Life is unpredictable. Tomorrow may play out like every other day or your life or maybe a meteor falls from the sky and crushes your house right before you win the lottery then get attacked by a tiger on the way to collect your prize. We mostly get by hoping that things are predictable and happen the way they usually happen. But some twists and turns and events seem to defy all odds and they happen all the time. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, and sometimes both.

No one’s going to say any disaster that claims lives is a good thing, but when something terrible happens and just a single person survives, it can still be amazing.

10. George H. W. Bush Survived a Brush with Execution and Cannibalism

George Herbert Walker Bush was President of the United States from 1989 until 1993. A former military man, he’s maybe even more famous today for being the father of the other President Bush. But if you go back far enough in his career, you’ll see that he was the sole survivor of an absolutely harrowing, horror-movie-level event in World War Two.

Bush was a pilot in WWII. He joined the Navy when he was 18 after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Two years later he was flying a mission over Japan on September 2, 1944. His plane was hit and Bush had to eject.

The other servicemen jumped first and as Bush went, he was caught in the wind and slammed into the plane’s tail where he cut his head open. He deployed his parachute and landed in the water but he was alone.

He inflated a life raft and paddled away from the Japanese island he’d just attacked and was rescued by a submarine. A lucky break on his part, but the story isn’t over. There were nine servicemen sent on that mission besides Bush and none of them made it back.

One man with Bush went down with the plane. The other’s parachute didn’t deploy. From the planes that accompanied him and were also hit, the men who parachuted to the island were captured by the Japanese. Years later the scope of what happened to them was fully revealed when the Japanese soldiers were tried for war crimes.

The Americans were beaten and tortured and ultimately executed by beheading. Some of them were then cut up and eaten by their captors with evidence that their livers and thighs were eaten for medicinal reasons because it was “good for the stomach.” 

9. George Lamson Was the Only Survivor of a 1985 Plane Crash 

There are many smaller aircraft crashes per year than we ever hear about and most are not fatal. In over 1,200 accidents reported in 2021 there were 376 fatalities. It’s rare that a large passenger jet crashes but when it does it usually represents a horrible loss of life that can be well over 100. On very rare occasions, there will also be survivors.

In 1985, 17-year-old George Lamson was on a flight with 70 other people that took off from Reno and crashed soon after. Lamson was the only passenger on board who survived. His body was thrown from the plane on impact. He lost his father in the crash and most of us can only imagine what he must have thought in the time since it happened.

In his unique position, Lamson has tried, in the ensuing years, to be a support for others like him. He has reached out to every sole survivor of a plane crash that has happened since his accident of which there have been 14. 

Lamson says he and other survivors often feel a lot of complex emotions of which guilt is only one and it’s very hard to describe or talk about with people who are on the outside looking in. He says he feels pressure to do something big with his life because he survived and that people unintentionally make it worse by telling him, and other survivors, that they’re miracles and lucky and must have a purpose.

8. Vesna Vulovi? Survived the Highest Fall in History

Vesna Vulovi? holds one of the most unusual records in the world. Not only is she the sole survivor of Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 which exploded mid-flight in 1972, she also holds the record for surviving the highest fall ever without a parachute. Not the sort of record you’d want to challenge.

Vulovi? fell from 33,330 feet when the plane came apart into three pieces. She was a flight attendant at the time of the disaster, which was caused by a briefcase bomb going off in the baggage compartment. It was only through a series of miraculous coincidences that she could survive at all.

The plane was torn into segments and Vulovi? was at the rear with the refreshment cart. As the fuselage tore apart, many passengers were sucked out but Vulovi? was pinned by the cart which held her in place.

The tail section that housed Vulovi? crashed into a snowy hill but the impact didn’t kill her. Vulovi? was almost rejected for the job entirely because she suffered from low blood pressure. Flight attendants have to pass a medical exam so Vulovi? cheated by drinking coffee to boost her blood pressure ahead of time.

When she was pinned and the cabin depressurized, it’s believed that Vulovi? passed out because of her low blood pressure. After the incident, she had no memory of what happened so losing consciousness is entirely plausible. As a result, the force of the impact was less traumatic on her heart than it would have been for someone with normal blood pressure, which ended up preventing a heart attack.

She didn’t walk away unscathed and suffered serious injuries including a few days in a coma and several months recuperating from many broken bones in hospital. 

Ironically, Vulovi? wasn’t even supposed to be on the flight, the airline had mistaken her for another flight attendant with the same name. 

