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The icy wind cut hard through the pine trees of northern Czechoslovakia as a villager named Bruno Honke picked his way through twisted metal under a pale January sky. It was January 26, 1972, and the ground was littered with debris from JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367, which had exploded midair at an altitude of 10,160 meters—over 33,000 feet. Among the broken fuselage and the echo of disaster, Honke heard something no one expected: a human voice, faint but unmistakable. Beneath shards of the plane and torn fabric, he found Vesna Vulović, a twenty-two-year-old flight attendant from Belgrade, Serbia, still alive, her turquoise uniform soaked with blood, her shoes blown clear off by the impact.
Vesna Vulović was born on January 3, 1950, in Belgrade, then part of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. Her father was a businessman, her mother a fitness instructor—an urban family in a city rebuilding itself in the postwar years. As a child, Vesna grew up in a household where perseverance was woven into daily life and where, as she would later recall, chocolate, spinach, and fish oil were part of a diet her mother insisted would make her strong.
Belgrade in the 1950s was a city in flux. Vesna’s early years were marked by the energy and optimism of Yugoslavia’s postwar boom. She learned English, drawn by the music of the Beatles. After her first year of university, she traveled to the United Kingdom, hoping to sharpen her language skills and taste the wider world. She stayed with friends in Newbury and, for a brief time, lived in London before her parents insisted she return home from Sweden, where she’d gone on a whim with a friend. That year abroad fed her wanderlust and gave her the confidence she’d need for a life in the air.
The moment that set Vesna Vulović on her fateful path came not from a grand decision, but from the simple envy of a friend’s crisp flight attendant uniform. She watched a friend step off a plane after a day trip to London and saw another future for herself—one that combined travel, style, and the possibility of seeing the world on her own terms. In 1971, at twenty-one, Vesna joined JAT Yugoslav Airlines, the country’s national flag carrier. The job was competitive; to pass the medical exam, Vesna drank so much coffee her low blood pressure was masked long enough to clear her for duty. This detail, trivial at the time, would later play a crucial role in her survival.
On January 25, 1972, the secondary crew of JAT Flight 367 arrived in Copenhagen. Vesna, by a twist of fate, was on the manifest due to a scheduling mix-up with another stewardess named Vesna. She was excited to visit Denmark for the first time, though her initial plan to sightsee was replaced by a group shopping trip. The next morning, the crew prepared for what should have been a routine hop from Copenhagen to Zagreb, then on to Belgrade.
Flight 367 departed Copenhagen at 3:15 p.m. local time. Forty-six minutes later, over the village of Srbská Kamenice in Czechoslovakia, a bomb hidden in the baggage compartment exploded. The official investigation, conducted by the Czechoslovak Civil Aviation Authority, later concluded that a briefcase bomb was responsible for tearing the DC-9 apart at cruising altitude. Of the 28 people onboard—23 passengers and five crew—only one survived.
The mechanisms that allowed Vesna Vulović to survive a fall from 10,160 meters remain a subject of fascination for both aviation experts and physicians. At the moment of the explosion, Vesna was pinned in the middle of the plane by a food trolley. Most passengers and crew were blown out of the aircraft into the subzero air. Investigators believe that the section of fuselage with Vesna trapped inside plummeted through the sky in a jagged spiral, landing in a snowy, densely forested area. The trees and thick snow cushioned the impact, absorbing enough energy to prevent immediate fatal injury.
Bruno Honke’s presence was another stroke of luck. As a former medic in World War II, he was able to provide basic first aid, keeping Vesna alive until help arrived. When rescuers reached her, they documented the extent of her injuries: a fractured skull and cerebral hemorrhage, two broken legs, three broken vertebrae (one crushed completely), a fractured pelvis, and several broken ribs. The trauma left her temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. According to her doctors, Vesna’s chronic low blood pressure likely caused her to lose consciousness almost instantly when the cabin depressurized, preventing her heart from exploding on impact—a phenomenon seen in high-altitude falls.
Vesna spent days in a coma and months in hospitals, first in Prague, then Belgrade. Her entire lower body was immobilized. At first, she could only move her left leg. After a month, the right leg followed. She regained the ability to walk within ten months, though her spine was permanently twisted and she walked with a pronounced limp for the rest of her life. Vesna’s recovery was seen as nothing short of miraculous by her doctors, who performed several operations to restore movement and spent sixteen months helping her regain as much physical capability as possible.
Throughout her months-long recovery in 1972, Vesna was shielded by hospital security. Authorities feared the bombers might attempt to finish the job. Only her parents and medical staff were allowed to see her, and her hospital room was guarded around the clock. When she was finally told of the crash, she fainted at the shock, remembering nothing of the event or the hours before it.
The Guinness Book of World Records officially recognized Vesna Vulović in 1985 for surviving the highest fall from an airplane without a parachute: 10,160 meters, a distance longer than the height of Mount Everest. The record was presented to her by Paul McCartney at a London gala. This achievement placed her in a unique group alongside other sole survivors of catastrophic falls, but hers remains the highest recorded. The specifics of her case, including her physiological response to rapid decompression and the unusual dynamics of the crash, have been studied in medical literature as a case of extreme trauma survival.
JAT, the airline she had loved, refused to let her return to work as a flight attendant, fearing her presence on flights would cause a media frenzy. Instead, Vesna was given a desk job negotiating freight contracts. Despite her amnesia about the crash, she continued to fly as a passenger and had no fear of air travel.
As Yugoslavia descended into political turmoil in the early 1990s, Vesna became a public figure in a new way. She participated in anti-government protests against Slobodan Milošević and campaigned for the Democratic Party, advocating for Serbia’s entry into the European Union. Her opposition cost her her job at JAT; by her own account, she was fired, had her salary cut, and was left with a small pension. The government hesitated to arrest her, fearing the public backlash that would come from imprisoning a national heroine.
Vesna Vulović spent her later years living alone in Belgrade on a pension of 300 euros per month. Her health declined, and she spoke openly about her struggle with survivor’s guilt. In December 2016, at age 66, she died in her apartment. Friends found her after she stopped answering calls, and she was buried in Belgrade’s New Cemetery.
Her record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute remains unbroken and is still recognized by Guinness World Records.