Serbian woman who survived plane crash in 1972 died aged 66

In January 1972, Vesna Vulović was working as a flight attendant at Yugoslav Airlines DC-9 plane, when it exploded over snowy mountain ranges of what was then Czechoslovakia.

All of other 27 passengers and crew on board died.

Vesna was trapped in the plane’s tail and fell to earth in sub-zero temperatures. She landed in a heavily wooded slope near a village. The fuselage tumbled through pine branches and into a thick coating of snow, softening the impact and cushioning its descent down the hill, crash investigators said at the time, The Guardian reported.

A woodsman rescued Vulović after he heard her screams in the forest. She was taken to a hospital where she fell into coma for 10 days.

She had a fractured skull, two crushed vertebrae and a broken pelvis, ribs and legs.

In 1985, Vulović was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest fall survived without a parachute.

Vesna Vulović was found dead by her friends in her apartment in Belgrade, Serbian state television reported. The cause of death was not immediately known.