7. Juliane Koepcke Survived A Crash in the Amazon

In yet another remarkable case of plane crash survival, Juliane Koepcke survived the crash and escaped from the Amazon rainforest afterward. She was just 17 flying with her mother and over 80 others, when lightning struck their plane. After the plane went into a nosedive she found herself, still in her seat, but alone and outside, two miles above the earth. She was sucked from the plane and fell. 

When she awoke the next day, she was in a dense jungle. The trees and her seat had broken her fall, though she had sustained injuries. No one else was there. 

Juliane’s parents were zoologists, and she’d spent years with them in the Amazon already. Using the knowledge she’d gained from life in the jungle she survived ten days as she searched for help. Her wounds became infected with maggots and she eventually found a boat and sucked out the fuel and put it on the wound to kill the parasites.

The next day locals found her and treated her wounds, and she was reunited with her father. She still runs the research station her parents founded.

6. A 12-Year-Old Who Couldn’t Swim was the Only Survivor of a 2009 Crash at Sea

It has to be terrifying to crash anywhere at any time, but imagine crashing at sea, when you’re 12 years old, and you can’t swim. That happened to Bahia Bakari, and she was the only survivor of Yemenia Flight 626 that saw 152 others perish.

After the plane went down, Bakari had to hold on to the wreckage for 11 hours to stay alive. The crash was blamed on pilot error and airline negligence which resulted in years’ worth of lawsuits. The trial only began in 2022 despite the crash happening in 2009.

5. Harrison Okene Survived 72 Hours in an Air Pocket

How long could you survive at the bottom of the ocean? If you’re Harrison Okene, the answer is three days. Three days he survived in an air pocket, trapped in an upside-down, sunken tugboat.

Eleven others died when the tugboat suddenly capsized while towing an oil tanker. Okene had been in the bathroom at the time and got out, found some tools, and got into an air pocket as the boat went down. He had only a bottle of Coke to sustain him as the vessel sank to 100 feet.  When divers went in to recover the dead, none expected to find a survivor. The event was recorded on camera and became a viral video as few believed it was possible. 

4. Whitney Cerak Survived a Crash But Was Mistaken For Someone Else

There’s no nice way to spin this story, the whole thing is messed up. In 2006, Laura VanRyn and Whitney Cerak were in a horrible car crash with several other students. The college students were friends and looked quite a bit alike. Enough that, in the chaos, Cerak, who survived, was mistaken for VanRyn, who did not.

Cerak, the only survivor, was taken to hospital with serious injuries. So serious that when VanRyn’s family was called, they could not tell that it was not their daughter they were visiting. Meanwhile, Cerak’s family were told their daughter had died. They had a funeral and mourned her. Neither family had any idea the girls were mistaken for each other.

When Cerak awoke from her coma, the mistake was discovered and while her family got to feel relief, VanRyn’s family had to deal with realizing not only had they lost her daughter, but she’d already had a funeral as someone else.

3. John Capes Was The Only Survivor of a Sunken WWII Submarine

When the HMS Perseus hit a mine in 1941, it sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean with a crew of 59. But the sub was also carrying two passengers, one of whom was John Capes. Capes was only hitching a ride when disaster struck and the submarine sank. Depth gauges read 270 feet but they were off by 100. The vessel sat at 170 feet below and, with a handful of injured men, Capes prepared to use an escape hatch from a sealed compartment where they had no choice. Their re-breathers were only good for 100 feet but they didn’t have a lot of options.

Capes and the others flooded the hatch and escaped. He forced himself to rise slowly, trying to avoid the bends. When he finally broke the surface he was only, no one else had made it. He swam to a nearby island where locals discovered him and, because the islands were occupied by Germans and Italians, kept him hidden for an entire year and a half.

For the rest of his life, his story was met with doubt. British officials thought he was a total liar and even made a note on his record. They didn’t believe the Perseus was where he said it was nor that he could survive rising from that depth. But in 1997, after Capes had passed away, divers found the wreck, and every detail was exactly as Capes had described.

2. An Escaped Crocodile Caused a Panic on a Plane 

Avoiding crocodiles is just good sense. They’re dangerous and you should stay out of their territory. That said, if someone brings one on an airplane you may have a problem. That’s what happened on a British plane in 2010 which led to a crash that claimed 20 lives.

Someone had smuggled the crocodile on board in their luggage and it escaped mid-flight. This caused an understandable panic. The passengers all ran which caused the plane’s balance to shift as they piled to one side. The pilot could not regain control and they crashed with only one survivor who relayed the story. Word is the crocodile survived too, only to have someone kill it on the ground.

