People after the crash. What do those who survived a plane crash remember, and why do they feel guilty throughout their lives? The last hours before the disaster

1. Survival clothing.
Your chances of survival will increase if you have the “right” clothes and shoes in the event of a plane crash. “Imagine having to escape from a burning airplane,” says Cynthia Corbett, an FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) specialist. “How comfortable would that be in flip-flops or high-heeled shoes?”
In addition to shoes, a smart solution is to wear clothes made of thick fabric with long legs and sleeves. This will help protect your skin from burns and sharp debris. According to the NTSB report, 68% of people who die in a plane crash die after the accident, from injuries received in a fire.

2. The safest places.
An analysis carried out in 2007 by the magazine Popular Mechanics showed that the largest percentage of survivors were in the tail section of the plane (cases of crashes were considered starting from 1971). These are summary statistics, of course, in a number of cases there were exceptions.
Regardless of where you choose a seat on the plane, try to choose one that is closest to the emergency exit. Professor Ed Galea, a fire safety engineer at the University of Greenwich in England, found that most crash survivors were within 5 rows of an emergency exit. He also points out that seats near the aisle are safer than those near the window, since they allow you to unhindered access to the aisle.

3. Takeoff and landing.
Safety experts have found that the most dangerous moments in flight in terms of a crash are 3 minutes from the moment of takeoff and 9 minutes before the moment the airliner lands. It is at these moments that you should remain in comfortable shoes and clothing with long sleeves, and also pay attention to emergency exits.
In addition, experts recommend placing hand luggage under the front seat. In the event of a disaster, this can prevent your legs and feet from being caught under the front seat. A broken leg in a collision is the most common injury.
If a collision is unavoidable, it is important to assume a “survival position” (see instructions in the chair in front).
Be sure to remove sharp and hard objects such as pencils, pens, and keys from your pockets.

4. 90 second rule.
The first 90 seconds after a disaster are the most important! If you can remain calm and try to get out of the plane, your chances of survival will be quite high.
Some passengers become so panicked that they cannot even unfasten their seat belt. NTSB reports show that many crash victims remain in their seats with their seat belts fastened.
“It is very important to know what to do without waiting for instructions,” says Corbett. “Some people sit and wait to be told what to do, but no one says anything and they continue to sit right in the middle of a disaster.”
One of the reasons so many people were saved in the recent crash is that they were able to quickly escape the plane.
Finding and collecting your luggage can also be a fatal mistake. Don't hesitate for a second.

5. No more dangerous than an escalator.
According to NTSB statistics, only one in 1.2 million flights ends in disaster. Continuous improvements in safety technology, fire-fighting equipment and the choice of non-flammable materials make flying by plane now safer than traveling by car.
The chance of dying in a plane crash is approximately 1 in 11 million, while the chance of dying in a traffic accident is 1 in 5 thousand.
Thus, flying is one of the safest ways to travel today. However, you shouldn’t take them lightly, you just shouldn’t be afraid and you should always have a plan of action.

One of the crew survived the plane crash, which took the lives of 71 people.

“I put all the bags between my legs and assumed the position recommended in case of emergency.” Erwin said that many passengers jumped out of their seats, began to scream and panic - this is what pushed them to death.

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Vesna Vulovich

The 22-year-old flight attendant holds the world altitude record for surviving a free fall without a parachute according to the Guinness Book of Records.

In 1972, the plane carrying Vesna Vulović exploded at an altitude of 10,160 meters. Vesna not only survived the destruction itself, but was also the only survivor of the 28 passengers and crew members.

The flight attendant should not have been on this flight at all, she was sent instead of another flight attendant simply due to an error by the airline. Vesna Vulović was working in the passenger compartment when the explosion occurred. She immediately lost consciousness and subsequently could not remember what she was doing or where exactly she was.

Vesna received many injuries: fractures of the base of the skull, three vertebrae, both legs and the pelvis. According to Vesna Vulovich herself, the first thing she asked for when she returned to consciousness was to smoke.

The treatment took 16 months, of which for 10 months the girl’s lower body was paralyzed. Vesna Vulović died in December 2016 at home in Belgrade.

Larisa Savitskaya

In the summer of 1981, young student Larisa Savitskaya was returning with her husband Vladimir from honeymoon. The couple flew on flight 811 on board an An-24RV from Komsomolsk-on-Amur to Blagoveshchensk and, since the plane was half empty, they took comfortable seats in the rear of the plane instead of their seats.

