22-Year-Old Stewardess Wasn’t Supposed to Be on Plane That Exploded in the Sky. She Fell 33,000 Feet and Survived

A decade after Vesna Vulović died, her story remains one of aviation’s most astonishing survival accounts: she is still credited with surviving the greatest fall without a parachute.

Vulović was just 22 and working as a flight attendant in 1972 when she plunged roughly 33,000 feet after the aircraft she was on broke apart over what was then Czechoslovakia. Everyone else onboard was killed.

“I was broken, and the doctors put me back together again,” Vulović told The New York Times in 2008, recalling a recovery that followed a fractured skull and broken legs, three vertebrae, and her pelvis. “Nobody ever expected me to live this long.”

A Mistake Put Her on the Flight

On Jan. 26, 1972, Vulović wasn’t even supposed to be working that day. But she was mistaken for another stewardess with the same first name and boarded a Yugoslav Airlines Douglas DC-9 in Copenhagen headed for Belgrade, according to The New York Times, the BBC and The Guardian.

About an hour into the flight, the jetliner—carrying 27 other passengers and crew—exploded over the village of Srbská Kamenice, according to The New York Times.

Vulović, who was reportedly pinned inside a section of the damaged fuselage by a food cart, fell more than six miles. Tree cover and snow helped cushion the impact of the wreckage as it hit the ground, according to the same outlets.

A nearby woodsman heard her screaming and helped rescue her. She spent 10 days in a coma at a local hospital, The Guardian reported. The other 27 people onboard died.

What Caused the Explosion?

Investigators in Czechoslovakia concluded at the time that explosives hidden in a suitcase brought the plane down—though no one was ever arrested. But in 2009, investigative journalists suggested the aircraft may have been accidentally shot down by the Czechoslovak Air Force, The New York Times reported.

Recognition—and a Life After the Crash

Vulović never regained memory of the crash itself, but her survival made her widely known in Serbia.

In 1985, she received a certificate and medal from Paul McCartney during the Guinness World Records Hall of Fame ceremony for the highest fall survived without a parachute.

A spokesperson for the organization confirms that Vulović continues to hold that title today.

In the years that followed, Vulović leaned on religion, she told The New York Times in 2008.

“It also made me an optimist, because if you can survive what I survived, you can survive anything,” she said.

After the crash, she returned to Yugoslav Airlines in a new role—working in an office. She remained there for 18 years, until she said she was pushed into retirement after demonstrating against President Slobodan Milošević, who later died in jail while on trial for war crimes, The New York Times reported.

Her Final Years

Vulović died in 2016 at her home in Belgrade. She was 66.

Eight years before her death, she campaigned for the Democratic Party led by President Boris Tadić, The New York Times reported.

“I am like a cat,” Vulović told the paper in 2008, before Tadić went on to win re-election. “I have had nine lives. But if nationalist forces in this country prevail, my heart will burst.”