The Destination franchise has managed to cheat death many times. Originally conceived as an episode of The X-Files in 1995, the script was transformed into a full-length feature film five years later. In each film, Death itself hunts down victims who have eluded their perceived fate.
1. A woman (pictured below) cheated death during a fire in a Brazilian nightclub, which killed 238 people, but a week later she died in a car accident
A woman who escaped death thanks to a decision taken at the last minute not to go to the club that night, and contrary to plans to stay at home, died in an accident a week later.
In January 2013, 21-year-old Jessica de Lima Rohl helped organize a college student party at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, southern Brazil, and sold tickets to the event. But when she was ready to leave the house to have some fun too, her boyfriend called her and asked her not to go.
Despite the fact that most of her friends went to the party, Jessica complied with the request of 20-year-old Adriano Stefanel, who lived in another city, and stayed at home. A few hours later, a fire broke out in the club - as a result of the launch of fireworks on the stage, construction foam on the roof of the club caught fire. Many suffocated from the toxic smoke, while others died during the stampede at the door trying to escape the fire. It was the worst nightclub fire in ten years.
Just five days later, the girl went to another city, where her boyfriend worked at that time, they planned to return together in a couple of days. But the couple managed to drive only a few kilometers when their Volkswagen collided head-on with a truck.
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2. A girl who survived the Asiana Airlines plane crash was killed by a fire engine
When the wreckage of Asiana Flight 214 burned, Ye Meng Yuan was lying just ten meters from the crash site, buried under foam sprayed by rescuers to extinguish the flames. No one can say for sure how the 16-year-old Chinese student ended up there, but one thing is undeniable: she somehow survived the July 6, 2013 plane crash at San Francisco International Airport.
But at a critical moment, including when the flames were devouring the fuselage, and there were still passengers in the cabin, and the flight attendants were desperately trying to cut the belts so that they could get out, a fire engine drove through Yuan and the girl died.
Two firefighters had previously seen Yuan lying on the runway in fetal position under a pile of foam, but they thought she was dead. However, later investigators were able to establish that the girl was still alive at that moment.
Unpublished footage from the crash site shows the first car with foam driving off the plane, Sheriff Johnson arriving and examining the scene, including the area where the girl was lying. At this time, a second car arrives there and covers the plane with foam. Not knowing that there was a girl under the foam on the field, the driver drove through this place and killed her.
Yuan was one of two people killed in the car accident, with her classmate Wang Lingya being the other. It is noteworthy that the remaining 305 passengers survived.
3. A woman was killed in a movie theater after she managed to survive a shooting in a shopping center
A few hours after the mass shooting at a cinema in Aurora, Colorado, photographs of the event appeared online. Among them was a photograph of a pretty red-haired woman with a smile on her face. Jessica Redfield, a young sportscaster and blogger from Texas, was one of 12 victims of the shootout.
Just a month before, Redfield had survived a shooting at the Eaton Mall in Toronto, where one person died and several others were injured. Redfield wrote on her blog at the time:
“I have a strange feeling in my heart. I find it hard to believe that I survived that shooting. It just couldn't happen."
She wrote that then she chose what to buy - a hamburger or sushi. Then she decided to leave the center for fresh air because she had a strange sensation. If she hadn’t come out, she would have remained on the territory of the restaurant when the shooting began.
4. The woman survived the 9/11 disaster and died in the crash of AA 587 two months later
When terrorists struck the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Hilde Yolanda Mayol was lucky: she managed to run out of the restaurant on the ground floor where she worked. Unfortunately, her luck lasted only two months. She was one of the passengers on the doomed American Airlines flight: Airplane 589 crashed in New York's Queens area on November 12, killing all 260 passengers.
Mayol, 26, traveled home to the Dominican Republic to rest with her mother and two children, who had left New York two weeks earlier on another flight.
5. The only member of the University of Evansville men's basketball team who was not on the plane during flight "Deadly DC-3" was hit by a drunk driver two weeks later
In 1977, nearly all of the University of Evansville men's basketball team died in a plane crash. One player was unable to fly to the competition with everyone else, as he was ill, and two weeks later he died in a car accident.
The plane crash occurred on December 13, 1977, when Deadly DC-3, registration number 5107, crashed while departing from Evansill, Indiana airport. The plane lost control and crashed shortly after takeoff.
Freshman David Farr was not on the plane that day - the basketball player was unable to fly due to an ankle injury. Two weeks after the accident, he and his 16-year-old brother were returning home from a holiday basketball competition and were hit by a drunk driver. It happened in Newton, Illinois, and as a result, all the members of the Purple Aces basketball team were dead.
6. Father and daughter died in a plane crash four years after they narrowly escaped death in a plane crash
In 2011, a father and daughter from Texas, who miraculously survived a car accident, died in another car accident four years later. Elsie Warren, 70, and his daughter Phyllis Jean Readings, 52, were flying an experimental plane at the Temple, Texas Air Show when the cabin began to fill with smoke. The plane crashed, creating a ball of flame, just half a kilometer north of Conroy, Texas Airport.
Both father and daughter were members of the Experimental Aircraft Association and flew on a vessel built by the Ravin 500 company, whose planes by that time carried only 20 people around the world. The plane was piloted by Warren.
In 2007, they miraculously survived, making a forced landing in a field after the engine of their homemade plane caught fire. Readings then said: "We survived thanks to the flying skills of my father and God - he saved us from death."
Whether it is God’s fault or the skill of the father-pilot failed, but Death finally caught up with the father and daughter at the final destination.
7. The woman missed the fatal Air France flight 447 and died in a car accident two weeks later
In 2009, the Italian narrowly escaped death by missing Air France flight 447 because she arrived too late at the airport. Two weeks later, she died in a car accident.
Johanna Ganthaler, a pensioner from the province of Bolzano, was on vacation in Brazil with her husband Kurt. The couple missed their flight, arriving too late at Rio de Janeiro airport. All 228 people on board were killed after the plane exploded over the Atlantic Ocean four hours before the intended landing in Paris. The couple managed to leave Rio on another flight the next day.
Two weeks later, Mrs. Ganthaler died when her car hit the oncoming lane in Kufstein, Austria, where it collided with a truck. Her husband was seriously injured.
However, the story turned out to be not as beautiful as in the famous blockbuster. The husband later admitted that he and his wife had not bought tickets for the fateful flight. In fact, they were traveling in Iberia, and the ticket story was a mere fiction.
8. Little boy who survived a monstrous tornado in Oklahoma, bitten by a dog
If you are five years old, then just one tornado is enough to at least be scared. If after that you start living in someone else's house, then, like this little boy, you will surely break down and cry. However, in the eyes of the dog, the small child was a stranger, shouting at a family member, which could be regarded by the dog as a threat: a 70-kilogram mastiff pounced on a five-year-old boy, crumpled him and bit his head and neck.
Lynn Gehling took the boy to her home in Jesseville, Arkansas, after he and his parents survived a tornado that struck Oklahoma in May 2013. The parents returned home to collect the pieces of their life and somehow try to start again.
On the day of the tragedy, the child was greatly upset, and he began to become hysterical. Geling tried to calm him down, but the screams had a negative effect on the dog - probably the dog thought that the boy had attacked his owner, so he attacked him.
Geling tried to open her dog's jaws and called her husband for help. In the end, they managed to drive the dog away, but it was too late. Of course, the couple called an ambulance, and the boy was taken to the hospital, but they could not save him.