She came across three passengers still strapped to their seats who had landed head-first into the ground. Watch Koepcke tell her dramatic survivor's story ». [7][unreliable source? The plane was gone. Koepcke's memoir Als ich vom Himmel fiel was published by the German publisher Piper Malik on March 10, 2011. My mother was very nervous. The sole survivor was 17-year-old Juliane … As the voices grew nearer she saw three lumbermen come out of the forest. ), The crash also features in the final season 1 episode of the Discovery Channel documentary Aircrash Confidential. LANSA Flight 508 was a Lockheed L-188A Electra turboprop, registered OB-R-941, operated as a scheduled domestic passenger flight by Lineas Aéreas Nacionales Sociedad Anonima (LANSA), that crashed in a thunderstorm en route from Lima to Pucallpa, Peru, on December 24, 1971, killing 91 people–all six of its crew and 85 of its 86 passengers. Plainly dressed and wearing prescription glasses, Koepcke sits behind her desk at the Zoological Center in Munich, Germany, where she's a librarian. The aircraft crashed in flames into mountainous terrain. Would you like Wikipedia to always look as professional and up-to-date? I still wonder how so many maggots could have fitted into that little hole, it was no bigger than a one euro coin.". Having learned survival skills from her father, she decided to follow a river downstream. To install click the Add extension button. Koepcke's story was also told in 2000 in the documentary film Wings of Hope by director Werner Herzog;[9] he had narrowly missed Flight 508 himself. I couldn't touch the dead bodies. As the plane broke into pieces in midair, Koepcke was thrust out into the open air: "Suddenly there was this amazing silence. On the tenth day of her ordeal she finally came across a boat, which at first she thought was a mirage. The toe nails had nail polish on them and I knew it could not have been my mother because she never used nail polish.". LANSA Flight 508 was a Lockheed L-188A Electra turboprop, registered OB-R-941, operated as a scheduled domestic passenger flight by Lineas Aéreas Nacionales Sociedad Anonima (LANSA), that crashed in a thunderstorm en route from Lima to Pucallpa, Peru on December 24, 1971, killing 91 people–all 6 of its crew and 85 of its 86 passengers.

Apparently her mother had survived the fall as well and lived for several days; however she was prevented from moving as a result of her severe injuries. Fortunately she never encountered one. Over the next 19 hours, Koepcke found herself falling in and out of consciousness. Her ordeal was far from over. The aircraft was flying at about 21,000 ft (6,400 m) above Mean Sea Level when it encountered an area of thunderstorms and severe turbulence. A LANSA Lockheed L-188 Electra similar to the accident aircraft, ✪ Lightning Blew Up This Plane. I didn't want to take the boat because I didn't want to steal it. The next day a group of Peruvian lumberjacks found her and brought her to the next town. .

A bolt of lightning hit one of the aircraft’s fuel tanks and ripped off one of the wings.

"It was rotating much like the helicopter and that might have slowed the fall. Juliane Koepcke had no idea what was in store for her when boarded LANSA Flight 508 on Christmas Eve in 1971. And then it was calm-incredibly calm compared with the noise before that. Juliane Koepcke was a high school senior studying in Lima, intending to become a zoologist like her father, Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke. I was flying, spinning through the air and I could see the forest spinning beneath me.". Juliane continued through the rainforest, wading through jungle streams infested with crocodiles, piranhas and devil rays. [1] The sole survivor was 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke, who while strapped to her seat fell 2 miles (3 km) into the Amazon rainforest. ... Ninety-one other people aboard Flight 508 died.

Despite sustaining in the fall a broken collar bone, a deep gash to her right arm, an eye injury and concussion, she was able to trek through the dense Amazon jungle for 10 days and found shelter in a hut where she waited for the owners, local lumbermen, who subsequently took her by canoe back to civilization. At first the lumbermen were startled, thinking she was a water spirit. She stayed there, hoping to be rescued. [10] (The English edition When I Fell From the Sky, was published by Titletown Publishing in November 2011. "I was horrified -- I didn't want to touch them but I wanted to make sure that my mother wasn't one of them. Her collarbone was broken, her right eye swollen shut, she was suffering concussion and had large gashes on her arms and legs. It will enhance any encyclopedic page you visit with the magic of the WIKI 2 technology.

Yet this unassuming middle aged woman has one of the most exciting and unbelievable stories of tragedy and survival to tell. Koepcke stated the wing “definitely didn’t explode.” Rather, the plane was simply ripped apart in the air after the wing fell off. Also, the place I landed had very thick foliage and that might have lessened the impact.".

