Fan Favorite: The Unbelievable Survival Tale of Juliane Koepcke | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hey weirdos it's crimas it's the holidays it's whatever you celebrate you festive fiends I hope you're having an
amazing holiday break hopefully you sound like the contest today do I yeah I'm sick you sound like Ronnie and Ben's
impersonation of count I'm sick right now but in the future where you are yeah I won't be and I will be enjoying some
time with my family the fam dily for the holidays and I'm excited about that and
I hope you guys are too yeah so we decided to revisit a tale that is horrifying but has an amazing ending
it's incredible the ending Julian capka is literally a miracle she's astounding like talk about a miracle at Christmas
juli a chis Miracle a criis miracle yeah she's a she's crazy a harrowing tale and
it's definitely one worth listening to so we wanted to give you guys this for another little rewind to one of our
favorite episodes our favorite cases to cover yeah just give you a little something for the holidays you know we
needed a little bit of time off to spend with the family but you can still enjoy
an older episode exactly and it's a story of like bravery and hope and perseverance and being a badass yeah
it's a perfect holiday tale wait let's let's cap off the year with that and go into
2025 like with the spirit of Julianne I can't wait for 2025 so let's take 2025 like Julianne said [ __ ] you jungle I'm
getting out of here yeah that's what we're going to do in 2025 everybody so please enjoy jul capka
she's [ __ ] amazing and so are you happy holidays Merry holidays love your faces
off beep hey weirdos I'm Elina I'm Ash and this is [Music] morbid yeah it is today we're doing a
Survivor tale oo I feel like we haven't done a Survivor Tale in a minute we have
not and this one I have had on my list forever but was scared to do it because it's a plane crash Survivor have you
ever really talked that in depth about your fear of f I've probably mentioned it I don't know how how far I've gone
into it so we're going to be covering um the survival tale of Julianne Copa um this was back in 1971
we're going to go through what happened her life and her journey after she survived
Julianne I'm telling you guys after you hear this go read her book like go to learn more about her like like she is
such an inspiring lady oo so inspiring like outrageously inspiring she flies all the time now after this and when you
hear what happened you're going to be like excuse me so this is actually I didn't know if this was going to help or
hurt do you think it helped I think it helped okay because I'm like well [ __ ] me if Julianne can get on flights what
the hell am I complaining about like what the hell you're like I've never gone down in a fiery crash oh Lord why
would you say that out loud so Jesus Christ well I didn't mean it like that um I thought we were
out never will knocking on all the wood but yeah uh so no sorry so so I have a uh debilitating fear of flying yes and
when I say debilitating I mean uh Ash witnessed it for the first time last year yeah and I literally walk into the
plane in tears like I I've seen Elena cry maybe like a handful of times in my life I think like when sad things in our
family have happened or like Bubba like I would say like maybe three to five times and you walking onto a plane was
one of them and I've also never seen you look scared yeah other than when you're
getting on a plane it's honestly I can say for sure it's the only time I feel completely out of control of myself and
my emotions well you kind of I mean you are control truly fearful like I have never felt fear like I fell walking onto
a plane I think a fear of flying is one of the easiest fears to kind of comprehend like from an outsider's
perspective cuz it it makes sense cuz you're just kind of like how do we fly up there how do it happen I don't like
to think about it too much but honestly thinking about it actually helps more because it will help you understand
that's at least it helped me yeah I don't know if it'll help everybody I'm not going to sit here and be like it'll
help everyone across the board but I can tell you the people I've talked to that
also have dealt with fears of flying so they found comfort in look like there's a lot of books and honestly I'll I'm
going to link the books in the show notes to just in case some of you have a fear of flying it's a common fear you
know and I'm telling you I don't know if you have a fear of flying if listening to this episode is going to help or hurt
you so I'm not going to sit here and claim it did it helped me researching it but I don't know if it's going to freak
someone out that has a fear of flying so just know that going in but I will link
the books because I got a few books that helped like understand the mechanics of
flying okay and understand the physics and understand airf flow and understand wind shear and understand what
turbulence actually is and jell it makes you understand the whole thing so you're
kind of up there and you're like all right so that's what that bump was okay so that bump isn't a big deal because
that's what's happening or like you know the the the Earth is cooling at an irregular rate and that's why I felt a
