On the morning of Christmas Eve, 1971, a 17 year old girl named Julian kept key and her mum, Maria, reporting little Flight 508 from the city of Lima to Copa, Peru, where Julian's dad was waiting for them to begin celebrating the holidays. Now, this flight was by far from their top choice. Back then, the answer was notorious for its awful safety record. I mean, just completely horrendous. Just one year earlier in 1970, poor plane maintenance cost, layers of Flight 502 to suffer an engine fire and crashed into a valley, killing 99 people on board and two others on the ground. Just four years before that, pilot error, of course, led to Flight 501 to crashed into a mountainside, killing all 49 passengers on board. In fact, as of 2011, out of the 170, Lockheed L, 188 Electra planes that had ever existed 58 had been written off as a result of crashes or extreme malfunctions midair. That's 34%. Point is, this was not an airline you ever wanted to fly with. But although Julian and her mum's original plan was to fly out from Lima a few days earlier. Since Juliet had recently graduated high school and really wanted to stay behind a bit longer just to celebrate her graduation ceremony that had to fly, it was now their only option to return home. And since 99% of the time, the airline's planes were completely fine and did safely make it to their destinations, Juliet and her mum just decided to go with it. If you and I were in their shoes, we would have done the same thing. It was just the most logical thing to do. But that one decision would end up changing both of their lives forever. When it's a flight five away, it started off like any other. It was a short flight. It was supposed to last just less than an hour. And since Julian's mom, Maria, was an extremely anxious flier, she was she got very nervous on planes. She was really hoping that it'd be over soon. It'd be over really soon. Julienne, on the other hand, was actually pretty okay with flying, so she spent most of her time just looking out the airplane window and looking down at the large and lush Amazon rainforest below them. Now, some were ahead of them in that rainforest. That was Penguin, the place they were headed and the place where Julian's dad, Hans William, kept Keith was waiting. I think one was a biological research center that was founded by her parents to study the mammals, insects and fish in the Amazon. Her mom was an ornithologist or an expert on birds. Her dad was a renowned zoologist or someone who studies animals. So as you can probably imagine, Julian, who was raised in home, schooled at Penguin for a good chunk of her life, was extremely familiar with the rainforest and its diverse array of fascinating but often dangerous organisms. Little did she know that this knowledge would soon become much more important than she could have ever imagined. As Julian sat there, staring mindlessly at the window, she suddenly jolted and stared in disbelief. As within seconds and without warning, the originally bright and sunny and cloudless blue skies outside completely disappeared and were almost instantly replaced by the sky as pitch black as midnight. Taking a closer look outside, she realized that their plane had just flown straight into a massive thunderstorm. And all of a sudden, almost immediately after she had noticed this, people gassed as the plane began violently shaking, shaking up and down, up and down, up and down, sending Julian lurching in her seat within mere seconds. It was sheer pandemonium. The plane was melting so hard that all of these overhead storage bins were well, the luggage and stuff was placed, were suddenly bursting open, sending all these clothes and wrapped gifts and food falling onto the people near the aisles as blinding lightning and roaring thunder filled the cold, black skies outside. People screamed in quite a terror and were just holding their seats so hard that their knuckles were turning white. It was a surreal sight. Cakes and half finished drinks and flowers were just flying around the cabin, some of them almost hitting Juliet in her face as she sat there, desperately clinging to her own chair as well. She heard her mum, who was right next to her, murmured to herself, I hope this goes all right. Julianne could clearly hear the fear and anxiety in her mum's voice, but she herself managed to stay calm. It's okay. Everything will be okay. It'll all be over soon, she likely thought to herself. But after almost 10 minutes of this insane turbulence, Julianne, startled as this unbelievably white light flashed over the plane's right wing right outside her window, a bolt of lightning had just struck the plane, and instantly, instantly the plane plummeted downward nose first. Julianne watched in horror as the entire Iowa ahead of her all the way to the cockpit, was suddenly below her. They were completely plummeting. Down was now almost in a completely vertical line. And as they continued to rapidly plunge downwards somehow over all the screams and cries and the deafening roar of the turbines, as clear as G+, Julianne