Girl, 17, who fell 10,000 ft from plane managed to survive 11 days in Amazon rainforest thanks to lessons from her parents
On Christmas Eve of 1971 a plane carrying 92 people was struck by lightning as it flew over Peru and the only survivor was a girl who fell out of the plane while still strapped to her seat.
This was the LANSA Flight 508 disaster which saw the plane crash into the Amazon rainforest and 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke thrown out as the aircraft broke into pieces in the sky.
Years later she told the BBC that she remembered heavy turbulence as the plane was caught in a thunderstorm and she saw lightning around them.
She remembered holding hands with her mother and a bright light from one of the plane's engines, with her mother's last words to her being: "That is the end, it's all over."
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The plane went into a dive and the next thing she knew she was freefalling towards the rainforest canopy while still strapped into her seat.
She lost consciousness and didn't remember the impact, which broke her collarbone and caused her other serious injuries, and when she woke up she was all alone.
Subsequent investigations have found that as many as 14 others may have survived the plane breaking up in mid-air two miles above the ground, but they all died waiting for rescue.
Juliane was still able to walk, and had learned about the rainforest from her parents as her father was a zoologist and her mother had studied tropical birds.
Following their lessons she knew what to do, finding a creek and walking in the water because she knew it was safer.
All she had to eat was a bag of sweets she found at the crash site, which soon ran out.
On the fourth day she heard a vulture landing, and knew it meant there were dead bodies nearby, coming across a row of seating with three passengers in it 'rammed head first into the earth'.
It was the first time the teenager had seen a dead body, and checked to see if any of them were her mother.
They weren't and she carried on walking, though by day 10 she could no longer stand properly and said she 'drifted along the edge of a larger river I had found'.
When she found a boat she thought she was hallucinating, but touched it and it felt very real.
Nearby she found a hut with a motor and fuel, and used some of the fuel to clear maggots out of the wound on her arm, having remembered that when her dog got an infected cut her dad had put kerosene in it.
She slept in the hut that night and woke up to voices outside, saying 'it was like hearing the voices of angels' and explaining that they treated her wounds, fed her and brought her back to civilisation.
Juliane said they thought she was a 'water goddess' at first, but since she knew Spanish she was able to speak with them and tell them she had survived the plane crash.
Her mother's body was found on 12 January, Juliane said that from the looks of things she'd survived the plane crash as well but had been too badly injured to move and died after several days.
Her story became the inspiration for the film Miracles Still Happen and the documentary Wings of Hope, which was done by Werner Herzog who would have been on the plane if not for a last minute change in his schedule.
Topics: History
Joe Harker