1. Huang Yu Survived the First Airplane Hijacking

You may not know the name Huang Yu but he holds a true place of infamy in the annals of survival. Yu was a survivor of the first plane hijacking in history. In fact, he’s the only person who has ever survived a hijacking, and that sounds remarkable if we stop explaining the details there. The problem is that Yu was also the hijacker.

Yu and four other men hijacked a plane in 1948 because it was transporting gold. The flight was only 20 minutes from Hong Kong to Macau so the men needed to be fast. They set about robbing the plane at gunpoint but the crew and some passengers fought back. In the melee, people were shot and the plane took a nosedive into a river. Yu snagged a life jacket as the plane crashed before being thrown clear. The 27 others on board died.

Later, when being questioned by police, Yu could not provide a believable story about why he was on the plane. He even confessed at one point but thanks to jurisdictional problems and Yu claiming the confession was a joke, he was never actually convicted.

When one hears the words “sole survivor” it tends to conjure up many feeling and emotions. For the families and loved ones hearing that there is only one person alive, and then holding out hope that just maybe it was their family or loved one that survived. For the survivor thinking why me and was it fate, or was it not my time, was it destiny or was it just pure luck?

Or maybe it is as Forest Gump said: “I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both is happening at the same time”.

NOTE: I tried keeping the descriptions short, and that was often difficult. I wanted to include information on the flight, the crash and the survivor. Many sources were used to make this list, so I am fairly confident the general information is correct, but please, if any  knows of any information that is incorrect or want to add some additional facts or information about these air disasters or other sole survivors, please share them. Also it might seem not quite right to put a subject matter like this in a bottom to top list order. Obviously, each incident is just as tragic as the next. The “order” criteria I used was the over all survival story, and the survival chances of each individual.

Date of Crash: January 19, 2006
Aircraft type: Antonov An-24
Operator: Slovak Air Force
Crash Site: Hejce, Hungary
Passengers & Crew: 43
Fatalities : 42
Cause of Crash: Pilot Error

This airplane was carrying Slovak peacekeepers. The aircraft crashed in snowy and forested terrain, on Borsó Hill, at an elevation of 700 meters (2,300 feet), near the Hungarian village of Hejce and the town of Telkibánya. The plane hit the tops of trees, before catching fire and crashing. The bodies and wreckage were scattered over a large area. Michaela Farkasova, the wife of the only survivor, reported that she received a cellular telephone call from her husband, who told her that his plane had crashed in a forest. He asked her to alert rescue services. Shortly after the phone call, Farkas was found. According to rescuers, his survival was pure luck as he was found in the aircraft’s lavatory, which received little damage. Farkaš suffered minor brain swelling and lung injuries after the crash. He was put into a medically induced coma, and was soon reported to be in stable condition. Further investigations indicated that the pilot descended too early in the dark towards the lights of Košice.

Date of Crash: August 27, 2006
Aircraft type: Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) CRJ-100ER
Operator : Comair (d/b/a Delta Connection
Crash Site: Blue Grass Airport, Lexington, Kentucky
Passengers & Crew Onboard: 50
Fatalities: 49
Cause of Crash: Pilot Error

This aircraft was assigned the airport’s Runway 22 for the takeoff, but used Runway 26 instead. Runway 26 was too short for a safe takeoff, causing the aircraft to overrun at the end of the runway before it could become airborne, killing all 47 passengers and two of the three crew. The Flights First officer, James Polehinke, was the only survivor. Polehinke suffered serious injuries, including multiple broken bones, a collapsed lung and severe bleeding. Doctors later determined that Polehinke had suffered brain damage, and has no memory of the crash or the events leading up to it. Polehinke was flying the plane when it crashed, but it was the flight’s captain, Jeffrey Clay, who taxied the aircraft onto the wrong runway.

Date of Crash: JUNE 14, 1943
Aircraft type: B-17C Flying Fortress
Crash Site: BAKERS CREEK NEAR MACKAY, QLD Australia
Passengers & Crew: 41
Fatalities: 40
Cause of Crash: unknown

For reasons of military security and morale, this incident was hushed-up by U.S. Army and Australian civil authorities for many years. The plane carried forty-one American servicemen returning from ten days of leave. The aircraft took off into ground fog, and leveled off at an altitude of about 300 feet. In a matter of minutes the plane had caught fire in the air, and as it dived into the trees one of its wings came away, leaving a great opening in the fuselage through which most of the passengers were emptied into the bush before the final impact. The only survivor was Foye Kenneth Roberts. Roberts suffered head injuries that were not diagnosed at the time of the crash, and lost his speech for many years after lifesaving brain surgery. Roberts cannot recall anything of the actual crash. In February 2004, Foye Kenneth Roberts passed away. Another fact that is remarkable is that, still to this day, this crash rates as the worst aviation disaster in Australian history.