could hear her mum's voice right next to her, and in you really come voice saying, Now it's all over. At this point, everyone was in complete hysteria, their cries for help and their prayers and the deafening roar of the turbines just grew louder and louder and louder. And then everything went silent. Everything all of a sudden went quiet in the blink of an eye. Julianne was no longer inside the plane. She was suddenly outside, falling through the air. And although she was still strapped in her seat and the seats to the left and right of her were still there, the people who had been sitting in their seats, including her mom, were gone. As Julianne plummeted towards the trees, blows spinning like one of those helicopter seats, she realized that their plane had completely broken apart and that this was it. This was the end. The very last thoughts were that from above, the treetops kind of looked like heads of broccoli. And then she passed out. When Julianne woke up, the vast canopy of the Amazon rainforest stared down at her. She found herself still attached to receipts, laying completely soaked in this pool of mud and dirt with flies and bees and mosquitoes swarming all around her. And her very first thoughts were, I survived an aircraft. And suddenly she remembered the plane and the storm and the lightning strike and how the plane had broken apart. And her mom, she frantically turned side to side, but she was completely alone. And although she tried crying out, desperately yelling Maria's name, only the sounds of the jungle returned since Julian felt dizzy and her head was pounding. She assumed she had a concussion. She quickly checked for other injuries. She had a broken collarbone. She had gas just on her shoulder and calf, or one of her eyes were swollen shut and she had a sprained knee. But that was it. Incredibly, these were all minor injuries. And considering that she had just fallen from a height of two miles or 10,000 feet, this was a complete miracle. To put that into perspective, think about the distance you travel when biking or walking or driving two miles. That's the distance, Julianne fell for. Now, although Julianne had somehow survived the crash, she was by no means safe. This skinny 17 year old girl was now completely alone in the Amazon rainforest, known for its venomous snakes and spiders. Its four long caimans, its fierce piranhas and its deadly stingrays with their venomous tails. It's regarded as one of the most dangerous rainforests in the entire world for a reason. And since Julianne Witt actually lost her glasses during her fall, was near-sighted and also combined with the fact that her once swollen, I was pretty much entirely shut and she couldn't actually see out of it. She was going to have to navigate this deadly and very, very detailed jungle, almost completely blind in an environment where a single step could be the difference between life and death. Julie could barely even see the steps that she was taking, and because of her concussions, she could barely think straight as well. And to make matters even worse, she had lost one of her sandals as well, so one of her feet were completely bare against the horse and dangerous jungle. When Julianne checked her watch, she saw that it was 9 a.m., December 25th Christmas. It had been almost a full day since she had boarded friends of Flight five weeks, and it would take almost another full day for her to even fully get up. Although she wasn't exactly scared, the sheer shock of the situation was really just weighing down in her mind. She felt completely hopeless, and the feelings of abandonment and loneliness were so strong that they shook her to her very core. In the end, it was the thought that her mom could still be somewhere out there that drove Julie into action. And although she didn't have any food on her completely no food other than a single small bag of candy that she had found near the place that she landed, she was not without resources. Recognizing the same croaks from frogs and cries from broods that she had always heard while growing up, she knew that she still had to be in the same jungle as penguins. Throughout her years of living at Penguin, her parents had taught her almost everything there was to know about the rainforest. They had embedded in her mind countless survival skills and tips. What plants and animals to avoid and what signs of civilization to look out for. One of these tips was to always follow the water downstream, as that's where people would be. Her father would always say a small stream will flow into a bigger one and then into a bigger one and an even bigger one. And finally, you'll run in to help. So when Julian came across a small well, she remembered her dad's advice and began walking along the big following. Don't swim for miles, she approached, always stepping very carefully and deliberately. She knew that snakes were often camouflaged and could look exactly like dry leaves. So every single time she took a step, she would always use her one good shoe to test the ground in front of her to make sure