During the flight, the An-24 aircraft on which the Savitsky spouses were flying collided with a Tu-16 military bomber at an altitude of 5220 meters. The crews of both planes were killed.

At the time of the disaster, Larisa Savitskaya was sleeping in her seat at the rear of the plane. She woke up with a strong blow and a sudden burn due to the extreme temperature change.

The fuselage broke right in front of Larisa’s chair, and she was thrown into the aisle. The girl reached the nearest chair and pressed herself into it. Larisa subsequently claimed that at that moment she remembered an episode from the film “Miracles Still Happen,” where the heroine squeezed into a chair during a plane crash and survived.

Part of the hull collapsed into a birch grove, the trees softened the blow. Waking up on the ground, the first thing Larisa saw was a chair with the body of her dead husband. She suffered a number of serious injuries, but was able to move.

Rescuers found her two days later. During this time, the student built herself a temporary shelter from the wreckage of the plane, keeping warm with seat covers and hiding from mosquitoes with a plastic bag. She was included in the Guinness Book of Records not only as a person who survived a fall from a maximum height, but also as a person who received the minimum amount of compensation - 75 rubles.

Baya Bakari

A 13-year-old French girl is the only survivor of a plane crash near Comoros in 2009. On June 30, 2009, Baya and her mother were flying to Airbus plane A310 to Comoros to visit grandparents.

The plane crashed in Indian Ocean a few minutes before landing. Baya, sleeping during the disaster, believed that she had somehow fallen out of the porthole.

The newspapers wrote that she spent 12 to 14 hours in the shark-infested Mozambique Channel; Bahia herself claims in her autobiography that she was there for no more than 9 hours. Bakari was saved by a fisherman who took her to a Comorian hospital.

Besides her, there were 152 people on board - no one survived. Steven Spielberg himself wanted to film the story of her rescue, but Bakari refused.

Ruben van Assouw

A nine-year-old boy was the only survivor of an Afriqiyah Airways plane that crashed during landing. Ruben and his family committed tourist trip By South Africa. On board the crashed plane there were passengers from 10 countries, most of whom (62 people) were citizens of the Netherlands.

His father, mother and brother died along with the other 103 passengers. Ruben immediately lost consciousness. He broke both legs, but they were restored after surgery. He now lives with his aunt and uncle in the Netherlands.

Ever since man first took to the air, he has known falling. Every year, flight technology became more complex, more advanced and safer, but plane crashes still occur. Massive death due to fall passenger airliner becomes not only grief for the inconsolable relatives of the victims, but also a national tragedy.

Survivors of a plane crash become celebrities who are talked about and written about by the media in all countries of the world. This happens for the reason that there are very few of them.

Airplane crash statistics

If we take statistics for the entire historical period of development of passenger air transportation, we can conclude that they are extremely rare. The chance that a vehicle will crash during flight, takeoff or landing is 1/8 million. This means that it would take more than 20,000 years of daily travel on random flights for a person to get on that unlucky one.

If we take the statistics of the identified causes of equipment failure, then in percentage terms it will look like this:

• when the plane is loading, 5% of accidents occur (most often fire);
• during takeoff - 17% of accidents;
• when climbing only 8% of cases;
• during the flight 6%;
• when the aircraft descends - 3%;
• approach is responsible for 7% of cases;
• aircraft landing - 51%.

Statistics of all recorded cases of airliner crashes show that the greatest risk is present during takeoff and fall. This is probably why passengers applaud the pilots after they complete this stage of the flight.

Survivors of a plane crash most often indicate that something “suddenly” became wrong with the plane. In fact, meticulous statisticians and workers responsible for flight safety note that the reasons for the sudden breakdown of instruments or burning engines are defects that were not identified on the ground, which means that the reasons for the crash of airliners should first of all be sought there.

Causes of plane crashes

Whatever you say, the main cause of all plane crashes is the human factor. Machines do not damage themselves or disable them. Lack of proper attention during their assembly, during daily checks for malfunctions and conscious work of pilots and dispatchers - all this most often leads to the crash of equipment.

Is it possible to survive a plane crash if the experts did their job poorly? And in this case, the answer will be yes, since today there are cases when more than 1 person remained alive.

The statistics of aircraft crashes in percentage terms are as follows:

• Pilot error is the cause of 50% of cases;
• errors by service personnel during flight were identified in 7% of tragedies;
• the influence of weather conditions accounts for 12%;
• malfunction of instruments and the machine as a whole - 22% (what was not properly identified before the flight);
• terrorism and others (unidentified causes or mid-air collision) - 9%.

