What are the odds of surviving a fall from the edge of the stratosphere? For Vesna Vulovic, a Serbian air stewardess, those odds turned out to be in her favor. On January 26, 1972, the 22-year-old flight attendant was working aboard JAT Flight 367, operated by JAT Yugoslav Airlines, when a bomb detonated while the aircraft was flying over Czechoslovakia. The explosion tore the plane apart mid-air at an altitude of 10,160 meters (33,330 feet), and Vulovic was ejected from the wreckage, plummeting to the earth far below without a parachute.
Remarkably, Vesna Vulovic lived to tell the tale. The origin of the bomb was never identified, but what we do know is that she endured devastating injuries yet managed to make a full recovery — eventually regaining the ability to walk. Perhaps most astonishing of all, once she had recuperated, Vulovic returned to her career as a flight attendant. Her extraordinary survival has been officially recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest fall without a parachute ever survived.
Fun Facts:
- A typical commercial airliner cruises at less than a third of the altitude from which Vesna Vulovic fell, making her survival all the more staggering.
- Vesna Vulovic landed in a snowy field in the Czech Republic, where rescuers discovered her alive but suffering from multiple serious injuries, among them fractures to her skull, pelvis, and spine.
- Following the fall, Vesna Vulovic remained in a coma for 27 days and then faced months of recovery in the hospital.
- Even after enduring such catastrophic injuries, Vesna Vulovic regained the ability to walk and eventually went back to work for Yugoslav Airlines.
- Vesna Vulovic's incredible story of survival is frequently mentioned alongside that of Juliane Koepcke, who in 1971 survived a 10,000 feet fall after a plane crash in the Peruvian rainforest.