Against all odds

Can someone survive a 33,000 feet free fall? 10 amazing survival stories

Image: alexey turenkov

Every so often, we wonder how we’d respond if faced with the direst of circumstances—fighting tooth and nail through unimaginable dangers to survive. But beyond our wildest dreams, some individuals have demonstrated that the will to live can overcome even the most insurmountable odds. From a plane crash in the Andes mountains to being swept up by a tornado, these 10 stories of endurance, courage, and unbelievable luck shed light on the inherent grit of the human spirit.

Image: redcharlie

In 1972, a Uruguayan rugby team's plane crashed in the Andes mountains after the pilot made a critical navigation error. Of the 45 passengers aboard, 29 survived the initial impact. Stranded at nearly 11,500 feet without any means of communication, they endured brutal conditions for over two months. With starvation setting in, they made the harrowing decision to eat the frozen remains of their deceased companions.

When it became clear that no rescue was imminent, two of the survivors embarked on a desperate trek through the treacherous mountains. With no training or proper gear, they braved incredibly difficult terrain for ten days before encountering a local shepherd who alerted authorities. By the time the ordeal ended, only 16 survivors remained. Their incredible story quickly captured international attention and remains a powerful testament to human perseverance and the will to survive against all odds.

Image: Patrick Hendry

In 1993, during a solo trip through Morocco, French electrician Emile Leray found himself stranded deep in the Sahara desert after his Citroën 2CV broke down from hitting a rock. With only enough food and water for ten days and no help in sight, Leray ingeniously dismantled his car and repurposed the parts to construct a makeshift motorcycle.

To shield himself from the relentless sun and frequent sandstorms, Leray used the car’s body as a shelter. After twelve days, with only half a liter of water remaining, he successfully escaped and rode towards the nearest village. Though his remarkable feat received little media coverage at the time, Leray earned the nickname "the extreme mechanic" for his extraordinary ingenuity and survival skills.

Image: Museums Victoria

Ada Blackjack was a Iñupiat woman who joined an ill-fated expedition to Wrangel Island in 1921 as a cook and seamstress. The expedition aimed to settle the island and claim it for the Canadian government (though at the time the territory technically belonged to Russia), and was organized with the backing of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a renowned Arctic explorer. Blackjack was meant to join other four young explorers on the dangerous journey.

However, the expedition was severely underprepared for the harsh Arctic conditions. As rations dwindled and the team failed to hunt enough game to sustain themselves, the situation grew dire. One of the young men succumbed to scurvy, while the other three got lost in a desperate attempt to seek help, leaving Ada completely alone in the Arctic—with only the expedition's cat for company. She survived for eight months in the extreme cold, teaching herself to hunt foxes and sew parkas from reindeer skins. She was finally rescued on August 19, 1923, and was hailed as a real-life female Robinson Crusoe for her remarkable survival skills.

Image: Sam Williams

In 1981, Steven Callahan set sail from Cornwall aboard his self-built sailboat, Napoleon Solo, bound for Antigua as part of a solo sailing race. However, disaster struck during a night storm when his boat collided with an unknown hard object, causing it to take on water rapidly. With little time to think, Callahan desperately inflated his life raft and had to dive several times into the sinking vessel to retrieve essential survival gear.

Drifting westward with the trade winds for 76 harrowing days, Callahan faced all sorts of challenges aboard his raft, including shark encounters, raft punctures, and the mental strain of isolation. He mastered the use of solar stills to distill seawater and relied on fish, barnacles, and seabirds for sustenance. Despite activating his emergency beacon and signaling passing ships with a flare gun, his presence went unnoticed. Finally, near the island of Marie Galante, fishermen spotted him, drawn by the birds hovering above the raft, attracted by the small ecosystem that had developed around it. After his rescue, Callahan dedicated himself to designing improved life rafts, drawing from his extraordinary experience at sea.

Image: Kristina Delp

On Christmas Eve 1971, just a day after her graduation, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke boarded LANSA Flight 508 with her mother, heading to the biological research station in the Amazon rainforest where both her parents worked. During the flight, the airplane was struck by lightning, causing it to fall apart mid-air.