little bump because it let like push some a up like and it's actually kind of interesting okay yeah I mean well and
you love science too so it's very sciencey it's like a nice way of just like making it tangible I think like I
need something that I can hold on to I just statistics don't really help me I need like tangible things to be like
understand that this makes sense but I will tell you that I I'm literally like like I I get all the physical symptoms
of anxiety on a flight I I burst into tears in the middle of a flight as soon as a bump hits I will look over at John
and he always says the look in my eyes is like nothing he's ever seen like it's always just pure fear oh yeah when we
flew together me and Drew were in the front and you were closer to the back and watching you uh walk to your seat I
I've never in my life seen you look as scared us in that moment it's like walking to an execution to me it's like
what I would think it looked like yeah like walking Down The Green Mile I feel like that's how it feels to me but after
like learning about all this I was like well Julian just gets on planes now that's crazy and she just gets on planes
to do like really good [ __ ] for like the environment and for like animals and to
like further research and [ __ ] and to like better herself and I'm like well if
Julian can do that after what I'm about to tell you like I can stop are you having like um like a Patrick suy Don uh
Donnie Darko moment with the little kid and he's like I'm not afraid I'm not afraid anymore that's literally me right
now let's hope it carries on until like going to Disney with the kids and stuff and getting on a plane but you know this
is this is an amazing tale so first I'm going to talk about you know Julianne who she is how she grew up because it is
a huge part of how she survived okay so we're going to talk about Julianne Copa and like I said I'm terrified of flying
so this was definitely immersive therapy for me and I'm glad I did it finally um
but I know that things have changed in Airline safety now and that this wasn't even in you know the United States so it
was like a totally different set of protocols and all that this was also in the 70s anything went we're going to
find out that this Airline was not great this quote unquote Airline I honestly would say quote unquote Airline it's not
around anymore it ended right after this actually so don't worry about that but but this is a terrifying tale that does
it does turn into like a tale of perseverance of strength of like inspiration it's wild Julian's a badass
she's a real Testament to what the human body the mind and honestly like the human Spirit can withstand and endure um
so what happened was December 24th 1971 17-year-old Julianne Copa and her mother
Maria were set to take a flight to paopa from Lima Peru pppo was about 450 Mi away from where they were and the flight
would have only been about an hour they had done it before but the airline they were essentially forced to take this
flight on had a long history of tragic and terrifying air disasters and in fact the plane that they took this flight on
was the only plane that the airplane Airline had left because they had lost so many planes are you [ __ ] kidding
me this was it yeah oh so backing up we're going to talk about Julianne first Julianne Copa was born in October of
1954 in Lima Peru her parents were Maria who she took this flight with and her father was Hans wilheim originally he
was from Germany um Hans and Maria had met each other while they were in a biology doctoral doctorial doctoral
program in Keel oh how [ __ ] rad they were both brilliant clearly like brilliant this is a brilliant family
they had focused and excelled in studying Ornithology and this is the study of birds essentially oh cool they
also were heavily focused purely on zoology they were just very interested in animals like Flora of the Amazon they
were they the research they did is like outrageous and it's still going on today
um once they graduated they were looking to live in an area where they could like
really dig their heels in and have a diverse and exciting field to put their degrees to good use in they found that
Peru was just that place because there was a lot of unexplored areas of very highly diverse creatures there so they
moved together and they married there as well and this was a massive thing at the
time because during this time it was wildly taboo and completely unheard of really for a woman to even get a
doctorate degree especially in a scientific field of study but then Maria took it to another level when she moved
with Hans to a foreign country before they were even married level up level up taboo
taboo Maria was a super strong really determined and completely capable woman and Julianne is exactly like her in
every way truly in fact this is likely what allowed Julianne to survive when the odds were catastrophically stacked
against her in fact just to show you what kind of woman Maria was she was once on a two-month Excursion into the
Amazon in 1955 when she was involved in a severe accident A truck hit a power line and it
ended up hitting Maria oh man she lost her sense of smell and taste from this and suffered serious injuries but her