Of the listed reasons, except for weather, everything else is human activity. This suggests that the tragedy could have been avoided, and the incidence of survivors of the plane crash was significantly higher. If we take the statistics of the largest crashes over the past 30 years, then their causes are:

• A DC-8 crashed in Newfoundland in 1985 on takeoff due to loss of speed, killing 250 passengers;
• the crash of a Boeing 747 in Japan in 1985 was caused by poor repairs, resulting in 520 casualties;
• Il-76, traveling from Kazakhstan to Saudi Arabia crashed in India in 1996 from a mid-air collision with a Boeing, resulting in 349 deaths;
• An Il-76 crashed in Iran in 2003 due to hitting the ground in poor visibility, killing 275 people;
• The 224 people who did not survive the Kogalymavia plane crash in October 2015 added to the sad statistics: the reason was a possible terrorist attack.

These are not all the major crashes that happened from 1985 to 2015, but even from them it is clear that they are most often caused by human carelessness or dishonesty. The list of plane crash survivors would be much longer if flight safety specialists did their jobs well and passengers knew what to do to stay alive.

What to do if a plane crashes

It turns out that there are rules that really help people survive during a plane crash. The most basic instructions are given by flight attendants before the start of the flight. Unfortunately, most passengers do not listen to them, much less be able to put them into practice. Among the simplest recommendations, the following are considered mandatory:

• be buckled up during takeoff and landing (ideally, it’s better to be buckled up for the entire flight);
• know where life jackets are and how to use an oxygen mask;
• V emergency situation do not leave your seat, much less try to get into the luggage compartment to save your belongings;
• concentrate and take the correct position before the plane collides with the ground or water (bend your head to your knees, covering it with your hands).

Besides these simple rules, there are several insights from emergency management experts that plane crash survivors have applied intuitively without getting hurt.

Most passengers die after the plane crashes and catches fire because they are unable to get out of it in time. To prevent this from happening, you should know in advance:

• how to unfasten seat belts;
• exact direction to the exit (especially if there is smoke in the cabin);
• panic is 100% death.

For example, George Lamson, still a 17-year-old teenager in 1985, survived only because his seat was thrown out of the cabin when the plane he was flying with his father collided with. If the boy had not been fastened and had not pressed his head to his knees, and after the fall had not been able to quickly unfasten and run to a safe distance, he would have died, like the other 70 people.

As the cases of plane crash survivors show, if a person does not panic and knows what to do, then he has every chance of surviving. Studying examples of such tragedies, scientists came to the conclusion that many passengers, instead of getting off the plane, wait for someone's instructions or instructions. It is important to know that in such a situation everyone is responsible for their own safety.

High Risk Situations

Although it may seem that passengers who survive a plane crash are simply lucky, this is actually not the case. As data from scientists from England who studied more than 2,000 cases of rescue from such an accident showed, these people were helped not by a simple coincidence of circumstances, but by specific knowledge and actions, plus a bit of luck.

It turns out that there are high-risk areas and safer areas on airplanes, as evidenced by survival statistics:

• for example, those sitting in the first five rows at the front of the plane have a 65% chance of survival;
• it is even higher among those who sit in these rows on the outer seats (67%) and not near the windows (58%);
• passengers in the rear of the plane have a 53% chance of survival if they are also seated in the first five rows of the emergency exit;
• people who survived a plane crash and sat in the middle of the cabin are extremely rare.

In addition to risk areas in the cabin, the aircraft itself also plays an important role. Thus, statistics claim that 73% of all air crashes occur in small aircraft designed for up to 30 seats. The fatality rate of a single-engine or small aircraft crash is 68%, which suggests that the chance of survival for passengers and pilots of such transport is tantamount to a miracle.

There is only one conclusion - you should fly big planes reliable companies. Hardly only right choice vehicle and the seats in it will save lives in an emergency, but its passengers will have a greater chance of survival, and rescuers in the event of a crash big airliner they don’t ask the question “are there any survivors of the plane crash,” but save them.

The most difficult situations

The most difficult and dangerous part of a disaster is when the plane hits land or water. After this happens, people only have 1.5-2 minutes to stay alive. It is at this time that you need to take time to unfasten, find a way out and jump as far as possible.

