the girl was sleeping). Instantly my face burned with heat and frost: it was -30º overboard, and something was burning nearby.

Looking around, Larisa realized that she was in one of the pieces of the fuselage. Nearby, strapped into a chair, sat a bloodied husband, showing no signs of life. A fragment of the plane with Larisa inside was rapidly flying to the ground.

And at that moment, for some reason, the girl remembered footage from a movie that she had watched recently. The film was called "Miracles Still Happen", it told about a flight attendant who survived a plane crash, thanks to the correct position in the chair.

Not realizing a full report, Larisa crawled to the chair, climbed into it, fastened her seat belt and curled up into a ball. Just like the heroine of the movie did.

Later, experts determined that the fragment of the fuselage with Larisa "on board" descended to the ground for about 8 minutes. Apparently, the fact that he probably planned a little, like a large sheet of iron, also played a certain role here. In addition, the “landing” fell on a young birch undergrowth.

Waking up, Larisa saw that she was still sitting in a chair, opposite her dead husband. She did not feel pain at all, although it later turned out that most of her teeth were knocked out, two ribs were broken, one arm was broken, there was a serious bruise of the spine and a severe concussion. Yes, and the rescuers had to wait a very long time: it seemed to her an eternity.

Why did she survive

Specialists of different profiles studied the phenomenal case in detail. They came to the conclusion that a number of circumstances helped Larisa to stay alive.

1. The fuselage, as already mentioned, could not accelerate to high speed due to the glide effect.
2. The birch trees worked like a soft shock absorber.
3. The girl did not panic, but did everything perfectly right, sitting compactly in an easy chair. In this, frames from the film, which she, in fact, recreated in reality, played a huge role.
4. All the time while Savitskaya was waiting for rescuers, it was raining lightly. It provided the girl's body with the necessary moisture.

Subsequently, the name of Svetlana Savitskaya was included in the Russian version of the Guinness Book of Records, and in two categories at once: as a person who survived after a free fall from a height of over 5 km, and as a person who received the minimum compensation after a plane crash - only 75 rubles!

After that terrible story, Larisa Vladimirovna Savitskaya lived for many more years, gave birth to a son and died in 2013. Her example shows that miracles do happen, but they always accompany people who do not panic and fight to the last for their survival.

And if we talk about the world "achievement" in this nomination, then the undisputed leader here is Vesna Vulovich, a flight attendant from Yugoslavia. The girl managed to stay alive after falling from a height of 10 km! But her injuries turned out to be much more serious than Larisa's injuries.