Her row of seats is thought to have landed in dense foliage, cushioning the impact. It was hours later that the men arrived at the boat and were shocked to see her. The flight was supposed to last less than an hour. By contrast, there are only 27 species in the entire continent of Europe. The preserve has been colonized by all three species of vampires. Her survival is unexplainable and considered a modern day miracle. It was Christmas Eve 1971 and everyone was eager to get home, we were angry because the plane was seven hours late. He is an expert on parasitic wasps. Over the years, Juliane has struggled to understand how she came to be the only survivor of LANSA flight 508. Juliane Koepcke. [2], Koepcke's unlikely survival has been the subject of much speculation. The German weekly Stern had her feasting on a cake she found in the wreckage and implied, from an interview conducted during her recovery, that she was arrogant and unfeeling. Quando adolescente, em 1971, Koepcke sobreviveu queda de avio do Voo LANSA 508, depois de sofrer uma queda de 3000 m, ainda presa ao assento. Juliane Koepcke was shot like a cannon out of an airliner, dropped 9,843 feet from the sky, slammed into the Amazon jungle, got up, brushed herself off, and walked to safety. He urged them to find an alternative route, but with Christmas just around the corner, Juliane and Maria decided to book their tickets. On her fourth day of trudging through the Amazon, the call of king vultures struck fear in Juliane. Then, she lost consciousness. [10] The book won that year's Corine Literature Prize. [7] She received a doctorate from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and returned to Peru to conduct research in mammalogy, specialising in bats. Without her glasses, Juliane found it difficult to orientate herself. Those were the last words I ever heard from her. Photo / Getty Images. Dr. Diller laid low until 1998, when she was approached by the movie director Werner Herzog, who hoped to turn her survivors story into a documentary for German TV. Her parents were stationed several hundred miles away, manning a remote research outpost in the heart of the Amazon. Together, they set up a biological research station called Panguana so they could immerse themselves in the lush rainforest's ecosystem. The jungle was my real teacher. The trees in the dense Peruvian rainforest looked like heads of broccoli, she thought, while falling towards them at 45 metres per second. On Juliane Koepcke's Last Day Of Survival On the 10th day, with her skin covered in leaves to protect her from mosquitoes and in a hallucinating state, Juliane Koepcke came across a boat and shelter. She was also a well-respected authority in South American ornithology and her work is still referenced today. Born in Lima on Oct. 10, 1954, Koepcke was the child of two German zoologists who had moved to Peru to study wildlife. Before anything else, she knew that she needed to find her mother. Now its all over, Koepcke recalls hearing her mother say. She was sunburned, starving and weak, and by the tenth day of her trek, ready to give up. The plane was later struck by lightning and disintegrated, but one survivor, Juliane Koepcke, lived after a free fall. She died several days later. They had landed head first into the ground with such force that they were buried three feet with their legs sticking straight up in the air. There were no passports, and visas were hard to come by. The experience also prompted her to write a memoir on her remarkable tale of survival, When I Fell From the Sky. His fiance followed him in a South Pacific steamer in 1950 and was hired at the museum, too, eventually running the ornithology department. With a broken collarbone and a deep gash on her calf, she slipped back into unconsciousness. No trees bore fruit. The forces of nature are usually too great for any living thing to overcome. I realised later that I had ruptured a ligament in my knee but I could walk. I dread to think what her last days were like. While in the jungle, she dealt with severe insect bites and an infestation of maggots in her wounded arm. [14] Koepcke accompanied him on a visit to the crash site, which she described as a "kind of therapy" for her.[15]. It was horrifying, she told me. [14] He had planned to make the film ever since narrowly missing the flight, but was unable to contact Koepcke for decades since she avoided the media; he located her after contacting the priest who performed her mother's funeral. Juliane is an outstanding ambassador for how much private philanthropy can achieve, said Stefan Stolte, an executive board member of Stifterverband, a German nonprofit that promotes education, science and innovation. When she finally regained consciousness she had a broken collarbone, a swollen right eye, and large gashes on her arms and legs, but otherwise, she miraculously survived the plane crash. The sight left her exhilarated as it was her only hope to get united with the civilization soon again. MUNICH, Germany (CNN) -- Juliane Koepcke is not someone you'd expect to attract attention. Maria agreed that Koepcke could stay longer and instead they scheduled a flight for Christmas Eve. Collections; . Juliane Koepcke (Juliane Diller Koepcke) was born on 10 October, 1954 in Lima, Peru, is a Mammalogist and only survivor of LANSA Flight 508. This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced. Dr. Diller attributes her tenacity to