LANSA Flight 508 was a Lockheed L-188A Electra turboprop, registered OB-R-941, operated as a scheduled domestic passenger flight by Lineas Aéreas Nacionales Sociedad Anonima (LANSA), that crashed in a thunderstorm en route from Lima to Pucallpa, Peru on December 24, 1971, killing 91 people–all 6 of its crew and 85 of its 86 passengers. Nevertheless she continued to travel in the water as well as on the river banks, constantly being alert for a possible encounter with a snake. Considered the worst lightning strike in history, the crash ultimately led to the loss of every passenger on board - except Koepcke. I was free-falling, that's what I registered for sure. I was in a tailspin. "It was so strange," she says, smiling. However she described her ordeal to them and, having already heard about a plane crash in the area, the lumbermen believed her and fed her and cared for her wounds. The plane crashed in the Amazon rain-forest after flying through a … "Maybe it was the fact that I was still attached to a whole row of seats," she says. Juliane Koepcke was the sole survivor of the accident. After regaining her ability to stand and then her ability to walk, despite her injuries, she spent her first day in the jungle searching for her mother, Maria Koepcke. I couldn't smell anything and they hadn't been eaten yet or started to decay. The airline, LANSA, had already lost two aircraft in previous crashes. The reason for Koepcke surviving her free-fall is unknown; however some have speculated that the row of seats she was strapped to played a crucial role by rotating like a helicopter, slowing her descent. Koepcke reported hearing king vultures around her, recognizing them from her previous encounters with them while living at her parents' research station only a-year-and-a-half previously. I heard the incredibly loud motor and people screaming and then the plane fell extremely steeply. You could also do it yourself at any point in time. Both attempts failed. [6], Sole survivor Juliane Koepcke (see below) later discovered that OB-R-941 was "assembled entirely from spare parts of other planes". [6][7], Peruvian investigators cited "Intentional flight into hazardous weather conditions" as a cause of the crash. She decided to sleep in the hut, but after deciding the ground was too hard, she decided to go back down to the riverside and lie in the sand. On January 12, the search parties discovered Maria Koepcke's body. Her ensuing struggle to survive in the jungle was as dangerous, if not more so, than the destruction of the aircraft and her free-fall of approximately two kilometers. ), From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core, Lineas Aéreas Nacionales Sociedad Anonima, List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft, "Survivor still haunted by 1971 air crash", "Accident Database: Accident Synopsis 12241971®=OB-R-941", "A 17 YEAR OLD GIRL SURVIVED A 2 MILE FALL WITHOUT A PARACHUTE, THEN TREKKED ALONE 10 DAYS THROUGH THE PERUVIAN RAINFOREST", "Juliane Koepcke - Als ich vom Himmel fiel", Photo of Accident Aircraft on Aviation Safety Site, Tournavista, Peru Record on Falling Rain Site, BBC News - Juliane Koepcke: How I survived a plane crash, https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=LANSA_Flight_508&oldid=715007669, Articles lacking reliable references from December 2015, Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error, Airliner accidents and incidents caused by lightning strikes, Accidents and incidents involving the Lockheed L-188 Electra, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, About Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core. Here’s How 1 Survived the Fall, ✪ A Girl Survived 10,000 Feet Free Fall And 11 Days in the Jungle, ✪ Jungle air crash |Survivor of Lansa air line flight 508||HD||.

It was later discovered that as many as 14 other passengers, including Koepcke's mother, also survived the initial fall from the disintegrated plane but were unable to seek help and died while awaiting rescue.

The only food she had was some candy she had found at the crash site and her wounds were quickly infested with parasites. Fortunately, she failed to catch any and gave up. I could tell it was a woman because she had polished toenails and the others must have been two men, judging by their pants and shoes. [11] Koepcke's memoir Als ich vom Himmel fiel was published by the German publisher Piper Malik on March 10, 2011. In December 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke and her mother were traveling to see her father on LANSA Flight 508 when the plane was felled by lightning and broke apart. Later, after I was rescued it was treated and more than 50 maggots were found inside. ", At about 12:36 p.m. local time, a lightning strike ignited the fuel tank in the right wing, which quickly led to structural failure of the aircraft and an extremely steep fall. The cushion of her seat may have also played a small role. "We knew the airline had a bad reputation," Koepcke told CNN, "but we desperately wanted to be with my father for Christmas, so we figured it would be alright.". "It just horrifies me. She fell more than three kilometers (two miles) into the jungle canopy but miraculously survived with only minor injuries. I could only hear the wind in my ears. The flight took about fifteen minutes and a day after arriving at the hospital, Koepcke saw her father again. Lineas Aéreas Nacionales Sociedad Anonima, Coronel FAP Francisco Secada Vignetta International Airport, List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft, "Worst lightning strike disaster – death toll", "Survivor still haunted by 1971 air crash", "Accident Database: Accident Synopsis 12241971®=OB-R-941", "Juliane Koepcke - Als ich vom Himmel fiel", Photo of Accident Aircraft on Aviation Safety Site, Tournavista, Peru Record on Falling Rain Site, BBC News - Juliane Koepcke: How I survived a plane crash, May 1998 Occidental Petroleum Boeing 737 crash, April 2013 Helicópteros del Pacífico Mil Mi-8 crash.