The aircraft had broken apart, separating her from everyone else onboard. Listen to the programmehere. "I was outside, in the open air. Twitter Juliane Koepcke wandered the Peruvian jungle for 11 days before she stumbled upon loggers who helped her. She had crash-landed in Peru, in a jungle riddled with venomoussnakes, mosquitoes, and spiders. She married and became Juliane Diller. Dr. Diller laid low until 1998, when she was approached by the movie director Werner Herzog, who hoped to turn her survivors story into a documentary for German TV. That girl grew up to be a scientist renowned for her study of bats. Her final destination was Panguana, a biological research station in the belly of the Amazon, where for three years she had lived, on and off, with her mother, Maria, and her father, Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, both zoologists. Juliane Koepcke wandered the Peruvian jungle for 11 days before she stumbled upon loggers who helped her. Returningto civilisation meant this hardy young woman, the daughter of two famous zoologists,would need to findher own way out. You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. The local Peruvian fishermen were terrified by the sight of the skinny, dirty, blonde girl. Click to reveal Continue reading to find out more about her. Koepcke returned to her parents' native Germany, where she fully recovered from her injuries. MUNICH, Germany (CNN) -- Juliane Koepcke is not someone you'd expect to attract attention. I learned a lot about life in the rainforest, that it wasn't too dangerous. The next thing I knew, I was no longer inside the cabin, Dr. Diller said. [1] Nonetheless, the flight was booked. Juliane Koepcke, still strapped to her seat, had only realized she was free-falling for a few moments before passing out. They fed her cassava and poured gasoline into her open wounds to flush out the maggots that protruded like asparagus tips, she said. And for that I am so grateful., https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/18/science/koepcke-diller-panguana-amazon-crash.html, Juliane Diller recently retired as deputy director of the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology in Munich. Above all, of course, the moment when I had to accept that really only I had survived and that my mother had indeed died, she said. She then spent 11 days in the rainforest, most of which were spent making her way through the water. She was portrayed by English actress Susan Penhaligon in the film. Dr. Diller attributes her tenacity to her father, Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, a single-minded ecologist. Her incredible story later became the subject of books and films. A small stream will flow into a bigger one and then into a bigger one and an even bigger one, and finally youll run into help.. The Incredible Story Of Juliane Koepcke, The Teenager Who Fell 10,000 Feet Out Of A Plane And Somehow Survived. Juliane Diller in 1972, after the accident. As she descended toward the trees in the deep Peruvian rainforest at a 45 m/s rate, she observed that they resembled broccoli heads. I decided to spend the night there. It was infested with maggots about one centimetre long. She achieved a reluctant fame from the air disaster, thanks to a cheesy Italian biopic in 1974, Miracles Still Happen, in which the teenage Dr. Diller is portrayed as a hysterical dingbat. I felt so lonely, like I was in a parallel universe far away from any human being. Then check out these amazing survival stories. Suddenly the noise stopped and I was outside the plane. But then, the hour-long flight turned into a nightmare when a massive thunderstorm sent the small plane hurtling into the trees. In December 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke and her mother were traveling to see her father on LANSA Flight 508 when the plane was felled by lightning and . My mother and I held hands but we were unable to speak. He is remembered for a 1,684-page, two-volume opus, Life Forms: The basis for a universally valid biological theory. In 1956, a species of lava lizard endemic to Peru, Microlophus koepckeorum, was named in honor of the couple. I was lucky I didn't meet them or maybe just that I didn't see them. As she plunged, the three-seat bench into which she was belted spun like the winged seed of a maple tree toward the jungle canopy. [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]. The flight was supposed to last less than an hour. And she remembers the thundering silence that followed. Just before noon on the previous day Christmas Eve, 1971 Juliane, then 17, and her mother had boarded a flight in Lima bound for Pucallpa, a rough-and-tumble port city along the Ucayali River. [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. They were polished, and I took a deep breath. The jungle was my real teacher. "I recognised the sounds of wildlife from Panguana and realised I was in the same jungle," Juliane recalled. 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. My mother said very calmly: "That is the end, it's all over." "It's not the green hell that the world always thinks.". Before the crash, I had spent a year and a half with my parents on their research station only 30 miles away. The trees in the dense Peruvian rainforest looked like heads of broccoli, she thought, while falling towards them at 45 metres per second. She remembers the aircraft nose-diving and her mother saying, evenly, Now its all over. She remembers people weeping and screaming. Over the next few days, Koepcke managed to survive in the jungle by drinking water from streams and eating berries and other small fruits. Juliane Koepcke was seventeen and desperate to get home. Juliane Koepcke - Age, Bio, Faces and Birthday Currently, Juliane Koepcke is 68 years, 4 months and 9 days old. A wild thunderstorm had destroyed the plane she wastravelling inand the row of seats Juliane was still harnessed to twirled through the air as it fell. Overhead storage bins popped open, showering passengers and crew with luggage and Christmas presents. The cause of the crash was officially listed as an intentional decision by the airline to send theplane into hazardous weather conditions. She returned to Peru to do research in mammalogy. 