Home / Disasters and Accidents / Sole Survivor: Girl's Rainforest Ordeal
Sole Survivor: Girl's Rainforest Ordeal
11 Nov
Summary
- Teenage girl survived a plane crash in 1971.
- She wandered the rainforest alone for 10 days.
- She used her jungle upbringing to survive.
In December 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke survived a catastrophic plane crash over the Peruvian rainforest. The flight, LANSA Flight 508, encountered a violent thunderstorm, causing it to break apart mid-air. Koepcke miraculously survived the thousands-of-meters fall, still strapped to her seat.
She awoke alone in the dense jungle with injuries including a broken collarbone and deep cuts. Drawing on her upbringing at her zoologist parents' research station, she knew how to survive in the rainforest. For ten days, she followed a creek, subsisting on a meager bag of sweets.
Koepcke's resourcefulness was tested when her wounds became infested with maggots. Remembering her father's advice, she used petrol from a found boat motor to disinfect the wound. On her eleventh day, she encountered local men who took her to civilization. Of the 92 people on board, only Koepcke walked out alive. Her mother also survived the crash but died from her injuries several days later.