The biggest threat to life is posed by fire and carbon monoxide filling the cabin, as confirmed by a woman who survived the plane crash. Larisa Savitskaya survived after the plane in which she was flying with her husband collided with a bomber. Having received burns from the fire that started, she managed to concentrate and take the correct position in the chair, which saved her life when she fell on it for 8 minutes from a height of 5200 m.

Her landing was “softened” by tree branches, but even after surviving such a fall, she had to endure a severe shock both from the injuries she received and from the fact that the rescuers were in no hurry to search crashed plane, confident that no one survived.

“Are there any survivors of the plane crash?” - this question should be foremost among those who deal with similar situations. Larisa waited two days for help with a fracture of the cervical spine and a head injury. She is the only one who was included in the Guinness book twice for the same event:

• the first time as a survivor after a fall from a height of more than 5 km;
• the second - as having received the most meager compensation for the damage received - only 75 rubles.

An airplane colliding with water poses no less a threat to human life, although most passengers naively believe that it can soften the fall. Such ignorance of the elementary laws of physics has cost the lives of many people.

Falling into the ocean

It's not uncommon for a plane to crash over the ocean, but the number of passengers killed remains shockingly high, although there are survivors of a plane crash on the water.

This happens for several reasons:

• firstly, people often cannot find and put on a life jacket due to panic;
• secondly, they activate it too early, and in an inflated state it prevents not only from moving, but also from floating out of the cabin if water has entered there;
• thirdly, they do not know that an airplane hitting the water is equivalent to a collision with a concrete surface, and they may not be buckled up to take a rescue position.

Except in cases where the pilot makes an emergency landing on water, falling into the ocean is just as dangerous as falling onto the ground, as confirmed by the only girl who survived the plane crash.

Bakari was 12 years old when he and his mother flew from Paris to Yemen. For an unknown reason, the plane crashed into the ocean 14 km from the coast of the Greater Comoros island. The impact with the water tore it into pieces, and the girl fell into the water. She was lucky that parts of the liner remained on her surface, on one of which she waited for 14 hours until she was picked up by a fishing boat passing nearby.

The girl’s story went around the whole world, as this is one of those examples when, perhaps, there would have been more survivors if help had arrived in time. Hypothermia and life jackets not being put on in time claimed the lives of the remaining passengers.

This is not the last time the sole survivor of a plane crash has had to fight for her life due to lack of help on the ground.

Fall in the jungle

Although there are examples when the fall of an airplane was softened by tree branches, the number of surviving passengers and crew members did not increase. How a person behaves during a tragedy still plays a big role.

An example of this is the story of a 17-year-old German schoolgirl traveling with her mother from Lima to Pucallpa (Peru) before Christmas 1971. In fact, it was a short flight that turned tragic when the plane encountered turbulence during a thunderstorm.

A lightning strike damaged the aircraft's systems and started a fire in the cabin. Juliana Koepke is the only passenger to survive the plane crash on this flight. At an altitude of 6400 m, both wings of the aircraft came off, after which the airliner, which went into a tailspin, began to fall apart in parts.

The girl was saved by the fact that she was fastened and took a rescue pose when a row of chairs along with her seat was “thrown” overboard. During the fall, it, along with the debris from the cabin, was rotated by a strong wind, which led to a descent down an inclined slope and a fall into the dense thickets of the Amazon jungle.

The consequences of the “landing” were a broken collarbone, abrasions and bruises, but even greater trials awaited her. Located 500 km from Lima, in the thick of the jungle, not knowing the way, this young plane crash survivor was forced to fight for life in an unfamiliar area.

For 9 whole days she walked down the river, afraid to go far from it, so as not to lose the source of water. Eating fruits and plants that she recognized and could pick, the girl went to the fishermen’s camp, who took her to the hospital.

If Juliana had remained waiting for help near the crashed plane, she most likely would have died. Based on these events, an Italian television company made a feature film “Miracles Still Happen,” which subsequently saved the life of the Soviet girl Larisa Savitskaya, who had been waiting for rescuers for two days.

Surviving crew members

It is quite rare to hear that crew members survived a plane crash. Perhaps they are busy rescuing passengers or are at that moment in the most “unsafe” part of the plane, but this is a fact.

But there are examples when a flight attendant who survived a plane crash was the only one saved. Vesna Vulović was only 22 years old in 1972 when, during a regular flight from Copenhagen to Zagreb, a Yugoslav airline plane disintegrated in the air as a result of a terrorist bomb explosion.