17-year-old Juliane Kopcke (centre front) was the sole survivor of the crash of LANSA Flight 508 in the Peruvian rainforest. An expert on Neotropical birds, she has since been memorialized in the scientific names of four Peruvian species. Though she was feeling hopeless at this point, she remembered her fathers advice to follow water downstream as thats was where civilization would be. Find Juliane Koepcke stock photos and editorial news pictures from Getty Images. But Juliane's parents had given her one final key to her survival: They had taught her Spanish. Juliane Koepcke's story will have you questioning any recent complaint you've made. Later I learned that the plane had broken into pieces about two miles above the ground. I was completely alone. From above, the treetops resembled heads of broccoli, Dr. Diller recalled. Cleaved by the Yuyapichis River, the preserve is home to more than 500 species of trees (16 of them palms), 160 types of reptiles and amphibians, 100 different kinds of fish, seven varieties of monkey and 380 bird species. Manfred Verhaagh of the Natural History Museum in Karlsruhe, Germany, identified 520 species of ants. The flight initially seemed like any other. AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), abc.net.au/news/the-girl-who-fell-3km-into-the-amazon-and-survived/101413154, Help keep family & friends informed by sharing this article, Wikimedia Commons:Maria and Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke, Wikimedia Commons:Cancillera del Per under Creative Commons 2.0, Australia's biggest drug bust: $1 billion worth of cocaine linked to Mexican cartel intercepted, Four in hospital after terrifying home invasion by gang armed with machetes, knives, hammer, 'We have got the balance right': PM gives Greens' super demands short shrift, Crowd laughs as Russia's foreign minister claims Ukraine war 'was launched against us', The tense, 10-minute meeting that left Russia's chief diplomat smoking outside in the blazing sun, 'Celebrity leaders': Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley take veiled jabs at Donald Trump in CPAC remarks, Hong Kong court convicts three members of Tiananmen vigil group for security offence, as publisher behind Xi biography released, 'How dare they': Possum Magic author hits out at 'ridiculous' Roald Dahl edits, Vanuatu hit by two cyclones and twin earthquakes in two days. Sandwich trays soar through the air, and half-finished drinks spill onto passengers' heads. It was not its fault that I landed there., In 1981, she spent 18 months in residence at the station while researching her graduate thesis on diurnal butterflies and her doctoral dissertation on bats. After recovering from her injuries, Koepcke assisted search parties in locating the crash site and recovering the bodies of victims. On Juliane Koepcke's Last Day Of Survival On the 10th day, with her skin covered in leaves to protect her from mosquitoes and in a hallucinating state, Juliane Koepcke came across a boat and shelter. 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke. Her voice lowered when she recounted certain moments of the experience. It was Christmas Eve 1971 and everyone was eager to get home, we were angry because the plane was seven hours late. But I introduced myself in Spanish and explained what had happened. Why Alex Murdaugh was spared the death penalty, 'Trump or bust' - grassroots Republicans are still loyal. Currently, she serves as librarian at the Bavarian State Zoological Collection in Munich. A fact-based drama about an Amazon plane crash that killed 91 passengers and left one survivor, a teen-age girl. Juliane Koepcke was flying over the Peruvian rainforest with her mother when her plane was hit by lightning. On December 24, 1971, 17-year-old Koepcke and her mother boarded a flight to Iquitos, Perua risky decision that her father had already warned them against. Juliane Koepcke. Miraculously, her injuries were relatively minor: a broken collarbone, a sprained knee and gashes on her right shoulder and left calf, one eye swollen shut and her field of vision in the other narrowed to a slit. I pulled out about 30 maggots and was very proud of myself. [7] She received a doctorate from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and returned to Peru to conduct research in mammalogy, specialising in bats. An illustration of a tinamou by Dr. Dillers mother, Maria Koepcke. Fifty years later she still runs Panguana, a research station founded by her parents in Peru. Her mother was among the 91 dead and Juliane the sole survivor. The jungle is as much a part of me as my love for my husband, the music of the people who live along the Amazon and its tributaries, and the scars that remain from the plane crash.. Juliane Koepcke, pictured after returning to her home country Germany following the plane crash The flight had been delayed by seven hours, and passengers were keen to get home to begin. Hardcover. They thought I was a kind of water goddess - a figure from local legend who is a hybrid of a water dolphin and a blonde, white-skinned woman. Julian Koepcke suffered a concussion, a broken collarbone, and a deep cut on her calf. Ten minutes later it was obvious that something was very wrong. Juliane Koepcke was born on October 10, 1954, also known as Juliane Diller, is a German Peruvian mammalogist. No trees bore fruit. It all began on an ill-fated plane ride on Christmas Eve of 1971. Their only option was to fly out on Christmas Eve on LANSA Flight 508, a turboprop airliner that could carry 99 people. On the fourth day, I heard the noise of a landing king vulture which I recognised from my time at my parents' reserve. On 12 January they found her body. The first was Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Maria Scotese's low-budget, heavily fictionalized I Miracoli accadono ancora (1974). In this photo from 1974, Madonna Louise Ciccone is 16 years old.