only concern was how she was missing work and wanted to get back to it oh my God like just like I want to keep doing
my research good for her julienne later said that when she was able to see her mother in her work environment she was
struck by how patient and tenacious at the same time she was and she said nothing would DET her mother from a goal
she this served her really well because Maria published several books and P pamphlets on zoology and Ornithology and
was one of the most renowned or anthologists in Peru how incredible is that and this is that's incredible
anyways but the fact that women just like weren't really allowed to do this back then or weren't credited she just
plowed through any boundaries that were like figurative or physical in front of her was like no I'm doing this she was
like I don't give a [ __ ] I'm going to do it yeah she's a badass now her father
Hans was just like Maria like they found their match in each other Hans was someone who never backed down and never
complained either he just did what he wanted to do did what he had to do never complained whenever I hear about
somebody that doesn't complain I'm like I complain so much and then I'm like I should stop doing that like H yeah I
know but he had a lot of adventure and a lot of hard work under his belt and Julian was always in awe of him as well
of her as her mother she said she was just always impressed by her parents those are like the two most incredible
Role Models you could have and it's like that's all you want as a parent is for your kid to be like wow I'm in awe of my
parents totally you know and he actually wrote a book about zoology and am aminals
amals I the kids too much I did and I was about to say Amazon and animals at the same time so I just revers them
animals in the Amazon rainforest called the basis for universally valid biological theory that do you know it uh
it's a massive Tome of knowledge at over 1600 pages and covers everything you could ever want to know about animal
life in the rainforest that's wild like wild wildly he had survived his own perils in his lifetime as well he had
been offered a job in South America and this being the 14 the 1940s when this happened um he had to make his own way
there so he hitch hitchhiked and hiked on his own through the Alps to get there the [ __ ] then when he was later in Italy
for his studies he was kidnapped and held in a prison camp in Naples and he escaped and my ass this morning is like
I don't want to get out of f yeah I was like tired like they didn't do my coffee
right at Starbucks [ __ ] my whole day is ruined like godamn this honestly this was a good it's a wake Cas to begin the
new year with yeah because it gave me this like Oh shut the [ __ ] up energy like just do your job so what she wrote
in her book which is I fell from the sky oh yeah it's I'll again I'll link it in
the show notes when I fell from the sky it's an amazing book I'm proud of you for even saying those words yeah it's an
amazing book it really imagine but my God is it terrifying she said I often think of my father's long arduous
Odyssey when I find myself in danger of becoming a little dispirited yeah and she said his story is an illustration
for me that it pays not to let things get you down girl I'm saying isn't this this is a good like happy New Year let's
listen to Julian Julien is writing my Anthem they she is she's writing everything so they had both built really
impressive lives and careers around themselves through hard work and just discipline and perseverance and passion
they were thriving as a family after their wedding in Lima Peru Maria found out that she was pregnant with her
remarkable daughter Julianne I love this story so far but I'm getting sad cuz I know I know they did have a wonderful
life together I will say that good after Julian was born in 1951 hans's brother uh Yokum moved to Lima as well and this
was hans's brother y uh unfortunately Yokum he died shortly after moving due to spasms I guess but it was tragic and
still the cause of death is completely unknown and after his death hans's mother and his sister traveled to Peru
to be with the little family and to kind of just like welcome Julianne into the world kind of like a sad moment yeah do
you think spasms was like seizures I think it probably was just didn't realize it yeah I imagine that it was
probably like you know epilepsy right now Julian's childhood seemed like it was pretty wonderful I could it sounds
like it she remembers being surrounded by animals and family which sounds pretty great for a kid oh my God it's
like the [ __ ] Wild Thornberries really is it just hit me there you go she also learned compassion and hard
work very early on from her very impressive and very hardworking parents she would help her mother a lot nursing
sick birds and taking care of young chicks that lived in their home God because Maria would take in any sick
bird and she would nurse them back to health always love can you imagine how rewarding that would be and seeing your
mother like that is teaching true empathy and compassion for something that you that like most people don't
show compassion for it's so true and something that can't give anything back to you it's just something that you are
