Vesna Vulović – Sky’s Hero

On January 26, 1972, due to the explosion of a hidden bomb, a JAT (Yugoslav Airlines) “DC-9” aircraft crashed on the Copenhagen-Belgrade route above Srpska Kamenica in Czechoslovakia (today’s Czech Republic). Stewardess Vesna Vulović was the sole survivor of the crash, as she was strapped to her seat at the rear of the plane, which remained attached to the toilets after the explosion and fell onto a snow-covered mountain slope.

During the incident, she sustained numerous injuries, including a skull fracture, both legs broken, and three fractured vertebrae, one of which was crushed, leaving her temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. She walked again after several months, following multiple consecutive surgeries.

What is particularly interesting is that the 22-year-old stewardess wasn’t even originally assigned to that flight; she had been suddenly replaced by another stewardess also named Vesna.

Vesna Vulović entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the only person to survive a fall from a height of 10,160 meters (33,333 feet) without a parachute. She received the award personally from Paul McCartney. Later, in the 1970s, she became a national hero in Yugoslavia. After a complete recovery, she continued to work for JAT, but not as a stewardess—she worked behind the counter.

She passed away in 2016 in Belgrade at the age of 66.