Against all odds

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Secrets of the mind

10 disturbing ways your brain lies to you daily

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Our brains are powerful machines, capable of reacting to new stimuli in a quarter of a second, processing vast amounts of information, and spotting patterns in the most unexpected places. However, by their very nature, they’re also full of quirks and strange shortcuts that make them prone to error. From false memories to irrational fears, our minds don’t always work the way we expect. Here are 10 ways your brain plays tricks on you.

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Your brain sometimes creates entirely false memories or distorts real ones. Studies show that people can vividly remember events that never happened, especially if they hear repeated suggestions. This is why eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.

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You might think you notice everything, but your brain often misses changes in your environment. We tend to focus on what we expect, and studies show people can fail to see major alterations in an image when they aren’t expecting them, even if they’re looking directly at it.

Image: Google DeepMind

Just as we are sometimes blind to new information, our brains tend to prefer information that supports what we already believe. This mental shortcut makes it easy to ignore evidence that contradicts your views, which is why debates rarely change anyone’s mind.

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We assume people notice our mistakes or appearance way more than they actually do. In reality, most people are too focused on themselves to pay close attention to minor slip-ups of other people around them.

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After something new happens, your brain convinces you that you "knew it all along." This illusion makes events seem more predictable than they really are, leading to overconfidence in future predictions.

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If you believe a treatment will work, your brain can trick your body into improving—even if it’s just a sugar pill. This effect is so strong that medical studies must account for it when testing real drugs.

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Your decisions are often influenced by the first piece of information you hear about a topic. For example, if you're told a shirt is "50% off," you’re more likely to see it as a great deal, regardless of the original price.

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Our brains try to please us as much as they can. This is why, when your actions contradict your beliefs, your brain still tries to justify them. This psychological phenomenon explains why people rationalize bad decisions instead of just admitting they were wrong.

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Known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, this is a form of cognitive bias in which people with low competence tend to overestimate their abilities, while highly intelligent people often underestimate theirs. This is why beginners are often the most confident, and true masters are more likely to doubt themselves.

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Your brain is wired to find patterns—even when none exist. This is why people see faces in clouds or conspiracy theories in random events.