Sole Survivor

Life has a strange way of giving second chances, especially in the most unlikely of situations. The recent Tripoli plane crash was a reminder to me that this has happened; many times, in the past. A little bit of time wasted on the internet gave me the following incidents, selected by significance. There have been plenty more, esp. crew/pilot sole survivors, but these incidents are certainly more 'striking'.

Starting with the most recent article,

May 13th, 2010 MSN News
The Dutch boy who survived a plane crash in Tripoli that killed 103 people is recovering after surgery on his shattered legs, Libyan officials say.

July 1st,2009 BBC
MORONI, Comoros - A 12-year-old girl thought to be the only survivor of the Yemenia air crash has told how she was thrown into the ocean and watched her aircraft sink.
Baya Bakari told her father, from a hospital in the Comoros Islands, that she heard voices around her in the Indian Ocean, but could not see anyone.
She was found clinging to debris some two hours after the crash.
The plane, going to the Comoros Islands from Yemen's capital Sanaa, came down in bad weather with 153 on board.

July 8th, 2003
Port Sudan - About 10 minutes after takeoff heading from Port Sudan on the northeastern coast to the capital, the pilot radioed the control tower about a problem in one engine. The pilot killed that engine and told the tower he was returning to the airport. Ten minutes later Sudanese airliner plunged into a hillside while attempting an emergency landing killing 116 people and leaving only 3-year old Mohammed el-Fateh Osman amid a scene of charred corpses as the only survivor.

Jan 13th, 1995
Maria La Baja - This airliner exploded in mid-air as the pilot apparently was attempting an emergency landing near a swamp but hit a grassy field and exploded and then toppled into a lagoon. A farmer said he heard cries for help and found a 9 year old girl Erika Delgado on a mound of seaweed, which had broken her fall. She was the only survivor.

Aug 16th,1987
Romulus, Michigan - The lone survivor of the aircraft was four-year-old Cecelia Cichan, of Tempe, Arizona. Cecelia Cichan's mother, Paula Cichan, died in the crash, along with her father, Michael, and her 6-year-old brother, David. After the crash, Cecelia Cichan lived with relatives in Birmingham, Alabama, who shielded her from public attention.

Jan 26th, 1972
Hinterhermsdorf, East Germany - Vesna Vulovic was a flight attendant onboard when a bomb went off at the altitude of 33,000 ft. (10,050 meters). Vesna still holds the Guinness World Record for the highest fall survived without a parachute, at 33,330 feet. She is considered a national heroine throughout the former Yugoslavia.

Dec 24th, 1971
Puerto Inca, Peru - Miraculously, a German teenager (17) Juliane Koepcke who was traveling with her mother survived the crash and was still strapped in her seat. After searching for her mother in vain Koepcke wandered through the jungle for nine days looking for help. On the ninth day, she found a canoe and shelter. Hours later, local lumbermen returned and found her.



Coincidence ? I think not.