Incredible Plunge: The Complicated Story of Vesna Vulović’s 33,000 Foot Fall
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Credit: http://fearoflanding.com/files/2013/03/vesna1-300x254.jpg[/caption]
Do you have a fear of heights?
If you do, millions of people share that fear. It is estimated that a whopping two to five percent of the general population suffers from acrophobia, and statistically, twice as many women as men are affected by the phobia.
Vesna Vulović is not one of those women. Vulović, the sole survivor of a 1972 plane crash, is thought to have fallen over 33,000 feet to the ground below and, incredibly, survived without any permanent injuries. Remarkably, the Serbian former flight attendant, who for the longest time after the crash held the record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute, supposedly retains no fear of heights or of flying. She continued working a desk job at the same airline for an additional two decades after her fall, and in interviews stated that she has continued to fly and travel consistently.
Vulović’s story is immensely interesting because of the circumstances of intrigue surrounding the event that persist to this day. While it’s no small miracle that she survived such an insane set of circumstances, there are those who doubt the legitimacy of the story, going so far as to posit conspiracy theories that discredit the significance of the event.
On January 26, 1972, Vulović was a flight attendant on duty on a Yugoslav Airlines flight. Oddly enough, Vulović was not even scheduled to be on that flight — her schedule had been mixed up with that of another flight attendant also named Vesna. Fate can be terrifying like that sometimes, can’t it?
An explosion occurred in the front baggage compartment of Vulović’s plane. Though it is unclear what part of the plane she was stationed in at that point, it is assumed that a food cart managed to pin her to the back of the plane during the fall, stopping her from being sucked out of the destroyed plane during the rapid descent. However, Vulović has said that she was told she was discovered among the wreckage in the middle section of the plane, which casts doubt on the veracity of the events posited. Later investigations concluded that terrorists had planted the bomb on the plane.
After her miraculous rescue, Vulović remained in a coma for twenty-seven days. Her skull was broken, her brain had hemorrhaged, and she’d broken three vertebrae. When she awoke, she was initially paralyzed from the waist down but eventually made a full recovery. She was the sole survivor of the crash.
Following Vulović’s recovery, she reported that she had no memory of the accident whatsoever. “The last thing I remember before the accident is passengers boarding the flight in Copenhagen,” said Ms. Vulović. Her memory resumes after waking up at the hospital, following her coma. In interviews, she stated that she experienced a period of amnesia beginning one hour before the accident until a month afterwards. The entire accident has been erased from her mind.
The plane crash and miraculous fall catapulted Vulović to the status of a national heroine, and a minor celebrity. After the initial investigation into the plane crash was closed, the Guinness Book of World Records awarded Vulović the record for highest fall without a parachute, putting the height of her fall at approximately 10,160 meters — the height at which the jet was thought to be cruising at the time of the explosion. Paul McCartney presented Vulović with the award.
In 2009, two investigative journalists, Peter Hornung and Pavel Theiner, reopened the investigation into the crash. The pair concluded it was likely that the plane had been mistakenly shot down just a few hundred meters above the ground by the Czechoslovak Air Force. They claimed the tale of Vulović’s incredible fall was manufactured by the government as part of “Communist propaganda,” to aid in a cover-up of the true events. Consequently, Guinness revoked Vulović’s record, noting that they were “duped by this swindle just like the rest of the media.”
Czech military experts denied those claims, stating that if it had been true, hundreds of soldiers would have known the truth, but none had come forward to tell their story. Despite these denials, the full “true story” still remains uncertain and will likely never be known.
Funnily enough, the actual height from which Vulović fell makes little difference to her actual experience. “Terminal velocity” of a falling object (or person) is reached after falling for at least 1,500 feet, meaning that the impact of a fall is the same at 1,500 feet or 33,000 feet. Though it is probably worth mentioning that the eponymous Mythbusters investigated the possibility of survival from a fall of 33,000 feet and concluded that, while by no means likely, it was plausible.
Though the circumstances of the plane crash remain shadowy, Vulović is still considered an important Serbian figure and national heroine. To this day, she remains active in Serbian politics, insistent that her primary concern is the future of her country.
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