This case can be considered a “miracle”, since Vesna was able to survive being in the middle of the plane cabin when falling from a height of more than 10 km. A piece of the car she was in fell on snow-covered trees, which greatly softened the blow.

The second “miracle” was that while she was unconscious, a peasant from a nearby village found her and took her to the hospital. A flight attendant who survived a plane crash after falling from such a height was in a coma for almost a month, and then struggled for another 16 months to be able to move and live a normal life.

Vesna Vulović became the Guinness World Record holder for the person who jumped without a parachute from a height of 10 kilometers. It is unlikely that there will be a daredevil who, of his own free will, decides to surpass her result.

Russian plane crash in Egypt

One of the most pressing topics in the fall of 2015 was the plane crash in Egypt. Today, “are there survivors” is no longer the most important question in this tragedy. If at first there were rumors that not all of the 224 people died, now this is a sad fact.

Today the public is interested in the cause of the death of the airliner, and guarantees that this will not happen to Russian aircraft again.

Completely different versions of what happened are presented by Russian and foreign media. The airliner, which took off without delay, disappeared from air traffic controllers' radars for unknown reasons 23 minutes after takeoff.

One version of why survivors of the plane crash in Egypt have not been found is the explosion of a bomb on board. The plane was torn apart in the sky, so the passengers had virtually no chance.

Egyptian authorities say the presence of a bomb was not detected in the plane's wreckage. They published these data after experts from the USA, England and Russia came to a different conclusion.

The only reason for the discrepancy between the experts’ conclusions is Egypt’s reluctance to lose potential clients in tourist season and pay compensation to the Kogalymavia company for the crash of the plane in its airspace. If there were survivors, they would also receive compensation for damage.

It is to be expected what agreement both sides will come to, but looking back at the history of aeronautics, we can say that planes do not just fall apart in the air and do not disappear from radar. Final conclusions not yet, but the world community understands what caused the plane crash in Egypt today. Are there any survivors? The answer to this question is unequivocal - “no”.

Positive statistics

Knowing the meticulousness of scientists in their desire to calculate and measure everything, there is no doubt that they also studied the question of why people do not survive a plane crash.

The reason is actually the most banal - the same human factor. If we take statistics on changes in the causes of plane crashes since 1908, it will look like this:

• at the dawn of aircraft construction from 1908 to 1929. 50% of crashes were due to technical problems, 30% due to weather, 10% - fire and 10% - pilot error;
• by the second half of the 20th century, the air fleet came up with different statistics - 24% are related to technology, 25% are to blame for the weather, pilot error - 37%, fire - 7%, and terrorist attacks account for only 5%;
• in the 21st century, the statistics have completely changed - 45% are caused by the human factor, 13% by the weather, 32% by technical problems, fire - 3%, and terrorist attacks account for 4% of cases.

This is how the causes of air accidents in the air have changed over 100 years. Nevertheless, today this is the most safe look movement, because crashes occur with a probability of 0.00001%. In addition, facts are increasingly appearing when, when an airplane crashes, not just one person survives, but a significant part of the passengers.

For example, 4 people survived a plane crash that occurred in Japan in 1985. 12 minutes after takeoff, the plane experienced depressurization in the tail section. The pilots managed to keep the car in the air for 32 minutes, after which the board crashed 100 km from the capital of Japan. As survivors said, there could have been more saved, as people asked for help, but by the time the rescuers arrived, who were in no hurry at all, 520 people were dead. They were killed by hypothermia and wounds received during the fall.

Unfortunately, information about those saved does not always correspond to the truth. This was the case when it was reported that 4 people survived a plane crash over Egypt. In this case, one can only sympathize with people who found hope for a miracle, but then lost it again.

IN Russian history Aviation also has examples where passengers survived a plane crash. Thus, the people who survived the Kogalymavia plane crash in 2011, when the plane caught fire as it was taxiing to the runway, only three people died out of 116 passengers and 6 crew members, while the Tu-154 was completely burned out.

Survive a plane crash... Indeed, throughout history civil aviation there were many passengers who managed to avoid tragedies. Some of them overslept or were late for the ill-fated flight and thanks to this they remained alive. But there are also truly miraculous salvations that are simply impossible to explain. We have made a selection of the most incredible stories about people who survived plane crashes.

