From the movie "Miracles Still Happen" (miracoli accadono ancora)
This is the amazing story of Juliana Koepke, a 17-year-old German girl who was born in Peru and boarded a flight back to her country in December 1971. Since Juliana wanted to arrive in time for Christmas and spend time with her family, she and her mother bought a plane ticket and boarded an Electra plane despite her father's warning and advice change flight because he was aware of the bad reputation of this plane.
It was on Christmas Eve when Juliana boarded Electra Flight 508 and suddenly at an altitude of over 3,000 meters above the ground, the plane she was in was struck by lightning, shattered into pieces and fell straight into the Amazon forests in South America.
The plane's 90 passengers and crew were killed instantly - except for Juliana, who fell straight into the forests of Peru.
The plane that Yuliana was on was destroyed following the thunderstorm and when it crashed on the ground, when the row of chairs detached from the place and spun in the air - Yuliana was sitting in one of them.
Watch her story
Juliana was sure that this terrible crash and the rainforests of Peru would be the last thing she would see in her life.
But suddenly the unbelievable happened and she woke up in the thick of the forest with only minor injuries even though she crashed together with the plane and fell from a height of 3 kilometers.
She was dressed in a short shirt that was torn and with one sandal that survived she set out on an amazing survival journey.
In a forest full of deadly snakes, mosquitoes and spiders, the young and tough girl - the daughter of two senior German zoologists, was determined to survive and reach civilization again.
Another near-air disaster
The pilot who was ejected from the plane at an altitude of over 7,000 meters and survived
To the full article
Juliana testified that she saw a large white light above one of the plane's wings at the time of its crash.
Then, the huge roar of the engine and the screams of the other passengers stopped.
"The next thing I knew, I was no longer inside the plane," Yuliana told the New York Times.
Others survive
like this A passenger who fell off a cruise ship in the middle of the night survived 20 hours in the water
A man lost in the forest survived 17 days eating insects and drinking urine
The story of Juliana Koepka - this world, issue 1797 dated February 9, 1972 (photo: official website, this world website archive)
"I was outside, in the open air," testified Yuliana, who was apparently the only passenger in her row who was wearing a seat belt, "I didn't leave the plane, the plane left me."
She had a broken collarbone, a deep cut on her arm and a swollen right eye.
After the accident she said: "Without a doubt I was tied to a chair when I fell, it softened the crash, otherwise I wouldn't have survived."
Her first desire after getting up from the wreckage was to locate her mother, who was sitting in the seat next to her on the plane, but she was unable to find her.
Later she learned that the mother also survived the crash, but she died of her injuries after a few days.
Yulia managed to find sweets that served as her food source.
She followed flowing water relying on a survival principle she learned from her father: next to large streams and rivers there will always be a population.
The stream provided her with clean water, and a natural route to cross the lush forest vegetation.
At night she could not sleep because of the many mosquito bites that became infected and festering.
After nine days she found a boat next to a cabin, where the boat engine and fuel tank were found.
Again, relying on the survival principle she learned from her father, she poured gasoline on her injured hand, the gasoline caused 35 maggots on her hand to die and she waited for rescue.
Afterwards she said: "I remembered seeing my father curing a dog of worms in the jungle with gasoline. I took some gasoline and poured it on myself. I counted the maggots when they started coming out of my arm, there were 35 maggots. I stayed there but I wanted to leave. I didn't want to start the boat, Because I didn't want to steal her."
A few hours later, loggers who used the cabin for night shelter located her and treated her wounds and mosquito bites.
The next morning she was put in a canoe on a journey that lasted seven hours.
Thanks to the help of a local pilot, she was flown to a hospital in Pucallpa, where her father was waiting for her.
Her inspiring story was later told in books and films (in 2022 it was reported that Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner would play her in a film based on her book).
And today 68-year-old Juliana Diller lives happily and is considered a senior biologist in Germany.
Her autobiographical book Als ich vom Himmel fiel ("When I fell from the sky") was published on March 10, 2011 and won her a national prize for literature in Germany
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