her father, Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, a single-minded ecologist. And one amongst them is Juliane Koepcke. That cause would become Panguana, the oldest biological research station in Peru. Later I learned that the plane had broken into pieces about two miles above the ground. Then the screams of the other passengers and the thundering roar of the engine seemed to vanish. Still, they let her stay there for another night and the following day, they took her by boat to a local hospital located in a small nearby town. Next, they took her through a seven hour long canoe ride down the river to a lumber station where she was airlifted to her father in Pucallpa. As baggage popped out of the overhead compartments, Koepckes mother murmured, Hopefully this goes all right. But then, a lightning bolt struck the motor, and the plane broke into pieces. After 11 harrowing days along in the jungle, Koepcke was saved. All aboard were killed, except for 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke. Most unbearable among the discomforts was the disappearance of her eyeglasses she was nearsighted and one of her open-back sandals. I woke the next day and looked up into the canopy. I was outside, in the open air. Juliane Koepcke, When I Fell from the Sky: The True Story of One Woman's Miraculous Survival 3 likes Like "But thinking and feeling are separate from each other. Postwar travel in Europe was difficult enough, but particularly problematic for Germans. In 1968 her parents took her to the Panguana biological station, where they had started to investigate the lowland rainforest, on which very little was known at the time. As a teenager, Juliane was enrolled at a Peruvian high school. On the morning after Juliane Diller fell to earth, she awoke in the deep jungle of the Peruvian rainforest dazed with incomprehension. More than 40 years later, she recalls what happened. Dr. Dillers parents instilled in their only child not only a love of the Amazon wilderness, but the knowledge of the inner workings of its volatile ecosystem. (Her Ph.D thesis dealt with the coloration of wild and domestic doves; his, woodlice). Much of her administrative work involves keeping industrial and agricultural development at bay. Your IP: On her flight with director Werner Herzog, she once again sat in seat 19F. She became a media spectacle and she was not always portrayed in a sensitive light. Currently, she serves as librarian at the Bavarian State Zoological Collection in Munich. Birthday: October 10, 1954 ( Libra) Born In: Lima, Peru 82 19 Biologists #16 Scientists #143 Quick Facts German Celebrities Born In October Also Known As: Juliane Diller Age: 68 Years, 68 Year Old Females Family: Spouse/Ex-: Erich Diller father: Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke mother: Maria Koepcke Born Country: Peru Biologists German Women City: Lima, Peru It was not its fault that I landed there., In 1981, she spent 18 months in residence at the station while researching her graduate thesis on diurnal butterflies and her doctoral dissertation on bats. During the intervening years, Juliane moved to Germany, earned a Ph.D. in biology and became an eminent zoologist. But I introduced myself in Spanish and explained what had happened. By the memories, Koepcke meant that harrowing experience on Christmas eve in 1971. Continue reading to find out more about her. I grabbed a stick and turned one of her feet carefully so I could see the toenails. Koepcke survived the LANSA Flight 508 plane crash as a teenager in 1971, after falling 3,000 m (9,843 ft) while still strapped to her seat. Her father, Hand Wilhelm Koepcke, was a biologist who was working in the city of Pucallpa while her mother, Maria Koepcke, was an ornithologist. Juliane is active on Instagram where she has more the 1.3k followers. Julian Koepckes miraculous survival brought her immense fame. Immediately after the fall, Koepcke lost consciousness. When the plane was mid-air, the weather outside suddenly turned worse. It was the first time she was able to focus on the incident from a distance and, in a way, gain a sense of closure that she said she still hadnt gotten. Her collar bone was also broken and she had gashes to her shoulder and calf. Under Dr. Dillers stewardship, Panguana has increased its outreach to neighboring Indigenous communities by providing jobs, bankrolling a new schoolhouse and raising awareness about the short- and long-term effects of human activity on the rainforests biodiversity and climate change. It took 11 days for her to be rescued and when you hear what Julianne faced . Juliane Koepcke, a 16-year-old girl who survived the fall from 10,000 feet during the LANSA Flight 508 plane crash, is still remembered. Dozens of people have fallen from planes and walked away relatively unscathed. Juliane Koepcke was 17 years old when it happened. The next thing she knew, she was falling from the plane and into the canopy below. Survival Skills To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. She knew she had survived a plane crash and she couldnt see very well out of one eye. Born to German parents in 1954, Juliane was raised in the Peruvian jungle from which she now had to escape. Getting there was not easy. [8], In 1989, Koepcke married Erich Diller, a German entomologist who specialises in parasitic wasps. Morbid. Juliane Koepcke pictured after returning to her native Germany Credit: AP The pair were