The incredible story of Vesna Vulović, a flight attendant who fell 33,333 feet and survived

Fifty years ago, a 23-year-old woman fell 33,333 feet from the sky and survived, making it to the Guinness World Record (GWR) for ‘Highest fall survived without parachute’. In a video posted on Twitter, GWR revisited the story of Vesna Vulović who was a flight attendant onboard JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 on January 26, 1972. In an unfortunate incident, the flight crashed over the Czech Republic in an explosion that killed everyone, except Vesna.
Talking about the same, Craig Glenday, Editor and Chief, Guinness World Records said, “Vesna Vulović’s story, for me, is one of the most incredible survival stories if, in fact, not the most impressive that we have here at Guinness World Records. ”
“It was not just surviving the crash but also the mental trauma of knowing that you have experienced one of the worst things that could possibly happen to you,” Glenday added.
Did you know that Vesna was not actually supposed to be working on the doomed flight? “She wasn’t even supposed to be on duty on the day of the fatal flight. Another Vesna should have been working. But, there was confusion over their names,” the GWR revealed.
On the day of the crash, Vesna boarded JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The plane was flying from Stockholm in Sweden to Belgrade in Serbia with two stopovers – one being in Copenhagen. But, the plane never made it to the second stopover in Croatia.

This is the incredible story of the woman who fell 33,333 feet and survived… pic.twitter.com/1Bpdi2SVi0
— Guinness World Records (@GWR) November 6, 2022
Over Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic, the plane was blown apart. The video added, “At 4:01 pm, 46 minutes after take off, an explosion in the luggage compartment tore the aircraft into three pieces. As the cabin depressurised, the passengers and other flight crew were believed to have been sucked out of the plane, into freezing temperatures, falling to their deaths.”
Glenday explained that the fuselage itself would have smashed because of the bomb breaking it into bits, and people blew out of the plane. “Vesna, however, seemed to have been trapped at the rear of the aircraft, probably pinned into the back of the fuselage the drinks trolley,” he revealed.

Therefore, she couldn’t be pulled out of the plane. Next, the fuselage separated from the rest of the plane and hurtled towards the ground in a heavily wooded area.
The video demonstrated that the fuselage crash landed in the thick snow at a favourable angle “and that’s most likely what saved Vesna’s life”. Later, her doctors revealed that “her low blood pressure caused her to quickly pass out when the cabin depressurised and that prevented her heart from bursting upon impact”.
Paul McCartney presented Vesna with a certificate and medal for achieving the highest fall survived without a parachute (Source: guinnessworldrecords.com)
“She broke almost every bone in her body and she was paralysed temporarily. She was in a coma for three days,” Glenday said.
The video also revealed that Vesna was found screaming inside the wreckage and the person who found her was a former World War 2 medic. “So, he was able to adminer vital first aid before rescuers arrived.”
“It’s incredible to think someone survived such a great fall. And rightly, she is celebrated as being one of the most remarkable human beings that have ever lived,” Glenday added.

Due to the massive fall, she suffered a fractured skull, two broken legs, three broken vertebrae, a fractured pelvis, several broken ribs and temporary paralysis below the wa. “Amazingly though, Vesna was able to walk again after ten months, though she had a permanent limp because of the twing of her spine,” Guinness World Records shared.
However, many conspiracy theors have claimed that the aircraft was flying at a much lower altitude than stated in the official accident report. “This claim was debunked flight data obtained from the aircraft’s black boxes. The data shows that the plane’s altitude, acceleration, direction and speed at the time of the explosion was indeed 33,333 ft,” the video said.
Vesna passed away at 66 in 2016.
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