that she wasn't accidentally stepping onto anything dangerous. It was an extremely painstaking anxiety inducing process. One step at a time. And then another. And then another. And since most of what grows in the jungle is extremely poisonous as well, she took careful care to not touch anything that she didn't recognize as well. Before long, her dad's advice was already working. The originally small well had now become a mid-sized stream, although Juliet had originally been hesitant to take the seemingly safer path of walking in the water instead of just alongside the bank. Due to another piece of advice from her father that piranhas tend to live in these shallower waters. Now, since the water was deeper, she decided to finally begin swimming and floating mid-stream to not only avoid the snakes, but also the countless mosquitos and bees that had been constantly buzzing around her, putting her risk of developing very dangerous mosquito borne diseases. For DS, she alternated between walking and swimming like this, always on high alert and constantly on the lookout for potential dangers. From time to time, she would hear planes circling above her, looking for survivors, and she would scream in quiet to her voice when horse, with the massive trees above her, always hit her sight. And before long the plane stopped returning. As time went on, things began looking more and more grim. The tiny bag of candy that Julie had had at the very start had run out long ago. And since the jungle was in the middle of its wet season, reigning relentlessly every single day, none of the trees were bearing any fruit, meaning that Julienne had absolutely nothing to eat and she was very terrified of just starving to death. All she could do was to keep drinking river water in vain and unsuccessful attempts to alleviate her hunger. On top of that, she was only wearing a very short, sleeveless mini dress. And although this was fine for the scorching and brutally humid temperatures of the Amazon during the day, at night when temperatures suddenly plummeted, Julianne found herself shivering. Everything was too damp for her to light any sort of fire, and there was nothing for her to do but just endured the bitter and biting cold and try to get some sleep so she could continue trudging on the next day. Now, at some point during a real day for of wandering the jungle, Julian heard the distinct cry of numerous king vultures pierced through the air. She suddenly jolted to a stop and this immense wave of fear immediately washed over her. Smoothie King Vultures, which are scavengers, are only present in large numbers like these. When something had recently died. Very, very recently died. And although at the time she had no confirmation as to what it actually happened to the other passengers of the plane, including her mum, she just knew even before seeing anything, that it had to have been bodies from the crash. When she turned the corner towards the sound, she came across a row of seats with three passengers from the plane still attached to them. Now, Juliet had never seen a corpse before, so she was completely horrified and just shaken to record. But she was even more horrified by the idea that one of these three passengers could be her mum. She knew she had to find out as repulsive she was. She knew that she had to get closer and take a closer look just to make sure that this wasn't the case. And when she did get a little bit closer and saw that the only woman who was present had polished nails, which her mum never did, she immediately felt this wave of relief just rush over her and then instant feelings of shame for feeling that relief. As Julianne continued to trudge on day after day, she felt even more hopeless and abandoned. She was some somebody starving and weak. And as the endless jungle just kept going on and on and on and on, she was completely ready to just give up. This was it. This was the place where she would die. But on the 10th day, just as Julianne could barely stand up straight anymore, and when things had just, just about gotten so painful and exhausting for her that Julianne almost couldn't bear continuing on, she came across a small wooden hut with this palm leaf roof over it. A hut that seemed like it had recently been lifted. She actually thought she was hallucinating at first, but once she had taken a couple of steps closer and actually felt the felt the hut with her fingers, she knew that it was real. Inside the house, she found a can of petrol and since she had a wound on her shoulder that had been completely infested with maggots for days now, she used the petrol to pour some onto her shoulder to drive out all the maggots out because she was terrified of losing her arm. If they stayed in there then, having used up quite literally all of her energy, Julianne collapsed and fell asleep. The very next day she was startled, awake by a sound that she thought she would never hear again. Human voices. In Julian's own words, it was like hearing the voices of angels. She immediately staggered to her feet and began stumbling