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How I survived a plane crash
- bennyfreshness 15y agoThis reminds me of an insanely compelling and moving plane crash survival documentary featuring commentary from survivors streaming on Netflix, a must see.. http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Stranded_I_ve_Come_from_a_Plane_That_Crashed_on_the_Mountains/70084170 http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Stranded_I_ve_Come_from_a_Pl...
- shimon_e 15y agoCouldn't infrared have been used to detect where the living humans were after the plane had crashed? Sad outcome for the mother. :(
- waiwai933 15y agoThis particular crash was in 1971 in the middle of the Peruvian rainforest. I'm not sure when portable infrared cameras became available, but I doubt they were widely had around this time, and doesn't seem like it crashed near any major cities with air force bases nearby, so while the technology may have existed, I wouldn't be surprised if they were too expensive to just keep lying around waiting to be used.
- zalew 15y agoCounting the rich wildlife of such forests along with high density of trees, would spotting a human in all that noise even possible?
- shimon_e 15y agoI think you will find infrared was advance enough by 1971. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared#History_of_infrared_science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared#History_of_infrared_sc... If they could afford to fly search planes overhead I can't see cost being the issue that prevented them from doing the search more efficiently.
- ars 15y ago> I think you will find infrared was advance enough by 1971 It was not. The link you posted says that only film infrared was available then, and that would not be helpful for searching in a jungle. And even in 1978 the best they could do was a resolution of 64x64 which isn't enough to identify a human from an animal.
- jonny_eh 15y agoA great classic story of survival. I can't get enough of these. Makes me glad to have the life that I do. No matter what silly hardships I think I have, I can just be glad I never had to deal with a horrific situation like this. I recommend checking out the series "I Shouldn't Be Alive". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Shouldnt_Be_Alive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Shouldnt_Be_Alive Looking through the episode list, I'm surprised that Juliane's story isn't in there.
- drewblaisdell 15y agoI 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. If by Peruvian Rainforest she means Peruvian Amazon, I fathom how anyone wouldn't think of it as a green hell. Thousands of people have died simply from travelling through it. What an ordeal, though.
- nandemo 15y agoWell, her statement seems more reasonable in context: > Before the crash, I had spent a year and a half with my parents on their research station only 30 miles away. I learned a lot about life in the rainforest, that it wasn't too dangerous. Arguably, the biggest dangers of the Amazon forrest are malaria-carrying mosquitoes, poisonous snakes, spiders and scorpions, and lack of access to drinkable water and edible food. Since she had lived in a research station, she was probably vaccinated and knew how to mitigate the other risks (e.g. there is plenty of edible food, you just need to know how to identify it). All in all, it seems a better deal than getting stranded in the Andes, the Sahara or the African savannahs.
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- bitsoda 15y agoGreat, another horror story to add to my "this is why I abhor air travel" bank. I know the statistics show that planes are very safe, but it's hard to reconcile the numbers with grisly accounts like these.
- mikeash 15y agoSurely you can find grisly accounts relating to any mode of transportation you care to name. There's nothing uniquely grisly about air travel accidents.
- bitsoda 15y agoIn motor vehicle accidents, you don't have time to think about what is going to happen. As a plane is in a freefall, there's at least a good 30 seconds before ground collision. Having that time to think about how your life is about to end seems grisly to me.
- mikeash 15y agoYou might struggle for days or weeks before succumbing to your injuries after a car accident. Again, there's nothing particularly bad about airplane accidents, except for the part where they're much more rare and thus much more newsworthy.
- JumpCrisscross 15y agoTake-off and landing, which account for only 2% of flight time, are responsible for about 40% of fatal crashes. If we include taxiing, final approach, and and initial climb this is 70% of fatal crashes for 6% of flight time [1]. Not much time there to contemplate your fate. [1] http://planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm http://planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm
- andrewflnr 15y agoGrisly accounts involving cars aren't news. They happen too often.
- spullara 15y agoThe saddest part about this whole story is that it seems if she had searched for her mother she might have saved her. It was probably worse finding out she was still alive after the crash.
- velus 15y agoNo, there's no way she'd be able to save her. She could not carry her on the 9 day journey.
- grandpoobah 15y agoCould've said goodbye though
- ekianjo 15y agoYeah, but as far as I can understand they could have been on very remote locations. How do you even search for someone in an unknown, dark, dense forest ?
- diN0bot 15y ago"I had nightmares for a long time, for years, and of course the grief about my mother's death and that of the other people came back again and again. The thought Why was I the only survivor? haunts me. It always will." A quote from her in 2010 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliane_Koepcke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliane_Koepcke
- cturner 15y agoHow would you get your orientation to know where the other bit of the aircraft was? It's enough of a challenge simply not to walk around in circles when you're isolated.