Date of Crash: March 17, 1957
Aircraft type: C-47 Skytrain
Operator : Philippine Air Force
Crash Site: 22 miles NW of Cebu City, Philippines
Passengers & Crew: 26
Fatalities: 25
Cause of Crash: Metal fatigue

This crash killed the 7th President of the Philippines, Ramon Magsaysay, as well as many high ranking military officials. A reporter for the Philippine Herald, Nestor Mata, was the sole survivor of the accident. The aircraft took off from Lahug Airport for Nichols Field, and eyewitnesses on the ground observed that the airplane had not gained enough altitude as it approached the mountain ranges in Balamban. Mata was sitting in the second seat, next to the President’s compartment, when the crash occurred, and remembers there was a blinding flash for a moment, then he fell unconscious. When he regained consciousness he found himself on the side of a steep cliff among trees and bushes. As he was in agonizing pain, he began shouting, ‘Mr. President! Mr. President!’ When some farmers found him they had to return to the village to get a hammock on which they loaded and carried him for 18 hours through rugged terrain. As soon as Mata reached the Southern Island Hospital in Cebu, he was treated for severe shock and pain from second and third degree burns. Mata did not lose consciousness in the hospital, and was able to dictate to a nurse a press dispatch to his paper. It began ‘President Magsaysay is dead.’
The photo above of the white cross is a “marker” of the exact site of the crash.

Date of Crash: Jan 13, 1995
Aircraft type: DC-9
Operator : Intercontinental airlines
Crash Site: Maria La Baja, 500 miles north- west of Bogota
Passengers & Crew: 52
Fatalities: 51
Cause of Crash: Unknown

This airliner exploded in mid-air as the pilot, apparently, was attempting an emergency landing near a swamp, but hit a grassy field and exploded and then toppled into a lagoon. A farmer said he heard cries for help, and found a 9 year old girl, Erika Delgado, on a mound of seaweed, which had broken her fall. She was the only survivor. She was traveling with her parents and a younger brother, from Bogota to the Caribbean resort city of Cartagena. The rescuers said she told them her mother had shoved her out of the plane as it broke up and burst into flames. She was taken to hospital in shock, and with a broken arm. Erika later recalls someone approached and ignored her cries for help, but ripped a gold necklace from her neck and ran away. Witnesses say scavengers also looted the bodies of other passengers. Erika issued a plea for the return of the necklace, which she says was the only memento of her father.

Date of Crash: January 21, 1985
Aircraft type: Lockheed Electra 188
Crash Site: Reno, Nevada, USA
Passengers & Crew: 71
Fatalities: 70
Cause of Crash: Pilot/Ground Crew error

After a weekend of skiing, 17 year old George Lamson had taken a seat next to his father in the front row of the airplane’s cabin, directly behind the bulkhead. The plane began to shudder and the plane’s right wing dipped as it began its ill-advised right turn. Lamson pulled his knees to his chest just as the plane hit the ground. The force of the crash ripped Lamson’s seat from the fuselage, and he was catapulted out of the plane, landing upright in the middle of the highway, still strapped in his seatbelt. He unbuckled and dashed toward a field at the far edge of the pavement as the plane exploded. Three people survived the crash initially, including George Lamson’s father, but both died a few days later of severe burns and head injuries. It was later determined that the probable cause of this accident was the captain’s failure to control, and the copilot’s failure to monitor the flight path and airspeed of the aircraft. This is what caused the unexpected vibration shortly after takeoff.
Lamson was recently contacted by the press and is a now a father himself. He asked the reporter not to reveal anything more of his work or whereabouts and remains a very private person.

Date of Crash: July 8, 2003
Aircraft type: Boeing 737
Operator : Sudan Airways
Crash Site: Port Sudan
Passengers & Crew: 116
Fatalities: 115
Cause of Crash: *Unknown

About 10 minutes after takeoff heading from Port Sudan on the northeastern coast to the capital, the pilot radioed the control tower about a problem in one engine. The pilot killed that engine and told the tower he was returning to the airport. Ten minutes later, the Sudanese airliner plunged into a hillside while attempting an emergency landing, killing 116 people and leaving 3-year old Mohammed el-Fateh Osman amid a scene of charred corpses, as the only survivor. The boy was found injured and lying on a fallen tree by a nomad. The boy’s mother was among the victims. Mohammed lost part of a lower leg and was treated for severe burns. The bodies were buried in a mass grave after performing the Muslim prayer, because the conditions of the bodies would not allow transporting and delivering them to the relatives.

