Which is luckier? Having a near death experience  and surviving, or just not having the near death  

experience at all? If the plane you were  travelling in suddenly exploded in the air,  

sending everyone on board 33,000ft to their  deaths, and you were the miraculous only survivor,  

are you lucky or unlucky? I mean yeah it's  pretty fortunate you survived but to be honest,  

exploding in the air and falling thousands of  feet to the ground doesn't sound like something  

I would ever want to happen to me, y'know?  It's not quite the same as winning the lottery. 

But that's exactly what happened to the subject  of today's video. Well, the plane exploding part,  

not the winning the lottery part. It would be  pretty weird if I made a video about someone  

winning the lotto and opened the video up talking  about an aviation disaster. No, what makes today's  

subject interesting is the fact that they survived  the highest fall without a parachute. Actually,  

there's quite a lot of interesting and unusual  incidents in this story, so let's get into it.

Vesna Vulović was born in 1950 in Belgrade in  Yugoslav Serbia. Growing up she loved the Beatles,  

which drove her to the UK to improve her English,  although she eventually returned to Belgrade at  

her parents' request. Upon her return, she  met up with a friend who had recently become  

an air hostess. Her friend explained she had just  come back from London and showed off her uniform.  

Admiring it and wishing she  could visit London, Vulović  

decided she too would become an air hostess. Vulović had a history of low blood pressure,  

and knowing that this would likely result in her  failing the required medical examination, she  

drank an excessive amount of coffee beforehand and  successfully joined JAT Yugoslav Airlines in 1971. 

In 1972, JAT Flight 367 was flying from Stockholm  to Belgrade, with stopovers in Copenhagen, Denmark  

and Zagreb, Croatia. When the flight arrived in  Copenhagen, the secondary crew boarded the plane.  

Vulović was part of this second crew, although she  was not supposed to be. The airline had mistakenly  

assigned her to this flight after confusing her  with another stewardess of the same first name.  

I'm guessing Vesna was a much more common  name in Yugoslavia than it is here in Ireland. 

At around 3:15pm, the McDonnel Douglas DC-9  took off with Vulović, 4 other crew members  

and 23 passengers. About 45 minutes later,  as the flight was above Czechoslovakia,  

the plane suddenly exploded and tore apart. As the  cabin depressurized, those on board where blown  

out into the icy air, where they fell  33,000ft to their deaths. All except  

Vulović, who was pinned down by the  food cart in the tail end of the craft. 

The wreckage came down in a heavily wooded  and snow covered area near a small village.  

A local villager Bruno Honke rushed out to the  wreck, where he heard a single voice screaming  

amidst the chaos. He ran over to Vulović, the lone  survivor from the 28 on board. Fortuitously, Honke  

had been a medic in World War II, and was able  to administer first aid before rescuers arrived.

Vesna Vulović spent the next few days in a coma.  She had a fractured skull, two broken legs, three  

broken vertebrae, a fractured pelvis and several  broken ribs. When she awoke, she found she was  

paralyzed from the waist down, but she was alive  - despite having been through an explosion and a  

33,000 ft drop, making her the record holder for  surviving the longest fall without a parachute.  

Her survival was credited to her entrapment within  the craft, which crashed into heavy woods and  

thick snow, cushioning the impact. Doctors also  said that her low blood pressure had caused her  

to quickly pass out when the cabin depressurized,  likely saving her heart from bursting on impact. 

The cause of the explosion, although difficult to  verify, was officially attributed to a briefcase  

bomb that detonated in the baggage compartment.  Croation nationalists were blamed for the attack,  

although no arrests were ever made. Vulović eventually regained control  

of her legs, and was able to walk again, albeit  with a permanent limp due to the damage done to  

her spine. During her recovery, her hospital  room was placed under 24/7 police protection,  

as it was feared the bombers may wish to finish  the job. I feel like if I bombed a major airline  

and got away with it I probably wouldn't risk it  all to hunt down the lone survivor - I don't think  

that's generally how terrorist attacks pan out. When news of her story broke, Vesna Vulović  

became a celebrity in Yugoslavia  and was regarded as a national hero,  

which, I mean I get it, but it's not like she  did anything particularly heroic, she was just  

kind of there. I feel like the hero title should  probably be awarded to the rescuers, y'know people  

who actually made conscientious decisions rather  than just had events happen to them. Of course,  

Vulović's survival is absolutely astounding.  The villager who had saved her life, Bruno  

Honke had a granddaughter six weeks after the  event, who was named Vesna in Vulović's honour.

Amazingly, once she was recovered, Vulović  wanted to return to her work as an air hostess.  

You'd think experiencing such a traumatic  event that nearly killed you and left you  

with life-changing injuries would probably put  you off flying, but Vulović had no memory of the  

incident whatsoever and was happy to return  to the sky at the next possibly convenience. 

JAT Airlines declined her return as an air  hostess, realising it was probably in their best  

interest if customers weren't constantly reminded  of their famous air disaster by having the only  

survivor on the flights. Instead the airline gave  her a desk job negotiating freight contracts. 

With her love of travel undamaged,  Vulović remained a regular flyer,  

and she was often recognised by passengers  who wanted to sit next to her, although that  

was probably more a safety precaution than  an affectionate gesture. In 1985 in London,  

The Guinness Book of World Records recognized  her as the world record holder for surviving the  

highest fall without a parachute. Her award was  presented to her by Paul McCartney of the Beatles.  

Sort of sick when you think of it,  the Beatles seemed to be kind of the  

motivating factor for her love of travel  which arguably lead to her ending up in  

the disaster. For all we know they could have  been directly involved - they've done worse.

Vulović continued working with JAT airlines  until the early 1990's, when she was  

fired for participating in anti-government  demonstrations against the Serbian president  

Slobodan Milošević. She avoided arrest  because the government were hesitant to  

imprison someone who was regarded as a national  hero. She later campaigned for democracy and  

Serbia's entry into the European Union. Slobodan  Milošević was ousted from government in 2000  

and put on trial for war crimes  committed during the Yugoslav wars. 

Vesna Vulović spent her later years  alone in her apartment in Belgrade.  

Now a divorcee, Vulović declined most of  the many interview requests sent her way,  

claiming she was tired of discussing her fall and  did not consider herself lucky to have survived.  

The fall, she said, had ruined her life - leaving  her injured, unable to bear children and suffering  

from survivor's guilt - as well as the lives  of her parents, who were brought into financial  

hardship in the wake of Vesna's medical treatment. In 2016, friends had become worried for her  

wellbeing after they had not heard from her in a  while. In a search of her apartment on the 27th  

of December, her body was found. Vesna Vulović  had died four days earlier, at the age of 66.

A surprisingly depressing ending for what was  a pretty thrilling story up to that point.  

But I suppose we have the answers to  our opening questions now - you're  

not exactly lucky for surviving a near death  experience. I suppose when I think of it now,  

most who survive these scenarios are  left with some sort of lasting damage,  

whether it be physical injuries or mental  trauma. I entered this story with a sort of  

cheerful niavety, but now that we've  heard it in its entirety I can say  

never listen to the Beatles. ...and also subscribe.