Juliane's Freefall Into the Jungle

Juliane’s Freefall… is apparently the English translation of Julianes Sturz in den Dschungel, a Werner Herzog documentary which was released in 1998 with the English title, Wings of Hope. Juliane’s Freefall was chosen to introduce this post since it best describes what happened: Juliane Koepcke did fall almost two miles from a plane into the Peruvian jungle. It is also the case that this blog is in need of a more exciting topic and this title is the most titillating one I have come up with since Subliminal Seduction.

 If my assumption is correct, you may be at least somewhat curious and I will let you know right away that Juliane survived and is now known as Dr. Juliane Diller. She plummeted about 10,000 feet as the plane she was in disintegrated in the dark on Christmas Eve in 1971. That was 50 years ago and that is why I read this anniversary article, which is a long and thorough one with good pictures: “Woman Who Fell From the Sky: She Fell Nearly 2 Miles and Walked Away,” Franz Lidz, The New York Times, June 18, 2021. Since you may not be able to read it, here are some details and more.

   Lansa Flight 508 came apart because of a lightning strike and it is apparently the worst such disaster in aviation history. Juliane’s mother flew from her seat in a different direction while the belted-in Juliane fell along with the remaining seats into the jungle trees. It is likely that the seats “spun like the winged seed of a maple tree toward the jungle canopy” and that they cushioned the impact. She awoke in the rain still in her mini-skirt, below which appeared a deep gash, but apart from that and a broken collar bone, she was not badly injured. She found some of the other passengers, all of whom were dead. Given that she had grown up in a nature preserve in the jungle, she was able to survive for 11 days until she stumbled upon some workers and, after pouring gasoline on the maggots in her wound, she was flown to safety. Although you may not be able to access the NYT article, there are many others which discuss her ordeal in detail and I will provide some below.

   The reason Mr. Herzog made the documentary about her is an interesting one. He was in South America at the time filming Aguirre, The Wrath of God, and was scheduled to take the same Lansa flight. At the last minute his plans were changed and, over a quarter of a century later, he contacted Dr. Diller and they re-traced the flight and the events in Wings of Hope. For various versions of the account of the woman who fell from the sky, see the list below. Mr. Herzog is also the source for many more interesting subjects.

Sources:

There is a good Wikipedia entry for Juliane Koepcke.

There is also one for LANSA Flight 508.

See also the Wiki entry for Wings of Hope (film).

There was a version of Wings of Hope on YouTube and you can still find some snippets. See also the useful version on Weird History - "How Juliane Koepcke Survived a Plane Crash and 11 Days Along Along the Amazon."

The Wiki entry for Werner Herzog will keep you busy for days.

Of course, he has his own website: Werner Herzog.

The Bonuses:

If you are wondering about others who have survived plane accidents, Wikipedia again has the answers: List of Sole Survivors of Aviation Accidents and Incidents. 

I didn't know that Mr. Herzog went to Pittsburgh to study at Duquesne (it didn't work out.)

For another Herzog film about a crash landing see: Little Dieter Needs to Fly. 

And, he made a film,  How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck, which is about auctioneers at the World Livestock Auctioneer Championship. Apparently Mr. Herzog has contended that auctioneering offers an "extreme language" and is "the last poetry possible, the poetry of capitalism."  

Now you must think that this was all worth reading.