Do You Believe In Miracles ?

Hantu Laut

Do you believe in miracles?

Yes, miracle can and do happen and why it happened is very hard to explain from scientific point of view.There have been miraculous stories of people falling from great height and survived, of plane crash with only sole survivor and many other miracles that science could not explain.

The recent crash of Yemenia Flight 626 near the Comoros is one such miracle.A 14-year old girl was the only survivor.She clung to the wreckage of the plane for 13 hours before being rescued.All other 152 passengers including the girl's mother perished.

Last night, while having a drink with a few friends I related a story that I remember long ago of also a young girl who plummeted to the ground when the aircraft she was in broke in mid-air after being hit by lighting over the Amazon.She was the only survivor.Her mother also died in the crash.

This morning I search the Internet hoping to find that story that happened way back in the seventies and to my surprise I found CNN carried the same story yesterday.

Here's the story of a miracle of a girl who fell from a height of 2 miles down to the forest of the Amazon and survived with minor injuries.

Survivor still haunted by 1971 air crash

MUNICH, Germany (CNN) -- Juliane Koepcke is not someone you'd expect to attract attention. Plainly dressed and wearing prescription glasses, Koepcke sits behind her desk at the Zoological Center in Munich, Germany, where she's a librarian.

Juliane Koepcke fell more than 3kms after the plane in which she was traveling broke up in midair.

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Yet this unassuming middle aged woman has one of the most exciting and unbelievable stories of tragedy and survival to tell.

It was Christmas Eve, 1971, when Koepcke, then aged 17, and her mother boarded a Lockheed Electra turboprop for a flight from Lima, Peru, to Pucallpa in the Amazonian rainforest. Her parents, both famous zoologists, ran a research station in the jungle studying wildlife.

The airline, LANSA, had already lost two aircraft in previous crashes. "We knew the airline had a bad reputation," Koepcke told CNN, "but we desperately wanted to be with my father for Christmas, so we figured it would be alright."

The flight was supposed to last for less than an hour and for the first 25 minutes everything was fine, Koepcke recalled.

"Then we flew into heavy clouds and the plane started shaking. My mother was very nervous. Then to the right we saw a bright flash and the plane went into a nose dive. My mother said, 'This is it!'"

An accident investigation later found that one of the fuel tanks of the Lockheed Electra had been hit by a bolt of lightning which had torn the right wing off.

"We were headed straight down. Christmas presents were flying around the cabin and I could hear people screaming." Watch Koepcke tell her dramatic survivor's story »

As the plane broke into pieces in midair, Koepcke was thrust out into the open air:

"Suddenly there was this amazing silence. The plane was gone. I must have been unconscious and then came to in midair. I was flying, spinning through the air and I could see the forest spinning beneath me."

Then Koepcke lost consciousness again. She fell more than three kilometers (two miles) into the jungle canopy but miraculously survived with only minor injuries. Ninety-one other people aboard Flight 508 died.

Koepcke says she is not a spiritual person and has tried to find logical explanations for why she survived.

"Maybe it was the fact that I was still attached to a whole row of seats," she says. "It was rotating much like the helicopter and that might have slowed the fall. Also, the place I landed had very thick foliage and that might have lessened the impact."

In any case she survived with only minor injuries. Her collarbone was broken, her right eye swollen shut, she was suffering concussion and had large gashes on her arms and legs. Read more...

Also read:

Are children more likely to survive plane crashes?