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Unbelievable Case Of Of Girl Sucked Out Of Plane Strapped To Chair Who Survived 10,000-Foot Fall

Juliane Keopcke on the plane with her mom on Christmas Eve in 1971, when it crashed and made Juliane fall more than 10,000 feet to the ground. The 17-year-old teenager and her mom boarded the plane from Lima, Peru, to Pucallpa in the Amazonian rainforest, hours after her high school graduation.
The flight had previously been delayed for several hours, making passengers eager to come home for the holiday celebration. Extreme turbulence occurred as a result of a thunderstorm raging outside the plane’s windows, while 91 people onboard panicked as Christmas gifts kept falling from the overhead lockers and rolled around the cabin. Mariato, Juliane’s mother, turned to her and said, “I don’t like this”, minutes before lightning struck the plane, setting it on fire.

Source: The Sun

Juliane Koepcke, pictured after returning to her home country Germany following the plane crash

Juliane told the press in 2012, “My mother and I held hands but we were unable to speak. Other passengers began to cry and weep and scream. After about 10 minutes, I saw a very bright light on the outer engine on the left. My mother said very calmly: ‘That is the end, it’s all over’. Those were the last words I ever heard from her."
As the ground loomed closer, people screamed, while the plane went into a nose-dive, falling straight down into the jungle below. Passengers were sucked out of their seats and into the sky moments before the plane was completely taken apart, nearly 2 miles in the air, while Juliane started to free fall.

Source: The Sun

Juliane and her mother were flying in a Lockheed Electra - similar to this one

She revealed in 2010, “I heard the incredibly loud motor and people screaming and then the plane fell extremely steeply. And then it was calm - incredibly calm compared with the noise before that. I could only hear the wind in my ears. I was still attached to my seat. My mother and the man sitting by the aisle had both been propelled out of their seats. I was freefalling, that’s what I registered for sure. I was in a tailspin.”
She finally landed on the jungle floor, possibly slowed down by the row of seats she was confined to. The girl blacked out upon landing, and only woke up in the next morning. She said that she had a severe concussion that she couldn’t sit up and her eyes were swollen. She also had a deep cut on her left calf, while her right collarbone was broken. She even felt that the bone was overlapping.

Source: The Sun

Juliane returned to the crash site when she was an adult

“I found out later that the crash and the difference in pressure inside and outside of the plane made the capillaries in my eyes pop. That's why the whites of my eyes were blood red. I probably looked like a zombie,” Juliane added, while also having a deep cut on her arm, a partially fractured shin, a strained vertebrae and a torn anterior cruciate ligament.
The 17-year-old teenager suffered from shock and injuries for nearly one and a half day before regaining her strength to get up and walk around. “I didn’t really think about myself. I was more concerned about where my mother was," she said. Luckily, Juliane had learnt precious survival skills during her time at a research outpost in the rainforest, where her parents, both German zoologists, worked.

Source: The Sun

German Juliane lived with her parents in Peru where they both worked as zoologists

Following what she learned from her father, she was able to discover a stream. The girl stayed close to the water to keep away from wild animals, such as snakes, that hide in dry leaves. On the 4th day, Juliane discovered 3 bodies confined to a row of plane seats which had crashed head first into the ground after having turned a corner in the creek.
Feared that her mother’s body might have been among that three, Juliane came closer to inspect, only to find that it was a different woman, together with two other men died in the collision. Not long after, Juliane realized that there was an open wound in her arm in which flies had laid eggs that had hatched into maggots and eaten a hole into her arm.

Source: The Sun

Juliane Koepcke, right, in 1972, about four months after the crash that killed everyone else on board, including her mother

Luckily, on the 10th day, she discovered a boat with a barrel of diesel that she used to disinfect the wound and kill the maggots. The same day she discovered a small hut where she could be protected from the harsh rain and blistering heat. While Juliane was resting, she heard some voices, which she later described as “it was like hearing angels’ voices”.
"When they saw me, they were pretty freaked out. My eyes were still bloodshot. Even though ten days had passed, they were bright red. I must have looked terrible. I spoke perfect Spanish, so I told them what had happened and who I was. They had heard about the crash on the radio. They gave me food and took care of my wounds, and we spent the night there in the hut."

Source: The Sun

Juliane in 2013

Ultimately, Juliane was moved to a hospital, where she was met by her father, after a week and a half in the jungle. She shared that her father could barely talk, while initially they just embraced each other. Her father would frantically look for news of his wife for the next couple of days, and on January 12 her body was discovered.
Afterwards, Juliane discovered that her mother somehow managed to survive after the accident. However, she was badly injured to move, only to pass away in the next few days. “I dread to think what her last days were like,” said Juliane, who was the sole survivor in the plane accident killing the other 85 passengers and 6 members of the crew.
Juliane also shared that she had nightmares for years after the accident, and the grief about her mother’s death, together with that of other people just keep bouncing back. “The thought - why was I the only survivor?  It haunts me. It always will,” said Juliane.
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