Still strapped to her seat, she plummeted 10,000 feet into the dense jungle and survived the fall with only minor injuries. Alone in the rainforest, she endured 11 days of hardship, following a river's course until she stumbled upon a lumberjack camp. There, she was rescued and eventually airlifted to safety. Despite the tragedy, Koepcke returned to the Panguana research station and continued her work, later becoming a renowned zoologist.

Image: Vlad Tchompalov

In 2013, Harrison Okene, a Nigerian cook, was working aboard the Jascon-4, a tugboat assisting an oil tanker 20 miles off the coast of Nigeria when it suddenly capsized due to rough seas. The vessel quickly filled with water and sank to the seafloor, about 100 feet below the surface. Okene, who was in the bathroom at the time, miraculously found himself trapped in a small air pocket within the sunken ship, surrounded by darkness and freezing water.

For nearly three days, Okene survived in the pitch-black cabin, enduring the cold and the terrifying uncertainty of whether rescue would come. With no food and only a can of Coca-Cola to sustain him, he clung to hope. On the third day, divers surveying the wreck for recovery operations were shocked to hear his hammering against the hull. They discovered Okene alive, and he was safely rescued after being placed in a decompression chamber. Despite his harrowing experience, Okene later became a professional diver, working on underwater installations and repairs for oil and gas facilities—a remarkable twist for someone who had once been so close to death beneath the sea.

Image: Bao Menglong

Serbian flight attendant Vesna Vulović holds the world record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute. In 1972, after her plane exploded mid-air, she fell over 33,000 feet to the ground. Miraculously, her fall was cushioned by a snowy mountainside. She was later discovered alive alongside the wreckage by a local villager who tended her until rescuers arrived.

Despite sustaining severe injuries, including a fractured skull and broken legs, Vulović survived the ordeal but had total amnesia of the incident for a month afterward. Remarkably, she recovered almost fully, though she lived with a limp for the rest of her life. Vulović later attributed her astonishing survival and recovery to her "Serbian stubbornness" and a childhood diet rich in "chocolate, spinach, and fish oil."

Image: Oliver Sjöström

In 1965, six Tongan schoolboys were shipwrecked on a deserted island in the South Pacific for 15 months. The boys, all pupils at a strict Catholic boarding school, were bored out of their minds, and one day decided they had had enough. A plan to escape to Fiji, or perhaps even to New Zealand, formed in their minds. They stole a fisherman’s boat, and finally set out to sea, only to be caught in a storm.

Being inexperienced sailors, they quickly became adrift when the sails were shredded and the rudder broke. After eight days with no food and water, they spotted a small island on the horizon, where they promptly set camp. Unlike the fictional Lord of the Flies, however, these boys cooperated to survive. They set up a communal system, created a garden, and built shelter until they were rescued by a passing fisherman.

Image: Gower Brown

Charles Joughin, the chief baker aboard the Titanic, survived the 1912 disaster by staying remarkably calm—and by getting drunk. Yes, you read that right. With a lifetime of experience at sea, Joughin was assigned a spot on one of the lifeboats but refused to board, giving his place to other crew members.

After all the lifeboats had been lowered, Joughin returned to his quarters and had a few whiskeys. As the ship continued to sink, he threw around 50 deck chairs overboard to serve as flotation devices. Unfazed, he walked to the ship's highest point and waited for it to submerge, making him the last survivor to leave the Titanic. Incredibly, he spent several hours in the freezing Atlantic before being rescued. It's speculated that the alcohol helped him stave off the effects of cold and fear, enabling his incredible survival.

Image: Greg Johnson

Matt Suter was 19 years old when a tornado in Missouri picked him up and carried him 1,307 feet before dropping him in a field. Amazingly, he survived with only minor injuries. Suter recalls hearing a deafening roar as the tornado approached the mobile home where he was staying with his grandmother. Suddenly, the tornado struck with full force, collapsing the walls and blowing open the doors and windows.

Just before being sucked outside, a lamp struck him on the head, knocking him unconscious. When he came to, he found himself lying in a field, wearing only his underwear, badly scratched and bruised but otherwise unharmed. Suter’s survival is considered miraculous by tornado researchers, and he currently holds the record for the longest distance traveled by a person in a tornado.

You said it comes from where?

