How often do plane crashes have only one survivor?
Including the Yemenia crash, there have been 13 airliner crashes since 1970 with a sole survivor, according to CNN and data compiled by Dr. Todd Curtis, director of the Airsafe.com Foundation. Five of those survivors were minors and four were crew members, accounting for 75 percent of the total. “I can’t figure out for the life of me why crew members and children tend to be disproportionate in these sole-survivor events,” Curtis says. One of the most extraordinary sole survivor stories involves Julianne Koepcke, a 17-year-old who was flying in South America on Christmas Eve 1971. Her Lockheed turboprop encountered a lightning storm that destroyed one of the wings. Koepcke fell more than two miles into the Amazon jungle but survived with only minor injuries. Ninety-one other people aboard Flight 508 died. Today, Koepcke is a zoology librarian in Munich. She tells CNN the experience still haunts her, especially after tragedies like Air France 447 that crashed off the coast of Brazil. “It