*The country blamed the United States for the crash, saying that sanctions had restricted vital aircraft parts. The United States denied that claim, stating that there was no ban on equipment required for aviation safety.

Date of Crash: January 26, 1972
Aircraft type: McDonnell-Douglas DC-9
Operator: Jugoslovenski Aero transport
Cause of Crash: Bombing
Crash Site: Hinterhermsdorf , East Germany
Passengers & Crew :28
Fatalities: 27

This is close to the top of the list because of the overall circumstances, and the unbelievable survival story of Vesna Vulovi? . Vesna was a flight attendant on board when a bomb went off, at the altitude of 33,000 ft. (10,050 meters). The terrorist act was attributed to Croatian Ustashe terrorists. The explosion tore the jet into several pieces in mid-air. The wreckage fell through the sky for three minutes before striking a frozen mountainside. A German man, upon arriving at the crash, found Vesna lying half outside of the plane, with another crew member’s body on top of her, and a serving cart pinned against her body. The man was a medic in the second world war, and did what he could for her until further help arrived. Vesna’s injuries included a fractured skull, two broken legs and three broken vertebrae, which left her temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. She regained the use of her legs after surgery, and continued working for JAT at a desk job. It was discovered later that her schedule had been mixed up with that of another flight attendant named Vesna, and she was subsequently placed on the wrong flight.

Vesna still holds the Guinness World Record for the highest fall survived without a parachute, at 33,330 feet. She is considered a national heroine throughout the former Yugoslavia.

Date of Crash: August 16, 1987
Aircraft type: McDonnell Douglas MD-82
Operator : Northwest Airlines
Crash Site: Romulus, Michigan (western Detroit)
Passengers & Crew Onboard: 155
Fatalities Onboard: 154 – 2 on the ground were also killed
Cause of Crash: Pilot error

After taking off from Metro Airport, during the initial climb, the plane rolled about 35 degrees in each direction. The left wing struck a light pole about ½ mile (800 m) from the end of the runway, struck other light poles, the roof of a car rental building, and then the ground. Cecelia Cichan was located by rescue workers in her seat, several feet away from her mother’s body along with Cecelia’s father, and her 6-year-old brother. Her survival of the crash was considered unexplainable and miraculous by many, including airline crash investigators. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the accident was the flight crew’s failure to use the taxi checklist to ensure the flaps and slats were extended for takeoff. Cecelia is now married and earned a Psychology degree from the University of Alabama. Although she has made no public statements, or attended annual memorial services regarding the tragic crash, she corresponds with some of the crash victims’ loved ones.

Date of Crash: December 24, 1971
Aircraft type: Lockheed Electra L-188A
Crash Site: Puerto Inca, Peru
Passengers & Crew: 92
Fatalities: 91
Cause of Crash: Human Error and Structural failure, possibly struck by lightning

This is really two survival stories, so I have placed it in the number one spot. There are many more interesting details to this story, but to keep this to a list format here are the basic facts of the account. On Christmas Eve 1971, the Peruvian airliner had taken off from the Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima, on a flight to Pucallpa, Peru. About a half hour after takeoff, and at about 21,000 feet, the aircraft entered a thunderstorm and heavy turbulence and was possibly struck by lightning. The pilots had difficulty controlling the aircraft, and it soon went into a dive. The crew attempted to level out the plane, but the fire and turbulent forces on the wings caused the right wing and most of the left wing to separate from the aircraft. The aircraft came crashing down in a mountainous region of the Amazon. Miraculously, a German teenager Juliane Koepcke (17), who was traveling with her mother, survived the crash and was still strapped in her seat. After searching for her mother in vain, Koepcke wandered through the jungle for nine days looking for help. On the ninth day, she found a canoe and shelter. Hours later, local lumbermen returned and found her. The men took her on the final seven hour journey via canoe down the river to a lumber station, where she was airlifted to a hospital. Koepcke is now a successful biologist in Germany.

The photo above is Juliane Köpcke sitting near the recreated wreckage for a documentary called Wings of Hope.

Contributor: Blogball