French fries from Belgium: dishes with an incorrect nationality

Many dishes carry an origin in their name. But were they created in those places? Canadian bacon is back bacon, Russians eat Olivier salad, and Thai people do call it pad Thai, but is this the norm? Some dishes that are popular in America are associated with certain cuisines in their names when, in reality, they have a different origin. Let’s explore some of them and find out how they came to be called this way!

Contrary to what the name suggests, French fries originated in Belgium, not France. According to a popular story, 17th-century Belgian villagers, unable to fish on a frozen river, decided to fry their potatoes instead.

So, why French and not Belgian fries? There are several likely stories, but the term ‘French fried’ has been synonymous with ‘deep fried’ long before it was used for potatoes.

Pineapple as a pizza topping might be one of the most divisive food choices, and Hawaiians unjustly bear the brunt of the anti-pineapple side. But this controversial pizza combination is the result of many factors, none of them related to the Aloha state.

The idea behind this pairing came from a Greek-Canadian restaurateur from Ontario who had experience cooking Chinese food, abundant with sweet and sour combinations. Why Hawaiian then? It was the brand of the canned pineapple.

Spongy chocolate layers and a coconut-pecan frosting; no wonder this cake is a tried and true classic. But it is not the German chocolate classic, as that title is held by Black Forest cake. This one is all American.

The original name of this dessert was German’s chocolate cake, after chocolate-maker Samuel German. With the recipe becoming popular and rival chocolate brands developing their versions, the possessive in the name was eventually dropped.

Danishes are one of those pastries that are simply versatile. They have a multitude of fillings and flavor profiles, and make excellent snacks. But are they actually Danish?

If you were to ask someone from Denmark, they would tell you that their real name is wienerbrød, or Viennese bread. But, although they were an Austrian import into Denmark, the truth is that Danish bakers developed their own distinct recipe. So, they are sort of Danish.

While this snack was developed by a Japanese person, it doesn’t exist in Japan as we know it. It originated in Mexico, where a recently unemployed Japanese immigrant took up selling snacks as a way of providing for his family.

Inspired by mamegashi —a Japanese snack of seeds coated in spiced flour and fried— he chose peanuts to adapt them to the Mexican taste. The snack became popular instantly and was known as ‘Japanese-style’ peanuts.

The trick of wetting and cooking stale bread is older than the country of France. A 1st-century Roman cookbook contains what is considered to be the first recorded (eggless) French toast recipe, called aliter dulcia (‘another sweet dish’).

The dish does exist in France, but it’s called pain perdu, or ‘lost bread’. Possible explanations for the ‘French toast’ name talk about either a desire to make it sound more upscale or about a man called Joseph French popularizing it in America.

After a few dishes wrongly attributed to France, we encounter a French dish wrongly attributed to Macedonia. This dish can be found across southern Europe, but the term macédoine comes from French cuisine and is used for a salad made from small pieces of fruits or vegetables.

Though disputed, several sources claim that Macedonia refers to the mix of fruits or vegetables, as a reference to the mix of people that were part of the empire of Alexander the Great of Macedonia.

This one’s tricky: some Swiss cheeses come from Switzerland, but not all. The term ‘Swiss Cheese’ is used in America in a generic sense to talk about cheeses similar to Swiss Emmental (the yellow cheese with holes, in case you don’t recognize the name).

While Emmental is a registered name for cheeses made in that specific region, it’s still used for similar products from other countries. Also, true Emmental cheese might be sold as ‘Swiss cheese’ in the U.S.

Spanish people are well-known for a specific rice dish, but it’s not this one, because this one’s Mexican. Sometimes called Mexican rice, this dish is a common side dish in Mexican cuisine, which is simply known as arroz rojo, or ‘red rice’.

Why the association with Spain, then? The name is used in the context of Tex-Mex cuisine: some say it’s because the dish is perceived as a simpler version of the Spanish paella, while others think it’s because it comes from a Spanish-speaking culture.

If you ever travel through Italy, don’t expect to find Italian dressing available in restaurants or supermarkets. Despite its name, this one is one hundred percent American.

But it does have a connection with Italy: it originated in Massachusetts, where a restaurant started selling a salad vinaigrette made by the owner’s wife. She was the daughter of Italian immigrants, and this was her family’s recipe, so everyone called it ‘the Italian dressing’.