Juliane Koepcke | |
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![]() Koepcke in April 2019 | |
Born | Lima, Peru | 10 October 1954
Occupation | Mammalogist |
Spouse | Erich Diller (m. 1989) |
Relatives | Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke (father) Maria Koepcke (mother) |
Juliane Margaret Beate Koepcke /Joo-lia-nay, KOP-kay/ (born 10 October 1954), also known by her married name Juliane Diller, is a German-Peruvian mammalogist who specialises in bats. The daughter of German zoologists Maria and Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, she became famous at the age of 17 as the sole survivor of the 1971 LANSA Flight 508 plane crash; after falling 3,000 m (10,000 ft) while strapped to her seat and suffering numerous injuries, she survived 11 days alone in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest until she was rescued by local lumberjacks after finding their camp.
Koepcke was born in Lima, Peru on 10 October 1954, the only child of German zoologists Maria (née von Mikulicz-Radecki; 1924–1971) and Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke (1914–2000). Her parents were working at Lima's Museum of Natural History when she was born. At the age of 14, she left Lima with her parents to establish the Panguana research station in the Amazon rainforest, where she learned survival skills. Educational authorities disapproved and she was required to return to the Deutsche Schule Lima Alexander von Humboldt to take her exams, graduating on 23 December 1971. [1]
On 24 December 1971, just one day after she graduated, Koepcke flew on LANSA Flight 508. Her mother Maria had wanted Juliane to return to Panguana with her on 19 or 20 December, but Koepcke wanted to attend her graduation ceremony in Lima on 23 December. Maria agreed that they would stay for her graduation and instead they scheduled a flight for Christmas Eve. All flights were fully booked except for one with LANSA. Koepcke's father, Hans-Wilhelm, urged his wife to avoid flying with the airline due to its poor reputation. [1] Nonetheless, the flight was booked. The plane was struck by lightning mid-flight and began to disintegrate before plummeting to the ground. Koepcke found herself falling, still strapped to her row of seats, 3,000 m (10,000 ft) into the Amazon rainforest.
Koepcke survived the fall but suffered injuries such as a broken collarbone, a deep cut on her right arm, an eye injury and concussion. She then spent 11 days in the rainforest, most of which were spent making her way through water by following a creek to a river. While in the jungle, she dealt with severe insect bites and an infestation of botfly larvae in her injured arm. After nine days, she was able to find an encampment that had been set up by local lumberjacks. A few hours later, the returning lumberjacks found her, poured gasoline onto her wound, and used a canoe to transport her for the next 11 hours to a more inhabited area. She was soon airlifted to a hospital. [2]
Koepcke's unlikely survival has been the subject of much speculation. Experts have said that she survived the fall because she was harnessed into her seat, the window seat, which was attached to the two seats to her left as part of a row of three. That was thought to have functioned as a parachute or helicopter which slowed her fall. [3] [4] The impact may have also been lessened by the updraft from a thunderstorm Koepcke fell through, as well as the thick foliage at her landing site. [3] [4] As many as 14 other passengers were later discovered to have survived the initial crash but died while waiting to be rescued. [5]
I had nightmares for a long time, for years, and of course the grief about my mother's death and that of the other people came back again and again. The thought "why was I the only survivor?" haunts me. It always will.
Koepcke in 2010 [6]
After recovering from her injuries, Koepcke assisted search parties in locating the crash site and recovering the bodies of victims. Her mother's body was discovered on 12 January 1972.
Koepcke returned to her parents' native Germany, where she fully recovered from her physical injuries. Like her parents, she studied biology at the University of Kiel and graduated in 1980. [7] She received a doctorate from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and returned to Peru to conduct research in mammalogy, specialising in bats. [7] She published her thesis, "Ecological study of a bat colony in the tropical rain forest of Peru", in 1987. [8]
In 1989, Koepcke married Erich Diller, a German entomologist who specialises in parasitic wasps. [9] In 2000, following the death of her father, she took over as the director of Panguana. [9] She currently serves as a librarian at the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology in Munich. [3]
Koepcke's autobiography Als ich vom Himmel fiel: Wie mir der Dschungel mein Leben zurückgab (German for When I Fell from the Sky: How the Jungle Gave Me My Life Back) was released in 2011 by Piper Verlag. [10] The book won that year's Corine Literature Prize. [11] In 2019, the government of Peru made her a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit for Distinguished Services. [12]
Koepcke's survival has been the subject of numerous books and films, including the low-budget and heavily fictionalized I miracoli accadono ancora (1974) by Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Maria Scotese, which was released in English as Miracles Still Happen and is sometimes called The Story of Juliane Koepcke. She was portrayed by English actress Susan Penhaligon in the film. [13]
Koepcke's story was more faithfully told by Koepcke herself in German filmmaker Werner Herzog's documentary Wings of Hope (1998). Herzog was interested in telling her story because of a personal connection: He was scheduled to be on the same flight while scouting locations for his film Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), but a last-minute change of plans spared him from the crash. [14] He had planned to make the film ever since narrowly missing the flight but was unable to contact Koepcke for decades since she avoided the media; he located her after contacting the priest who performed her mother's funeral. [14] Koepcke accompanied him on a visit to the crash site, which she described as a "kind of therapy" for her. [15]
Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a 1972 epic historical drama film produced, written and directed by Werner Herzog. Klaus Kinski stars in the title role of Spanish soldier Lope de Aguirre, who leads a group of conquistadores down the Amazon River in South America in search of the legendary city of gold, El Dorado. The accompanying soundtrack was composed and performed by kosmische musik band Popol Vuh. The film is an international co-production between West Germany and Mexico.
