In 1971 she joined JAT Airways, Yugoslavias national flag carrier and the countrys largest airline. Vesna Vulovic is found dead by her friends in her apartment in Belgrade, Serbia The cause of death was not immediately known, according to Serbian state TV She became an instant national heroine . She suffered a skull fracture and broke her legs. The cause of Flight 367s explosion and subsequent crash has been subject to several conspiracy theories over the years, the most popular of which suggested that the plane was mistakenly shot down by Czechoslovak anti-air missiles at a much lower altitude of 800 metres (2,600 ft). Her turquoise uniform was covered in blood and her stiletto heels had been torn off by the force of the impact. Nobody ever expected me to live this long.. [5] The explosion caused the aircraft to break apart over the Czechoslovak village of SrbskKamenice. Serbia's state TV said Saturday. The Guinness Book of World Records says the plunge was from a height of 33,000 feet, the longest recorded fall without a parachute. As for people who have described her as lucky, Vulovic said they are mistaken. When Miloevi and his Socialist Party of Serbia were ousted in the Bulldozer Revolution of October 2000, Vulovi was among several celebrities who took to the balcony of Belgrade's city hall to make victory addresses. Ms. Vulovic in a picture released by the airline. All 27 other passengers and crew aboard perished. Vesna Vulovic, an air stewardess who survived the highest ever fall by a human being after her plane broke up at 33,000ft (10,000m), has died aged 66. Legal Statement. Ms. Vulovic, who had been divorced, was living on a small pension, with three cats, at her death. Vulovic was 23 and working as a Yugoslav Airlines hostess on 26 January, 1972, when the Douglas DC-9 airliner she was aboard blew up high above the snowy mountain ranges of Czechoslovakia. She was the sole survivor after an explosion tore through the baggage compartment of JAT Flight 367 on 26 January 1972, causing it to crash near Srbsk Kamenice, Czechoslovakia. The explosion and crash killed everyone on board. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Poginuli su svi putnici i lanovi posade, a preivjela je jedino ona. Vesna Vulovic was found dead by her friends in her apartment in Belgrade, according to Serbian state TV. She had a fractured skull, two crushed vertebrae and she had broken her pelvis, several ribs and both legs. "But if nationalist forces in this country prevail, my heart will burst. When the cabin depressurized, the passengers and other flight crew were blown out of the aircraft and fell to their deaths. The cause of death was not immediately known. "I am like a cat, I have had nine lives," she told the New York Times. Vesna Vulovi was a Serbian flight attendant who holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: 10,160 m . 2023 BBC. Upon returning to Belgrade, Vulovi decided to become a flight attendant after seeing one of her friends in a flight attendant's uniform. [1] Vulovi's friends said that she had struggled with heart ailments in the years leading up to her death. Initially paralyzed from the waist down, Ms. Vulovic eventually made a near-full recovery and even returned to work for the airline in a desk job. If I were lucky I would never had this accident and my mother and father would be alive. She was in the rear of the plane with a food cart when the fuselage broke apart. She never regained memory of the accident or her rescue. Initially paralyzed from the waist down, Vulovic eventually made a near-full recovery and even returned to work for the airline in a desk job. In the morning, during breakfast, the co-pilot was talking about his son and daughter as if nobody else had a son or daughter. On Jan. 26, 1972, 23-year-old Vulovic was working as a flight attendant aboard a Yugoslav Airlines Douglas DC-9 when the plane ripped apart above the village of Srbska Kamenice. She had no memory of the crash or of anything from the following month. One man seemed terribly annoyed. I looked up to the sky and saw bodies, suitcases, chunks of the plane falling down.. On January 1972, Vesna Vulovic, who was working as a flight attendant for Jugoslavenski Aerotransport, was . The crew had the entire afternoon and the following morning to themselves. Vulovi became a celebrity in Yugoslavia and was deemed a national hero. [10] No arrests were ever made. Maybe it was a bad place., Vesna Vulovic, Flight Attendant Who Survived Jetliner Blast, Dies at 66, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/world/europe/vesna-vulovic-died-flight-attendant-in-plunge.html. Submit The cause of death was not immediately known. On the basis of her conversations with Honke, Vulovi disputed the assertion that she was discovered in the rear section of the DC-9, as claimed in some reports. She was honored by Josip Tito, Yugoslavias Communist leader, and celebrated as a national hero. Folk Figure. Vesna Vulovic, when she worked as a stewardess. "Everybody wanted to buy something for his or her family," she recalled. Do not sell or share my personal information. Vulovic entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1985 for the highest fall survived without a parachute.. I think it was the man who put the bomb in the baggage. The new passengers boarded and the flight eventually took off at 3:15 PM. The accident ruined their lives, too. [20] They also hypothesized that the call received by Kvllsposten, claiming responsibility for the aircraft's downing, was a hoax. 0 references. State TV in Vulovic's home country of Serbia said she was found dead in her apartment in Belgrade. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. She was 66. Authorities confirmed the "miracle" woman was found dead in her Belgrade, Serbia, home. All 27 other passengers and crew. Vesna Vulovic died in Belgrade in December 2016, at the age of 66. A bomb, which may . The guards changed shifts every six hours, and no one was allowed in to see her except for her parents and doctors. Vulovis doctors concurred with the air investigators and added their own conclusions. The fuselage tumbled through pine branches and into a thick coating of snow, softening the impact and cushioning its descent down the hill. "[21] Vulovi declined therapy to help cope with her experiences and instead turned to religion, becoming a devout Orthodox Christian. The accident ruined their lives too.. The world's highest stuff: notes, basketball shots, backflips and more! The same type of aircraft that Vesna Vulovi was on before her fall. [3] Vulovi's parents had to sell both of their cars to pay for her treatment. On the day of the crash, a bomb exploded aboard a train travelling from Vienna to Zagreb, injuring six. Serbias state TV said Saturday that Ms. Vulovic was found dead by her friends in her apartment in Belgrade. [3], 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 25 January 1972. [15] Within ten months of her fall, Vulovi had regained the ability to walk, but limped for the rest of her life, her spine permanently twisted. Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. But an investigation by two reporters in Prague in 2009 challenged that account. The cause of death was not immediately known. Autoridades iugoslavas suspeitaram que nacionalistas croatas fossem os culpados, mas ningum jamais foi preso. Trapped in the planes tail cone, she plummeted to earth in subfreezing temperatures and landed on a steep, heavily wooded slope near a village. They claimed that the very thing that almost kept Vulovi from being a flight attendant is what ultimately saved her life. All rights reserved. Officials suspected that JAT Yugoslav Flight 364 was brought down by explosives planted in a suitcase by a Croatian terrorist group. He managed to escape with a broken arm, minor scratches and bruises. Ms. Vulovic was rescued by a woodsman who followed her screams in the dark forest. The stewardess was temporarily paralysed from the waist down by the fall but in time she made a near-full recovery and returned to work for the airline in a desk job. All 27 other passengers and crew aboard perished. VESNA Vulovic, a Serbian air hostess who survived the highest ever fall after a plane exploded mid-air, has died aged 66. Her final years were spent in seclusion, and she struggled with survivor guilt. The fuselage tumbled through pine branches and into a thick coating of snow, softening the impact and cushioning its descent down the hill, crash investigators said at the time. Vesna Vulovic, a Serbian woman who in 1972 survived a reported six-mile fall after the plane she was on exploded over Czechoslovakia, died last week at age 66, according to several media reports. Serbia's state TV said Saturday Vulovic was found dead by her friends in her apartment in Belgrade. According to investigators, Vulovic was trapped by a food cart in the plane's tail section as it plummeted to earth in freezing temperatures. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. She had total amnesia from the hour preceding her fall until one month afterwards. She suffered a fractured skull, two broken legs, three broken vertebrae, a fractured pelvis, several broken ribs and temporary paralysis below the waist. Call it a miracle or call it pure luck, but Vesna Vulovi was the only survivor of the crash. Vesna Vulovi was 66. The cause of death was not immediately known. She was 66. Vulovi? The fuselage separated from the rest of the plane and hurtled towards the ground in a heavily wooded area near the Czechoslovak village of Srbsk Kamenice. A week after Anthony Veasna So, an emerging author on the cusp of success, died unexpectedly at age 28, a far-flung but tightknit literary community is in shock and mourning over what might have . "I saw all the passengers and crew deplane. Unlike the other 27 passengers and crew, Vulovic survived, likely in part because the section of fuselage where she was trapped landed on a snowy, tree-covered hillside, the BBC reports. Vulovic was 23 and working as a Yugoslav. Please confirm by clicking the link in the email to be added to our mailing list. What we know so far about the Chinese spy balloon and other objects shot down by U.S. Ozempic-like drug Wegovy coming to the U.K. at a fraction of U.S. price. When she arrived, however, she found a downtrodden crew. DR ELLIE CANNON: My breast has not got lumps but it's itchy, should I be concerned about cancer at age 72? / CBS/AP. