Vesna Vulović (1950–2016) was a Serbian flight attendant who survived the highest fall without a parachute: 10.16 kilometers (6.31 miles). She was the sole survivor after an explosion tore through the baggage compartment of JAT Flight 367 on January 26, 1972, causing it to crash near Srbská Kamenice, Czechoslovakia (now part of the Czech Republic). Air safety investigators attributed the explosion to a briefcase bomb. The Yugoslav authorities suspected that émigré Croatian nationalists were to blame, but no one was ever arrested.
 |
| Serbian stewardess Vesna Vulovic. |
The secondary crew of JAT Flight 367, flying from Stockholm to Belgrade with stopovers in Copenhagen and Zagreb, arrived in Denmark on the morning of January 25, 1972. According to Vulović, she was not scheduled to be on Flight 367, and JAT had confused her for another flight attendant also named Vesna. Nevertheless, Vulović said that she was excited to travel to Denmark because it was her first time visiting the country. The crew had the entire afternoon and the following morning to themselves. Vulović wished to go sightseeing but her colleagues insisted that they go shopping.
“Everybody wanted to buy something for his or her family,” she recalled. “So I had to go shopping with them. They seemed to know that they would die. They didn’t talk about it, but I saw … I felt for them. And the captain was locked in his room for 24 hours. He didn’t want to go out at all. In the morning, during breakfast, the co-pilot was talking about his son and daughter as if nobody else had a son or daughter.”
 |
| Vulović in the early 1970s. |
Flight 367 departed from Stockholm Arlanda Airport at 1:30 p.m. on January 26. The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, landed at Copenhagen Airport at 2:30 p.m., whereupon Vulović and her colleagues boarded the plane. “As it was late, we were in the terminal and saw it park,” Vulović said. “I saw all the passengers and crew deplane. One man seemed terribly annoyed. It was not only me that noticed him either. Other crew members saw him, as did the station manager in Copenhagen. I think it was the man who put the bomb in the baggage. I think he had checked in a bag in Stockholm, got off in Copenhagen and never re-boarded the flight.”
Flight 367 departed from Copenhagen Airport at 3:15 p.m. At 4:01 p.m., an explosion tore through the DC-9’s baggage compartment. The explosion caused the aircraft to break apart over the then-Czechoslovak village of Srbská Kamenice. Vulović was the only survivor of the 28 passengers and crew. She was discovered by villager Bruno Honke, who heard her screaming amid the wreckage. Her turquoise uniform was covered in blood and her stiletto heels had been torn off by the force of the impact. Honke had been a medic during the Second World War and was able to keep Vulović alive until rescuers arrived.
 |
| An incomplete recovery, Vesna Vulovic in the hospital. |
 |
| Vulović suffered a fractured skull, three vertebrae, several ribs, her pelvis and both legs. |
Air safety investigators attributed Vulović’s survival to her being trapped by a food trolley in the DC-9’s fuselage as it broke away from the rest of the aircraft and plummeted towards the ground. When the cabin depressurized, the passengers and other flight crew were blown out of the aircraft and fell to their deaths. Investigators believed that the fuselage, with Vulović pinned inside, landed at an angle in a heavily wooded and snow-covered mountainside, which cushioned the impact. Vulović’s physicians concluded that her history of low blood pressure caused her to pass out quickly after the cabin depressurized and kept her heart from bursting on impact. Vulović said that she was aware of her low blood pressure before applying to become a flight attendant and knew that it would result in her failing her medical examination, but she drank an excessive amount of coffee beforehand and was accepted.
Leave a Reply