Vesna Vulović was a Serbian flight attendant who survived the highest fall without a parachute: 10.16 kilometres or 33,338 feet. She was the sole survivor after an explosion tore through the baggage compartment of JAT Flight 367 on 26 January 1972, causing it to crash near Srbská Kamenice, Czechoslovakia. Air safety investigators attributed the explosion to a briefcase bomb. The Yugoslav authorities suspected that émigré Croatian nationalists were to blame, but no one was ever arrested.
Nicholas Stephen Alkemade was a British tail gunner in the Royal Air Force during World War II who survived a freefall of 18,000 feet (5,490 m) without a parachute after abandoning his out-of-control, burning Avro Lancaster heavy bomber over Germany.
Pucallpa is a city in eastern Peru located on the banks of the Ucayali River, a major tributary of the Amazon River. It is the capital of the Ucayali region, the Coronel Portillo Province and the Calleria District. This city is categorized as the only metropolis in Ucayali, being the largest populated center of the region. According to the Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática, it is the tenth most populated city in Peru and second largest in the Peruvian Amazon after Iquitos. In 2013 it housed a population of 211,611 inhabitants.
Susan Penhaligon is a British actress and writer known for her role in the drama series Bouquet of Barbed Wire (1976), and for playing Helen Barker in the sitcom A Fine Romance (1981–1984).
TANS Perú Flight 204 was a domestic scheduled Lima–Pucallpa–Iquitos passenger service, operated with a Boeing 737-200 Advanced, that crashed on 23 August 2005 on approach to Pucallpa Airport, 4 miles (6.4 km) off the airfield, following an emergency landing attempt because of bad weather, killing 40 of the 98 passengers and crew aboard.
Alan Eugene Magee was an United States airman during World War II who survived a 22,000-foot fall from his damaged B-17 Flying Fortress. He was featured in the 1981 Smithsonian Magazine as one of the 10 most amazing survival stories of World War II.
LANSA Flight 502 was a Lockheed L-188A Electra operated by Líneas Aéreas Nacionales Sociedad Anónima (LANSA) which crashed shortly after takeoff from Quispiquilla Airport near Cusco, Peru, on August 9, 1970, after losing all power from one of its four engines. The turboprop airliner, registered OB-R-939, was bound from Cusco to Lima, carrying 8 crew and 92 passengers. All but one of the occupants died from injuries sustained from impact forces and post crash fire. Two people on the ground were also killed. There were 49 American high school exchange students on board, all of whom perished. A Peruvian government investigation concluded that the accident was caused by improper execution of engine-out procedures by the flight crew and lack of proper maintenance. LANSA was fined and its operations were suspended for 90 days. At the time, the crash was the deadliest ever in Peruvian history before being surpassed by Faucett Perú Flight 251 in 1996.
LANSA Flight 508 was a Lockheed L-188A Electra turboprop operated as a scheduled domestic passenger flight by Lineas Aéreas Nacionales Sociedad Anonima that crashed in a thunderstorm en route from Lima to Pucallpa in Peru on 24 December 1971, killing 91 people – all six of its crew and 85 of its 86 passengers. It is the deadliest lightning strike disaster in aviation history.
Maria Koepcke was a German ornithologist known for her work with Neotropical bird species. Koepcke was a well-respected authority in South American ornithology and her work is still referenced today. For her efforts, she is commemorated in the scientific names of four Peruvian bird species and, along with her husband, a Peruvian lizard species.
Wings of Hope is a 1998 made-for-TV documentary directed by Werner Herzog. The film explores the story of Juliane Koepcke, a German Peruvian woman who was the sole survivor of Peruvian flight LANSA Flight 508 following its mid-air disintegration after a lightning strike in 1971. Herzog was inspired to make this film since he had narrowly avoided taking the same flight while he was location scouting for Aguirre, the Wrath of God; his reservation had been canceled due to a last minute change in itinerary.
Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke was a German zoologist, ornithologist, and herpetologist. He was married to ornithologist Maria Koepcke, and was the father of mammalogist Juliane Koepcke.
Ivan Mikhailovich Chisov was a Soviet Air Force lieutenant who survived a fall of approximately 7,000 meters.
Falling is the action of a person or animal losing stability and ending up in a lower position, often on the ground. It is the second-leading cause of accidental death worldwide and a major cause of personal injury, especially for the elderly. Falls in older adults are a major class of preventable injuries. Construction workers, electricians, miners, and painters are occupations with high rates of fall injuries.
Juliane may refer to:
Miracles Still Happen is a 1974 Italian film directed by Giuseppe Maria Scotese. It features the story of Juliane Koepcke, the sole survivor of 92 passengers and crew, in the 24 December 1971 crash of LANSA Flight 508 in the Peruvian rainforest.
Als die Sonne vom Himmel fiel is a 2015 Swiss documentary. Focusing on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the United States Army Air Force on 6 August 1945, it was filmed and produced at locations in the Hiroshima and in the Fukushima prefectures, Japan, and produced by the Japanese-Swiss film-maker Aya Domenig.
Aya Domenig is a film-maker and anthropologist of Japanese–Swiss origin.
Panguana is a biological research station, founded in 1968 and since 2011 it is also a private conservation area extending over almost 10 km2 of tropical primary forest in Peru.
Flight 508 may refer to: