Falling from a height of 33,000 feet after an aeroplane bombing and still surviving the crash without using a parachute might sound like the plot of an action film. But for Vesna Vulovic, this was a reality. Vesna was a flight attendant on board a Jat Airlines flight on January 26, 1972, when a suspected briefcase bomb brought down the plane over the mountains of Czechoslovakia, now called the Czech Republic. The bombing is believed to have been done by Croatian nationalists. All passengers and four crew members died in the bombing and the crash, except Vesna who miraculously survived. This made her the first and the only person to survive a 33,000-foot fall without a parachute.
The investigation found that during the bomb explosion, Vesna was trapped in a food cart at the plane’s tail section. When the flight crashed, its tail section landed on the snow which cushioned the impact. Additionally, Vesna’s doctors mentioned that she had very low blood pressure, which likely made her lose consciousness at the onset of the blast and prevented a heart attack. In a 2017 interview with Aviation Security Magazine, Vesna said, “I should never have been an air hostess in fact. I had a lot of coffee to drink before my interview so that when I had my medical exam I passed.”
Vesna was discovered by villager Bruno Honke, who heard her screaming amid the wreckage. Honke was trained as a medic during the Second World War and he was able to keep Vesna alive until rescuers arrived.
The flight attendant suffered from a fractured skull, two crushed vertebrae, a broken pelvis, multiple broken ribs and fractures in both legs. She was temporarily paralysed from the waist down by the fall but soon made a recovery. She always maintained her last memory of the flight was of greeting passengers and the next thing she remembered was waking up in the hospital.
Vesna’s survival story made her a national hero and bought global fame. After her full recovery, she wanted to return to work and joined a desk role at Vat Airlines. She was fired in the 1990s for taking part in anti-government protests during the breakup of Yugoslavia. She stayed active in politics till her old age. In a 2008 interview with the New York Times, she said, “I am like a cat … I have had nine lives. But if nationalist forces in this country prevail, my heart will burst.” Vesna died in 2016, at the age of 66 in her home city, Serbian capital, Belgrade.
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