The Sole Survivor of a Plane Crash Who Then Spent 11 Days in the Amazon Rainforest
By: Liam Hunter-Bailey
Tags: History Of Yesterday, Plane Crashes, Survival, History, Amazon

The Sole Survivor of a Plane Crash Who Then Spent 11 Days in the Amazon Rainforest

The incredible story of Juliane Koepcke, who found herself alone in the Amazon following a crash that killed 90 people Liam Hunter-Bailey Follow Mar 1 · 5 min read

An adult Koepcke posing beside a replica wreckage / Photo by pinterest.com

On 24th December 1971, LANSA flight 508 from Lima to Pucallpa, Peru, was struck by lightning, considered the deadliest lightning strike in aviation history, giving way to a crash which led to the demise of all 90 people on board, except for one 17-year-old girl named Juliane Koepcke. This is how she survived the crash, followed by 11 days alone in the Amazon Rainforest.

It was the day after her senior prom and just hours after her high school graduation ceremony. She was flying with her mother to see her father and celebrate with him. Along the way, the plane encountered a storm and her mother grew concerned. But Juliane, who loved to fly, didn’t think there was anything to worry about.

Lightning strikes

Suddenly, there was a bright white light over the wing and her mother said, ‘Now it’s over!’ The engine roared and people on board screamed as the plane began plummeting towards the ground and pieces of the fuselage began tearing apart.

Juliane, along with her seat (to which she was still strapped) were sucked out of the aircraft and she felt a calming wind as she fell 10,000 feet towards the tree canopy below. Her seat rotated like a helicopter as she went down, something she believes slowed her descent enough not to be fatal.

Upon impact, Koepcke blacked out and has no recollection of the next 20 hours. She thinks she must have woken up and removed her seatbelt during this time as it was off when she regained consciousness fully.

Juliane regains consciousness

It was 9 a.m. the morning after the crash, she knew this because of her wristwatch which was still working.

It was raining heavily and she was soaking wet, so she climbed under her seat bench to escape the rain while she regained her strength. She said,

“I couldn’t really feel anything; it was like being wrapped in cotton balls. With a lot of effort, I could only get up on my knees. Then everything turned black again.”

It would be a full day and a half before she would be able to get up and walk. She knew that her collarbone must have been broken and could see a deep laceration on her calf. She also had another cut on her arm which had become infested with maggots and she feared it would have to be amputated, but due to the effects of adrenaline, she didn’t feel any pain.

A young Koepcke and her portrayal in a documentary / Photo by snopes.com

Juliane forced herself to her feet when she felt strong enough and used her childhood knowledge of working with her parents in a Peruvian rainforest research centre to help her. She was very familiar with the landscape and type of terrain, and said,

“I learned a lot about life in the rainforest. That it wasn’t too dangerous. It’s not the green hell that the world always thinks it is.”

Juliane began to scout the area for other survivors and resources, leaving a trail to find her way back. On the fourth day after the crash, she heard a noise she recognised — a King Vulture landing in the forest. She knew from her mother that this particular bird only landed when rotting flesh was in the immediate vicinity. Following the sound, she found the remains of three other passengers. They had hit the ground with such force that they were buried three feet underground with only their feet sticking up. One of the people was a woman and Koepcke feared it was her mother. However, she noticed that this lady had her toenails painted and her mother did not.

Survival skills

Juliane found water by sucking droplets off leaves but finding food proved more difficult. She didn’t have the tools to hack at roots and knew that a great deal of what grew in the rainforest was poisonous. She had been lucky enough to discover a bag of candy close to where she landed and it would be her only sustenance. She rationed it and had only a couple of pieces each day, when it was gone she experienced extreme hunger.

She found a small well and followed it downstream to find bigger water. She was wearing only a short, sleeveless dress which made the nights very cold and her wristwatch had now stopped working, meaning she had to watch the sun closely to work out the time. She had lost one of her shoes which was worrying as she knew there were lots of deadly snakes on the forest floor, and even worse, she had broken her glasses at the site of the crash.

The creek she was following gradually became big enough to walk in and, although she saw crocodiles, she knew they rarely bothered humans and travelling by water was a lot safer than by land.

Finding signs of life

She pressed on through the wilderness and, on the tenth day after the crash, she spotted an empty boat. She ran over to it, touched it and assumed it must be from her rescuers. She spotted a path up a nearby passage and followed it, coming across a hut on her way.

Inside, she found a can of gasoline and recalled her father once using kerosine to treat a dog’s wound. Now in a lot of pain caused by the infected wound on her arm, Juliane decided to do the same thing to her own injury and poured the gasoline on her arm. The pain was intense but it worked and she was able to remove 30 maggots herself. Due to this, she never had to lose her arm.

Koepcke as an adult in later life / Photo by news-mail.com.au

Finally being rescued

Juliane headed back to the riverbank, where the boat was, and spent the night there. She was discovered the next morning by three Peruvian men who were initially confused by her presence. She had bloodshot eyes and blonde hair, and the men believed her to be a ‘water spirit’. Luckily, Juliane spoke fluent Spanish and was able to convey to them what had happened. They took her downstream to a nearby town where she was treated in hospital.

She was the only survivor of the crash.

It did, however, almost claim one more life. Film director Werner Herzog was almost on board flight 508 but his plans changed last minute and he was forced to cancel. The story inspired him to create a documentary about Juliane Koepcke, called Wings of Hope, which premiered in 1998.