1. Terrible plane crash, which occurred in Peru in December 1971, killed 92 people. A Lockheed L-188A aircraft was struck by lightning while flying over tropical forest at an altitude of 3 km. The liner fell apart and it seemed that no one was left alive. But 9 days after the tragedy, a surviving passenger of the “deadly flight” LANSA 508 was found - 17-year-old Juliana Margaret Kepke (in the main photo - note Ed.). The schoolgirl had a broken collarbone, a bruised face, and bruises all over her body. And this - after a fall from a height of 3000 meters! She was not found immediately - Juliana survived alone in the wild conditions of the jungle for more than a week. As Juliana herself later admitted, during the plane crash, the row of seats to which she was fastened rotated like a helicopter blade, which slowed down the speed of the fall. She was also lucky in that the seats collapsed with her into the dense crowns of trees, thereby softening the “landing.” By the way, the story that happened to Juliana Kepke formed the basis of the Italian film “Miracles Still Happen.”

2. An-24 passenger Larisa Savitskaya remembered exactly this very picture “Miracles Still Happen” in 1981. The woman was returning with her husband from their honeymoon, but, unfortunately, they beautiful story love was interrupted at an altitude of 5 km at Far East. On August 24, 1981, the plane they were flying in collided with a Soviet Air Force Tu-16 bomber. Of the 32 people, only 20-year-old Larisa survived. At the time of the disaster, the woman was fast asleep, clinging to her husband. Savitskaya woke up from a strong blow - the plane broke into pieces. She was thrown into the aisle and despite all the horror of what was happening, Larisa managed to firmly grab the nearest chair and press herself into it, like the heroine of the film “Miracles Still Happen.”

Already finding herself on the ground, Larisa saw in front of her a chair with the body of her dead husband. Next to him, she waited for rescuers at the plane crash site for exactly two days.

Larisa Savitskaya is mentioned twice in the Guinness Book of Records: as a survivor of a plane crash and as someone who received the smallest compensation - 75 rubles!

3. The tragedy that occurred in the Andes also formed the basis for a feature film. "Alive" was released in 1993 - 21 years after the infamous story. Uruguayan Airlines Flight 571 carrying 45 rugby players and their loved ones crashed on October 13, 1972. 10 people died immediately, while the rest had to survive for 72 days in the mountains without food.

It’s scary to imagine, but the unfortunate people even had to eat the meat of their dead comrades. A few days later, only 16 people remained alive. The rest died from hunger and cold. The surviving passengers were rescued on December 23, 1972.

4. The year 1972 was marred by another plane crash - on January 26, terrorists blew up a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-3 passenger plane flying from Copenhagen to Zagreb over the Czech town of Srpska Kamenice. The bomb was planted in the luggage compartment and detonated at an altitude of 10,160 m. 27 passengers and crew members were killed. Only 22-year-old flight attendant Vesna Vulovich survived. The woman had a fractured skull, both legs and three vertebrae, but nevertheless she was alive.

For the next 27 days, Vesna was in a coma, and after that she was under the supervision of doctors in the hospital for another 16 months. Miraculous Rescue Vulovich is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the highest jump without a parachute.

5. One of the largest disasters in the history of Japanese civil aviation occurred on August 12, 1985. A Japan Airlines Boeing 747SR-46 crashed near Mount Takamagahara, 100 km from Tokyo.

Of the 520 passengers, only four women survived: 24-year-old Japan Airline employee Hiroko Yoshizaki, a 34-year-old passenger on the plane and her 8-year-old daughter Mikiko, and 12-year-old Keiko Kawakami, who was found sitting in a tree.

6. A photograph of little Cecilia Sichan in 1987 spread all over the world. A 4-year-old girl miraculously survived a plane crash in Detroit on August 16. The tragedy claimed the lives of 156 people, but how Cecilia survived such an incident is still a big mystery. The McDonnell Douglas MD-82 was unable to gain altitude - the plane skidded into a pole, then it overturned and, sliding along the road, flew into an overpass.

During the special operation, rescuers witnessed a heartbreaking picture: a tiny girl with huge eyes of fear sitting in her chair, and next to her were the bodies of her parents and 6-year-old brother.

7. In 2009, another tragedy shocked the world: an Airbus A310 crashed into the Indian Ocean off the coast of the Comoros Islands. There were 142 passengers and 11 crew members on board the plane, which was flying from the Yemeni capital Sanaa to the city of Moroni. It was simply impossible to find anyone alive.

But a miracle still happened: 10 hours after the tragedy, rescuers found a little girl in the ocean, who had spent all this time in the water without a life jacket. In addition, as the baby’s father later admitted, she didn’t even know how to swim! Bahia Bakari held onto the wreckage of the plane.