In 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke was flying over the Peruvian rainforest with her mother when she got sucked out of the airplane after it was struck by a bolt of lightning.
In 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke was flying over the Peruvian rainforest with her mother when she got sucked out of the airplane after it was struck by a bolt of lightning. She fell two miles to the ground strapped to her seat. "The plane jumped down and went into a nose-dive. It was pitch black and people were screaming, then the deep roaring of the engines filled my head completely. Suddenly the noise stopped and I was outside the plane. I was in a freefall, strapped to my seat bench and hanging head-over-heels. The whispering of the wind was the only noise I could hear. I could see the canopy of the jungle spinning towards me. Then I lost consciousness and remember nothing of the impact. Later I learned that the plane had broken into pieces about two miles above the ground. I woke the next day and looked up into the canopy. The first thought I had was: 'I survived an air crash.'" Koepcke's first instincts were to try and find her mother, but she was nowher...