On January 26, 1972, a Yugoslav passenger plane flying over Czechoslovakia at an altitude of about 10 thousand meters exploded and crashed to the ground. 27 of the 28 passengers and crew on board were killed.
Only a stewardess named Vesna Vulovich survived. She is listed in the Guinness Book as a survivor after falling from the highest height without a parachute. How this happened, no one can still explain. Perhaps the plane was deformed in such a "successful" way and Vulovich was in such a suitable place where the impact was not felt too much. Perhaps the trolley that pinned her down acted as a kind of seat belt.
Some even believe that at the time of the explosion, the plane was much lower than these 10 thousand meters. According to recent research, the plane could have been accidentally shot down by the Czechoslovak Air Force when it was much lower.
Be that as it may, and Vulovich - the only one who was then lucky enough to stay alive.
From 1970 to the present day, only 14 people were “the only survivors” of a passenger plane crash. About a third of them are children or crew members. In 2003, when a Sudan Airlines plane crashed, only a three-year-old boy managed to escape immediately after takeoff. The remaining 117 passengers and crew members were killed.
In 1992, a Vietnamese plane crashed before reaching its destination less than 20 kilometers. It took rescuers eight days to find the only survivor, Annette Herfkens. She was not only the only survivor of this crash, but also the only one who was able to hold out in the mountains long enough to be rescued.
When Cecilia Crocker was only four years old, she and her parents boarded a plane in Detroit. During takeoff, the wing of the plane caught on a lighting pole, it spun and crashed into the building where the car rental office was located. Then the plane burst into flames and shattered. Everyone died except Cecilia, although she did not know about it until high school.
These stories are, of course, terrible. However … Every day, two million passengers fly. This is about 30 thousand flights. The risk of dying in a plane crash within a year is about 1 in 11 million. And the chance that you will be the only survivor is even less.
Promotional video:
Perhaps it is this incredibility that prevents these people from coming to terms with their experiences.
In the 1960s, psychologists began to talk about such a phenomenon as “survivor's guilt” - the experience of a person who survived while others died in a similar situation.
More than 70 percent of soldiers who committed suicide at one time admitted that they were tormented by a similar feeling.
In 1987, a British ferry left Belgium and capsized. This disaster killed 193 people. Subsequently, psychologist Stephen Joseph found that many survivors blamed themselves for staying alive.
But the pain of these tragedies was shared by many people. What to say about those who were left alone with their experiences - wine becomes an unbearable burden for them.
“I cannot get rid of these thoughts. Why, why me? - Juliana Korski shared her experiences, who, as an 18-year-old girl, was the only survivor of 93 passengers and crew members, during a plane crash heading for the Peruvian city of Pucallpa.
"This feeling of guilt is very acute and excruciating." The lone survivors are not only forced to live with their guilt - they are forever alone with this feeling.