22 year-old Vesna Vulović, a flight attendant for Yugoslavia’s JAT Airlines, reported for work on January 25, 1972. When she arrived, she was told that she wasn’t even on the schedule and that she was confused with another flight attendant named Vesna. Nevertheless, Vesna was anxious to travel to Denmark and she took the shift anyway.
While waiting to board Flight 367, Vesna and her colleagues watched the passengers deplane from the flight that had just landed. Vensa noticed one man looking particularly annoyed as he passed by on his way into the terminal. Thinking nothing of it, she boarded the plane with the rest of the crew and began welcoming new passengers.
Forty-five minutes into the flight, a bomb exploded in the baggage compartment and tore through the plane. The aircraft broke apart and rained debris over the Czechoslovakian village of Srbská Kamenice. Bruno Honke, a local and one-time army medic, instinctively ran out to the wreckage. He heard screams and discovered Vensa, in her blood-covered turquoise uniform, pinned under a food trolley. Bruno kept her alive until more rescuers arrived. All of the passengers and crew of JAT Flight 367 died, except for Vensa Vulović. Investigators determined that the food trolley and Vensa’s history of low blood pressure contributed to her survival. She was entered, dubiously, into the Guinness Book of Records for surviving a fall from the highest distance without a parachute. Vensa fell 33,330 feet.
After a lengthy hospital stay and grueling rehabilitation, Vensa returned to her job as a flight attendant – much to the surprise of the many admirers she gained in the wake of her incident. However, she was eventually fired from the airline for participating in anti-government demonstrations, specifically against Serbian statesman Slobodan Milošević.
Vensa, who suffered from “survivor’s guilt,” began chain smoking and it greatly affected her health. In December 2016, friends and family became concerned when Vensa stopped answering phone calls. A locksmith was called to break into her apartment — where she was discovered dead. Vensa was 66 years old.