- spullara 15y agoIn the article it says she finds other victims of the crash, still strapped in their seats.
- rickhap 15y agoWings of Hope is a Herzog documentary that tells this story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_of_Hope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_of_Hope
- pvarangot 15y agoI came here to mention exactly this. I can't believe how the article misses this fact, even when it includes pictures of her return to the crash site that were actually taken during the filming of Herzog's documentary. For all of HNers interested in this story, the documentary is highly recommendable if you like Herzog's deeply psychoanalytical take when he portrays real life characters and situations. Other curious fact: Werner Herzog was supposed to take this flight. He missed it.
- chenrich 15y agoHaven't seen the Herzog documentary, but I remember seeing this story dramatized in a (West) German movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071845 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071845 I was maybe 8 or 9 when it was shown on Japanese TV. Amazed it didn't scare me away from air travel for life.
- ekianjo 15y agoI wonder if she was able to overcome, after all these years, the fear of flying after surviving a crash. Long lasting deep trauma, for sure.
- guynamedloren 15y agoI believe the article included a photo with a caption of her boarding a plane the following year. So yes, I think she overcame that fear.
- gwern 15y ago> I found a small creek and walked in the water because I knew it was safer. Would not have guessed that.
- bootload 15y ago"... The pain was intense as the maggots tried to get further into the wound. I pulled out about 30 maggots and was very proud of myself. I decided to spend the night there. ..." Should have eaten the maggots, lots of protein.
- grandpoobah 15y agoAnd maggots are actually good for an open wound, they keep it clean. Atleast that's what I heard a Veterinarian say.
- ender7 15y agoDepends on the species of maggot. The good ones only eat dead flesh, effectively cleaning the wound. The bad ones eat everything.
- newman314 15y agoHow do you tell the difference?
- grandpoobah 15y agoYou wait..
- awakeasleep 15y agoShe was probably talking about Bott Flies. They're parasitic insects that live in the healthy flesh of the victim. I say they were Bott's because she had worked to get them out of an infected animal before.
- vecter 15y agoIs it just me or is the most incredible part that she survived the impact? I'd be curious to understand how she fell from that high and didn't die from the immediate impact or wounds sustained from that, such as broken limbs that would have rendered her immobile. I imagine she probably just hit a ton of tree branches which softened the impact considerably. The odds of that seem tiny, but then again it could just be survivorship bias.
- shimon_e 15y agoHer mother is said to have also survived the crash. Only to die a few days later in the forest.
- shimon_e 15y agoAccording to wikipedia, "It was later discovered that as many as 14 other passengers also survived the initial fall from the disintegrated plane but were unable to seek help and died while awaiting rescue." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LANSA_Flight_508 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LANSA_Flight_508
- sixQuarks 15y agoWow, that's insane. I'm surprised they never made a movie about this.
- inspiredworlds 15y agoepic story. Sounded like she was level headed and calm about the ordeal and that helped her to survive (in addition to her experience with the rainforest).
- pheon 15y agoseems HN has finally become reddit. what does this have anything to do with hacking, startups, or even computers.
- farmdawgnation 15y agoWhat startup isn't like a plane crash at some point or another? ;)
- joeguilmette 15y agoIt's interesting to hackers...? I usually defend submissions and discussions like these, but this? This is rather indefensible.
- andrewfelix 15y agoWas a brilliant read. But, while it might not technically go against the HN submission guidelines, I don't think this article belongs here.
- link2009 15y agoYour tone! You forgot to capitalize the letters of every sentence. You're contributing to the redditness!
- koko775 15y agoSeems like the fate of any popular news aggregator is to aggregate things of general interest, no matter how well-targeted it begins.
- entropie 15y agoThe facts I got from the HN-discussion are very enlightening and interesting; also it was a good read. Very ok for me to see this on the frontpage.
- matthew-wegner 15y agoThere's actually a pretty gigantic list of sole survivors from plane crashes. Lot of stories here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sole_survivors_of_airline_accidents_or_incidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sole_survivors_of_airli...
- anatari 15y agoHow you could also survive a free fall: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/safety/4344036 http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/safety/4...
- yatsyk 15y agoIt would be interesting to have seat numbers of survivors.
- _delirium 15y agoPopular Mechanics did an analysis of seat location's impact on survivability based on NTSB reports: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/safety/4219452 http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/safety/4... There's relatively little data, though, since commercial airliners don't crash that often.
- radarsat1 15y agoSo, no time traveling vortex then. No polar bears. Got it.