towards the door, and relief and excitement begin welling in her heart when she saw three Peruvian fishermen walking up the path towards the hut and towards her. The minute they saw this skinny, dirty, blond girl just standing there in front of them, they all immediately start their conversation mid-sentence and just stared at her in incredulity. It would later be discovered that the reason these men who lived in the hut were so sort at seen the was because they thought Julienne was a water goddess, a local legend who is the hybrid of a water dolphin and a blond white woman. But luckily for Juliet, her parents had given her one final skill for survival. They taught her Spanish, so she was able to effectively communicate with the fishermen and explain that she had been a survivor from the lance, a cross, and the fishermen who were very kind and understanding, fed her and gave her some medical attention before taking her back to civilization. After 11 grueling days, Julianne had finally escaped the jungle. Julian would later learned that out of the 92 passengers aboard Atlantis Flight five favorite, she was the only survivor. Although up to 14 other passengers had also survived the initial fall from the plane, they were likely all too injured to be able to move around and find help afterwards. Julian's mum, Maria, had actually been one of those people. However, it was discovered that she had been badly injured by the fall and since she couldn't move, passed away a couple of days later. So why then, had Julian been the only person aboard that plane whose not only survived the fall, but also did so without suffering any severe injuries? I mean, it's a two mile fall. How is that even possible? The answer isn't known for certain and honestly might never be. However, it's thought that there were several key factors that played a key role in Julian's survival. Julian herself remembers that because there have been two seats attached to her right and left, she had been spinning like a helicopter, Sybil falling, which could have slowed her descent. Some experts have also linked Julian survival to there being a powerful updraft from the thunderstorm, as well as there just being a tonne of very thick cushiony leaves at the exact spot that she landed. Regardless of that, though, Julian's sheer perseverance and mental fortitude, combined with the knowledge that her parents had given her, allowed her to then survive in the harsh and dangerous Amazon, a place where most other people would have likely lost their lives. An investigation into the crash revealed that Lance was surprise, surprise once again at fault with Peruvian investigators citing intentional flight into hazardous weather conditions as the cause of the crash. On top of that, it was later discovered that the plane, Julian and her mum were traveling on were actually in relatively poor condition and was entirely made of old spare parts from other planes. Shortly after this incident, it was determined that Lance could no longer reliably and safely function as an airline, and they were shut down for good. Julian herself would eventually go on to fully recover from her injuries. However, life after the crash was difficult. Her incredible story of hope and survival went viral and was widely covered by press all around the world. Unfortunately, however, many of these articles were writing completely untrue details about her experience, and some were even just outright defaming her. One article claimed that she had built a raft in order to survive, and another implied that she had abandoned other survivors to put herself first as so truly and became very skeptical of the press and avoided media attention for many years afterwards. Now, during her time in the jungle, Julian had promised herself that if she did manage to survive and make it back to civilization, then she would devote her life to a meaningful cause, that sort of nature and humanity. Safe to say she did not go back on that promise. Julian would later move to Germany, where she earned her Ph.D. in biology. Like her dad before her, she would go on to become a renowned zoologist, and after her dad passed away, she took his place as the director of Penguin, devoting a significant part of her life to the preservation of the plants and animals in the same exact jungle that it almost killed her. Although most other people would have actively avoided that jungle after having gone through what she had gone through, Julian sees it quite differently. She says, The jungle caught me and saved me. It's not his fault that I landed there. I hope you found today's story interesting. If you did the big thumbs up below, it's waving hello and warmly invites you in for a nice crisp click. It really does help my cello out so much so I really appreciate it. If you're new to this channel. Hi. My name is Andy. I told completely fascinating and unreal true stories. Once a week, I personally guarantee you that every single story I cover from here on out will be just as interesting as it is. So stick with me. I'll see you guys soon.