Woman fell 10,000ft from plane but survived as maggots fed on her wounds

She survived alone in the Amazon Rainforest for 11 days (Image: Wings of Hope/Youtube)

At just 17, this woman plummeted 10,000 feet from an aircraft into the Amazon Rainforest, where she was forced to battle for survival completely on her own.

It was Christmas Eve when Juliane Koepcke boarded a flight from Lima, Peru with her mother, unaware it would be their final journey together. In 1971, aboard the aircraft filled with passengers desperate to reach home for Christmas, the teenager endured a turbulent flight that entered a thick, dark cloud.

It was at this moment that events took a terrifying twist. Ten minutes later, she witnessed a brilliant white flash on the outer engine, as her mother turned to her and declared "that is the end, it's all over."

Before she realised what was happening, the aircraft nose-dived, and all she could hear were screams and the thunderous roar of the engine before she plunged 10,000 feet through the air.

She retains hazy recollections of the freefall itself but was drifting in and out of consciousness until she regained awareness, finding herself sprawled on the rainforest floor, still strapped to the three-seat bench she had occupied on the plane. Her mother's seat beside her was utterly vacant.

Following the fall, she sustained a fractured collarbone, with severe gashes on her legs, but what she was unaware of at the time was that she had torn a ligament in her knee. Whilst she could still walk, what appeared to be a minor wound rapidly became a living nightmare, as she wandered alone through the rainforest for days, dressed in nothing but a mini dress.

The flight that crashed was known as the LANSA Flight 508 (Image: Wings of Hope/Youtube)

After 10 days of isolation and battling for survival, Juliane could barely remain upright - drained from the trek, freezing nights, absence of nourishment and her deteriorating wounds. Reflecting on this period, she revealed: "I felt so lonely, like I was in a parallel universe far away from any human being."

She glimpsed a vessel beside the water and assumed it was a mirage, but when she reached out and felt it, she discovered it was genuine. Subsequently, she noticed a trail leading into the jungle which brought her to a shelter containing an outboard engine and a litre of petrol – it was at this moment she recalled an old technique of her father's.

On this very day, a gash on her upper right arm, she realised, was crawling with maggots "about one centimetre long". Her dog had previously suffered a comparable infection, and her father had applied kerosene to the injury, so bearing this in mind, she drew out the petrol and applied it straight onto her wound.

She endured tremendous agony as the maggots burrowed deeper into the injury, and she extracted approximately 30 maggots that were devouring her flesh. She declared herself "very proud of herself" for treating her wounds and, now feeling utterly drained, remained there for the night.

Several days earlier, Juliane encountered her first glimpse of other humans, though tragically they were fellow passengers from the aircraft who hadn't survived the crash. She had detected the sound of a vulture landing, which she recognised as an ominous sign, as these birds are typically attracted to decomposing remains.

"When I turned a corner in the creek, I found a bench with three passengers rammed headfirst into the earth," she told the BBC. "I was paralysed by panic. It was the first time I had seen a dead body."

Nevertheless, on her 11th and final day marooned in the Amazon, she heard the voices of several men, which she described as resembling "hearing the voices of angels". The men were startled by her appearance and initially believed she might be a water goddess, a well-known mythical figure in regional folklore. Until she started conversing with them in Spanish, and they managed to provide her with safety and shelter.

Juliane is now a biologist and mammalogist living in Germany (Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Her injuries were tended to, and she was shortly transported back to civilisation. Following a turbulent period of desperation whilst being stripped of all necessities, the next day Juliane was reunited with her father, who was so overwhelmed with emotion upon discovering his daughter was alive that he could scarcely utter a word.

The subsequent days were spent desperately seeking news about her mother's location until January 12, when her body was eventually found. Tragically, she hadn't perished in the crash and had survived for several days.

Julie revealed: "I found out that she also survived the crash but was badly injured and she couldn't move. She died several days later. I dread to think what her last days were like."

In the aftermath of the crash's horror, Julie returned to West Germany where she made a complete recovery. Following in her parents' footsteps, she studied biology at the University of Kiel and graduated in 1980.

After obtaining her PhD from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Julie went back to Peru where she conducted research, focusing on bats. She wed German entomologist Erich Diller in 1989. Her cherished father passed away in 2000 and Julie currently works as a librarian at the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology in Munich.