On the 24th of December, 1971, LANSA Flight 508 was flying from Lima to Pucallpa, Peru
when it encountered a storm and was struck by lightning.
The plane broke up and crashed down into the Amazon rainforest, in what would turn out
to be the deadliest lightning strike in aviation history.
Of the 92 people on board, only one would survive.
Juliane Koepcke, was born on the 10th of October, 1954, in Lima, Peru.
She was the daughter of two German natural scientists: Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, a biologist,
and Maria Koepcke, an ornithologist.
Both her parents worked at the Museum of Natural History in Lima until 1968, when they decided
to pursue their interests in scientific fieldwork in the Amazon jungle, taking their young teenage
daughter with them.
They established the Panguana biological station—a mammal, insect and fish research centre located
deep in the Peruvian lowland rainforest.
Given the remoteness of the research station, Juliane was home-schooled for several years,
until local educational authorities declared that she would have to return to Lima to finish
her high school education.
By late December, 1971, Juliane had finished school.
She and her mother were originally due to return to the research station a week before
Christmas, but decided to delay plans by a few days, so that Juliane could attend her
high school graduation ceremony.
By the time mother and daughter were ready to fly back to Panguana, the only tickets
available were for a LANSA flight, departing at noon on the 24th of December.
LANSA (or Lineas Aéreas Nacionales South America) was a commercial Peruvian airline
originally founded in 1963, which provided a much-needed connection between Lima and
other regions within Peru.
Over the years as the company expanded, international destinations such as Chile, Honduras and Miami
in the United States were added to their roster.
The company had a notoriously bad safety record.
In 1966, pilot error on Flight 101 from Lima to Cusco caused the plane to crash into a
mountainside, killing all 49 passengers.
Four years later, LANSA Flight 502 suffered an engine fire, and crashed into a valley
killing 99 people on board and two others on the ground.
Pilot error and lax engine maintenance procedures were to blame.
The public were aware of LANSA’s track record, and the airline was regarded by many as a
last resort.
There was, in fact, a common saying regarding the performance of the airline: “LANSA lands
on its belly.”
Despite some reservations Juliane and her mother booked onto LANSA Flight 508 from Lima
to Iquitos.
They boarded the Lockheed L-188 Electra turboprop at Jorge Chavez International Airport, and
enjoyed a smooth and uneventful take-off.
Mid-flight, with very little warning, the plane encountered a severe thunderstorm and
was struck by lightning.
Juliane described her experience of what happened next:
“Then I suddenly see a blinding white light over the right wing.
I don’t know whether it’s a flash of lightning or an explosion.
I lose all sense of time.
I can’t tell whether all this lasts minutes or only a fraction of a second...
With a jolt the tip of the airplane falls steeply downward…
I can see the whole aisle to the cockpit, which is below me…
People are screaming in panic, shrill cries for help; the roar of the plummeting turbines,
which I will hear again and again in my dreams, engulfs me.
And then, over everything, clear as glass, I hear my mother saying quite calmly: ‘Now
it’s all over’…
From one moment to the next people’s screams go silent.
It’s as if the roar of the turbines has been erased.
My mother is no longer at my side, and I’m no longer in the airplane.
I’m still strapped into my seat, but I’m alone…
And I’m falling, slicing through the sky…”
Juliane fell from a height of about three kilometres (or two miles).
She was still strapped to her seat in a row of two other seats, which was spiralling towards
the ground.
She was conscious for a large part of the fall, but blacked out before landing.
When she came to she found herself lying in the mud, looking up at the jungle canopy.
She had a broken collarbone, a ruptured ligament in her knee and several cuts and bruises,
including a deep wound to her upper right arm.
Despite her incredible fall, these were her only apparent injuries.
Though she had miraculously survived the crash, she was by no means safe.
She was now lost in the jungle, a significant distance from civilisation.
Though she could hear search planes passing overhead, the canopy obscured her from sight.
She knew that she would have to move if she wanted to survive.
She located a stream and decided to follow it, reasoning that it would likely lead to
a river where people might live or fish.
And so, for ten days, Juliane did just this.
She walked along the bank, constantly on guard for snakes and other wildlife.
Later she swam in the muddy water.
She slept on sandbanks, drank river water, and slowly consumed a single packet of sweets
she had found in the wreckage where she landed.
At this point she did not know the fate of the other passengers on board the flight,
her mother included.
Her concern for her mother was heightened when she encountered three human bodies still
attached to their seats beside the river, preyed on by vultures.
After ten gruelling days Juliane discovered a boat moored on the river bank.
A path led to a wooden hut with a palm leaf roof.
Juliane took refuge in the hut, hoping that the owners of the boat would soon visit.
While she waited she treated the wound on her arm, which was infested with maggots.
As a child, she had seen her father treat a similar wound on their pet dog using kerosene,
so she returned to the boat on the river, syphoned gasoline from its fuel supply and
applied it to the wound, which successfully drove out many of the maggots.
The following day Juliane awoke to the sound of men returning to the hut, which was a base
for local woodcutters.
The men were startled by her appearance, but had heard news of the plane crash.
When Juliane told them she was a survivor of the LANSA flight, they gave her food and
helped patch up her wounds.
After resting overnight, Juliane was taken on a 7-hour journey by canoe downstream to
a place where she could be airlifted to hospital and finally reunited her with her father.
All six of the plane’s crew, and 71 passengers died directly in the crash.
Fifteen people survived the disaster, though all but Juliane succumbed to their injuries
before being rescued.
This included Juliane’s mother.
Juliane’s remarkable survival was thought to be the product of several phenomena.
The section of seating to which she’d been belted had spun as it fell – and this helicopter
effect had slowed her descent.
This combined with a stormy updraft and the cushioning effect of the jungle canopy had
turned a fatal fall into a survivable one.
After that, Juliane’s childhood in the jungle had allowed her to stay calm and follow a
sensible course of action as she hiked towards safety.
An investigation into the crash revealed that the crew had been under some pressure to make
up for previous delays during the busy holiday season – something which might have contributed
to their decision not to deviate around the storm.
Additionally, it was found that the plane had been in extremely poor condition – it
was one of LANSA’s last remaining aircraft, and was made up of many spare parts salvaged
from defunct LANSA planes.
In the wake of the disaster, the company’s operating licence was suspended, and LANSA
shut down for good.
Juliane recovered from her injuries.
Her survival story attracted a great deal of media attention, and many outright false
stories were published about her ordeal, including rumours that she had abandoned other survivors,
and a fabricated story that she had built a raft in order to escape the jungle.
She moved to Germany, and went on to study biology at the University of Kiel.
When her father passed away 13 years later, she took his place as the director of Panguana
and coordinator of its research expeditions.
Many years after the disaster, Juliane wrote a book about her experiences, and also revisited
the site of the crash as part of a documentary made by Werner Herzog.
Juliane is now a doctor, and goes by her married name, Diller.
Dr Diller remains a well-known figure, though her miraculous survival of a plane crash and
a ten-day hike through the jungle is just one part of her life.
Since then she has gone on to become an eminent zoologist.
She flies often, and has devoted a significant part of her life to the preservation of the
same jungle environment that almost killed her.
With regards to this, she has said, “The jungle caught me and saved me.
It was not its fault that I landed there.”