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. The fuselage tumbled through pine branches and into a thick coating of snow, softening the impact and cushioning its descent down the hill, crash investigators said at the time. Vulovic was rescued by Bruno Honke, a woodsman who heard her screaming in the dark while the debris came down around them. Vesna Vulovic, a Serbian flight attendant who holds the world record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute when her plane broke apart. She was 66. It is extremely probable that the aircraft was shot down by mistake by the Czechoslovak air force and in order to cover it up the secret police conceived the record plunge, Hornung said. Vesna Vulovi (Serbian Cyrillic: , pronounced[sna loit]; 3 January 1950 23 December 2016) was a Serbian flight attendant who holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: 10,160m (33,330ft; 6.31mi). (The Associated Press) She beat the odds by surviving a 10,000-metre (33,000 feet) fall from a plane, and became a national hero in Serbia because of it. BEOGRAD - Vesna Vulovi, stjuardesa nekadanjeg jugoslovenskog JAT za koju je uo itav svet poto je preivela avionsku nesreu i pad sa 10.000 metara, danas je sahranjena na Novom groblju u prisustvu brata i ezdesetak prijatelja i poznanika. Ms. Vulovic was working as a. You learn something new every day; what did you learn today? Oh yeah, except for the fact that she fell 33,000 fucking feet and lived to tell the tale. Air safety investigators attributed the explosion to a briefcase bomb. They concluded that the DC-9 was mistakenly shot down by the Czechoslovak Air Force at an altitude of only 800 meters, or about 2,625 feet. The Associated Press contributed to this report. She was 66. Everybody thinks I am lucky, but they are mistaken. The comments below have not been moderated. I was talking to them and asking them why they were with me in Slovenia. When was the accident bound to have happened? Read about our approach to external linking. BELGRADE, Serbia Vesna Vulovic, a Serbian stewardess who miraculously survived a plunge from 33,000 feet after her plane exploded in midair in 1972, has died. When she found out a friend was becoming a flight attendant and traveling the world, she jumped at the chance. Other crew members saw him, as did the station manager in Copenhagen. A brother appears to have been her only survivor. "Nobody ever expected me to live this long.". With a history of low blood pressure, Vulovi knew it was unlikely shed pass the medical exam. BELGRADE, Serbia Vesna Vulovic, a Serbian stewardess who miraculously survived a plunge from 10,000 metres (33,000 feet) after her plane exploded in mid-air in 1972, has died. [4] In total, she spent sixteen months recuperating. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Just 46 minutes into the fight, disaster struck. stated in. She continued her work as a pro-democracy activist until the Socialist Party of Serbia was ousted from power during the Bulldozer Revolution of October 2000. Both boxes were analyzed by specialists from Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands, who confirmed that the plane had truly fallen from the stated height of 33,333 ft (10,160 m). Her remarkable survival half a century ago means that Flight 367 is always likely to attract study, although the precise. Vesna Vulovic survived the highest ever fall without a parachute by a human being after her plane exploded on January 26, 1972 . [1] She was soon made an honorary citizen of Srbsk Kamenice. "People always want to sit next to me on the plane," she said. According to Serbian state TV, she was found by her friends in her apartmen This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, She was rushed to a hospital, where she fell into a coma for 10 days. [4] The next thing she remembered was seeing her parents in her hospital room about one month later.[3]. [22] Hornung-Andersen conceded that the pair's evidence was only circumstantial. [10] The Czech Civil Aviation Authority dismissed the journalists' claim, calling it a conspiracy theory. Legal Statement. Vulovi was fired from JAT in the early 1990s after taking part in anti-government protests during the breakup of Yugoslavia, but avoided arrest as the government was concerned about the negative publicity that her imprisonment would bring. ", "Too good to be true? online interview with Green Light Limited. Vulovic was working as a flight attendant on January 26, 1972, when her Douglas DC-9 airliner blew up high above the mountain ranges of the former Czechoslovakia.