flying from Peru's capital Lima to the city of Pucallpa in the Amazonian rainforest when their plane hit. TwitterJuliane Koepcke wandered the Peruvian jungle for 11 days before she stumbled upon loggers who helped her. It was like hearing the voices of angels. Experts have said that she survived the fall because she was harnessed into her seat, which was in the middle of her row, and the two seats on either side of her (which remained attached to her seat as part of a row of three) are thought to have functioned as a parachute which slowed her fall. Late in 1948, Koepcke was offered a job at the natural history museum in Lima. At the crash site I had found a bag of sweets. Juliane Koepcke attended a German Peruvian High School. The aircraft had broken apart, separating her from everyone else onboard. Her survival is unexplainable and considered a modern day miracle. Miraculously, her injuries were relatively minor: a broken collarbone, a sprained knee and gashes on her right shoulder and left calf, one eye swollen shut and her field of vision in the other narrowed to a slit. She achieved a reluctant fame from the air disaster, thanks to a cheesy Italian biopic in 1974, Miracles Still Happen, in which the teenage Dr. Diller is portrayed as a hysterical dingbat. It's believed 14 peoplesurvived the impact, but were not well enough to trek out of the jungle like Juliane. The two were traveling to the research area named Panguana after having attended Koepcke's graduation ball in Lima on what would have only been an hour-long flight. ), While working on her dissertation, Dr. Diller documented 52 species of bats at the reserve. . You're traveling in an airplane, tens of thousands of feet above the Earth, and the unthinkable happens. On the fourth day of her trek, she came across three fellow passengers still strapped to their seats. I learned a lot about life in the rainforest, that it wasn't too dangerous. Her survival is unexplainable and considered a modern day miracle. Suddenly the noise stopped and I was outside the plane. Her mother's body was discovered on 12 January 1972. After 20 percent, there is no possibility of recovery, Dr. Diller said, grimly. On the way, however, Koepcke had come across a small well. The men didnt quite feel the same way. But then, the hour-long flight turned into a nightmare when a massive thunderstorm sent the small plane hurtling into the trees. The story of how Juliane Koepcke survived the doomed LANSA Flight 508 still fascinates people todayand for good reason. Just to have helped people and to have done something for nature means it was good that I was allowed to survive, she said with a flicker of a smile. Their plan was to conduct field studies on its plants and animals for five years, exploring the rainforest without exploiting it. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Placed in the second row from the back, Juliane took the window seat while her mother sat in the middle seat. But still, she lived. He met his wife, Maria von Mikulicz-Radecki, in 1947 at the University of Kiel, where both were biology students. On my lonely 11-day hike back to civilization, I made myself a promise, Dr. Diller said. On Christmas Eve of 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke boarded LANSA Flight 508 at the Lima Airport in Peru with her mother, Maria. After about 10 minutes, I saw a very bright light on the outer engine on the left. Considering a fall from 10,000ft straight into the forest, that is incredible to have managed injuries that would still allow her to fight her way out of the jungle. Juliane Koepcke was born a German national in Lima, Peru, in 1954, the daughter of a world-renowned zoologist (Hans-Wilhelm) and an equally revered ornithologist (Maria). Returningto civilisation meant this hardy young woman, the daughter of two famous zoologists,would need to findher own way out. Still strapped in were a woman and two men who had landed headfirst, with such force that they were buried three feet into the ground, legs jutting grotesquely upward. She received a doctorate from Ludwig-Maximilian University and returned to Peru to conduct research in mammalogy, specializing in bats. She could identify the croaks of frogs and the bird calls around her. Her first pet was a parrot named Tobias, who was already there when she was born. She had fallen some 10,000 feet, nearly two miles. She remembers the aircraft nose-diving and her mother saying, evenly, Now its all over. She remembers people weeping and screaming. An illustration of a tinamou by Dr. Dillers mother, Maria Koepcke. Snakes are camouflaged there and they look like dry leaves. In this photo from 1974, Madonna Louise Ciccone is 16 years old. Juliane has several theories about how she made it backin one piece. I recognized the sounds of wildlife from Panguana and realized I was in the same jungle and had survived the crash, Dr. Diller said. The trees in the dense Peruvian rainforest looked like heads of broccoli, she thought, while falling towards them at 45 metres per second. it was released in English as Miracles Still Happen (1974) and sometimes is called The . The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. The family lived in Panguana full-time with a German shepherd, Lobo, and a parakeet, Florian, in a wooden hut propped on stilts, with a roof of palm thatch. 17-year-old Juliane Kopcke (centre front) was the sole survivor of the crash of LANSA Flight 508 in the Peruvian rainforest. Juliane Koepcke two nights before the crash at her High School prom Today I found out that a 17 year old girl survived a 2 mile fall from a plane without a parachute, then trekked alone 10 days through the Peruvian rainforest. Juliane, likely the only one in her row wearing a seat belt, spiralled down into the heart of the Amazon totally alone. On December 24, 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke boarded Lneas Areas Nacionales S.A. (LANSA) Flight 508 at the Jorge Chvez . Dead or alive, Koepcke searched the forest for the crash site. The memories have helped me again and again to keep a cool head even in difficult situations.. Both unfortunately and miraculously, she was the only survivor from flight 508 that day. On that fateful day, the flight was meant to be an hour long. Sandwich trays soar through the air, and half-finished drinks spill onto passengers' heads. What I experienced was not fear but a boundless feeling of abandonment. In shock, befogged by a concussion and with only a small bag of candy to sustain her, she soldiered on through the fearsome Amazon: eight-foot speckled caimans, poisonous snakes and spiders, stingless bees that clumped to her face, ever-present swarms of mosquitoes, riverbed stingrays that, when stepped on, instinctively lash out with their barbed, venomous tails. The first man I saw seemed like an angel, said Koepcke. The key is getting the surrounding population to commit to preserving and protecting its environment, she said. Today, Koepcke is a biologist and a passionate . Nymphalid butterfly, Agrias sardanapalus. I lay there, almost like an embryo for the rest of the day and a whole night, until the next morning, she wrote in her memoir, When I Fell From the Sky, published in Germany in 2011. One of them was a woman, but after checking, Koepcke realized it was not her mother. She moved to Germany where she fully recovered from her injuries, internally, extermally and psychologically. A mid-air explosion in 1972 saw Vesna plummet 9 kilometres into thick snow in Czechoslovakia. I thought my mother could be one of them but when I touched the corpse with a stick, I saw that the woman's toenails were painted - my mother never polished her nails. Her father had warned her that piranhas were only dangerous in the shallows, so she floated mid-stream hoping she would eventually encounter other humans. Suddenly everything turned pitch black and moments later, the plane went into a nose dive. Juliane Koepcke suffered a broken collarbone and a deep calf gash. Two words showed something was wrong with the system, When Daniel picked up a dropped box on a busy road, he had no idea it would lead to the 'best present ever', Plans to redevelop 'eyesore' on prime riverside land fall apart as billionaires exit, After centuries of Murdaugh rule in the Deep South, the family's power ends with a life sentence for murder, Tom Sizemore, Saving Private Ryan actor, dies aged 61, 'Heartbroken': Matildas midfielder suffers serious injury ahead of World Cup. I hadnt left the plane; the plane had left me.CreditLaetitia Vancon for The New York Times. It always will. Juliane could hear rescue planes searching for her, but the forest's thick canopy kept her hidden. Largely through the largess of Hofpfisterei, a bakery chain based in Munich, the property has expanded from its original 445 acres to 4,000. Juliane Koepcke's story will have you questioning any recent complaint you've made. An upward draft, a benevolent canopy of leaves, and pure luck can conspire to deliver a girl safely back to Earth like a maple seed. Koepcke was born in Lima on 10 October 1954, the only child of German zoologists Maria (ne von Mikulicz-Radecki; 19241971) and Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke (19142000). But she was still alive. Its extraordinary biodiversity is a Garden of Eden for scientists, and a source of yielding successful research projects., Entomologists have cataloged a teeming array of insects on the ground and in the treetops of Panguana, including butterflies (more than 600 species), orchard bees (26 species) and moths (some 15,000). Koepcke returning to the site of the crash with filmmaker Werner Herzog in 1998. What's the least exercise we can get away with? Select from premium Juliane Koepcke of the highest quality. Then check out these amazing survival stories. On those bleak nights, as I cower under a tree or in a bush, I feel utterly abandoned," she wrote. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a28663b9d1a40f5 [1] Nonetheless, the flight was booked. [3], Koepcke's autobiography Als ich vom Himmel fiel: Wie mir der Dschungel mein Leben zurckgab (German for When I Fell from the Sky: How the Jungle Gave Me My Life Back) was released in 2011 by Piper Verlag. Juliane received hundreds of letters from strangers, and she said, "It was so strange. On Christmas Eve of 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke boarded a plane with her mother in Peru with the intent of flying to meet her father at his research station in the Amazon rainforest. From above, the treetops resembled heads of broccoli, Dr. Diller recalled. She wonders if perhaps the powerful updraft of the thunderstorm slowed her descent, if the thick canopy of leaves cushioned her landing. I learned to use old Indian trails as shortcuts and lay out a system of paths with a compass and folding ruler to orient myself in the thick bush.