purely giving to and not getting anything back but you just a sense of I helped that that's the main thing there
is like it can't do anything for I mean you know it it can be beautiful exactly but it's return it's not going to sit
there and like you know pay the bill at the end you know just going to say that but in fact through all of the hundreds
and hundreds of birds that Maria and her daughter brought into their home sick or
injured not one of them died under Maria's care wow all of them were saved the importance of compassion and
kindness were certainly a big deal in their home but they also needed to make sure that Julianne knew the Perils of
living in the Amazon rainforest they taught her a deep appreciation for the Wonders but also the vast dangers that
lurked within it totally she was quickly shown how to survive and navigate the world around her without modern
technology they wanted her to always be prepared to make something out of absolutely nothing nothing and it's so
fortunate that they did that I was going to say it sounds like it would have been
a major key oh the most so they took her as young as 5 years old onto hikes with
them through the Amazon where they would camp out in very simple tents or sleeping open and sleeping bags wow and
taught her how to survive there my goodness and what to avoid what would help her what kind of things she could
eat what she shouldn't even touch how animals act around humans when they're going to attack how animals act when
they are just curious you know all of that but because of her parents hard work and willingness to make themselves
uncomfortable for their careers and betterment of their family's lives they were doing pretty well financially they
had a maid Alita who Julien became very close to in fact she is still close to her today I love that they still have a
relationship she had very fond memories of this time in her life and she said the people that she was surrounded by
like the best kind of people sounds like it when she was of age Julianne attended
the Alexander Von homol school um it's a German Peruvian private school in Lima this school was pretty prestigious and
was mainly catered towards International students from like pretty wealthy families she had friends and again holds
very good memories of this time in her life she said every she was a very normal kid very happy very healthy yeah
it had always been Hans and Maria's dream to take their research and conservation passions and skills to
another level and they wanted to open a conservation and Research Center in the Peruvian jungle how [ __ ] awesome and
they did I knew it of course they did you didn't even have to say that they did they were finally able to achieve
this in 1968 when they opened their facility called panguana in 1968 there they planned to live deep in
the Peruvian jungle they thought for about 5 years studying the native flora and fauna the thing was panguana was far
away like really far into the jungle it took days and days and days to travel through Rivers Trails jungles it was
super dangerous it was long it was arduous during their Trek they would sleep wrapped in wool blankets on
Riverbanks God and had to truly use all of their skills to survive together but Julianne later said that at the time of
this journey she was 14 years old wow and she said at the time she wasn't psyched at the idea of living in the
jungle for years she's like I loved the whole thing but like I didn't want to actually live in the J jungle for years
she said quote I was less than thrilled by the idea of living in the jungle I imagined sitting all day in the Gloom
under tall trees whose dense canopy of leaves wouldn't let a single Ray of sunlight in but luckily because of her
closeness with her parents and her adventurous and very adaptive Spirit she was able to really find that she loved
living in the jungle with her parents she leaned in it wasn't easy though they had a house that was on stilts and had
no like it had like half walls and just like a canopy over it wow it had to be really high like very high to stay away
from predators and flooding and she would have to stay away from poisonous creatures like spiders and snakes and
all that while doing just about everything yeah anything like sleeping yeah and all manner of animals were all
up in her business at any given time like bats in like in the house like you know fruit bats and they would there
would be all kinds of like things just crawling in there and they'd have to make sure that they were out and not
poisonous there was no electricity no water because they didn't want any modern devices making noise to scare
animals away like they didn't want a generator cuz that would keep all animals away right so they just they
were researching so her whole life had led up to this she had been taught to survive
thrive and to live with animals in the wild her whole life and now she was legitimately putting those skills to the
test and she was gaining a lot of new ones every day that she lived there she became even closer to her parents during
this time and they really soaked in what they had to teach her while she was there now after a year and a half in
1970 unfortunately this way of life had had to come to an end because the powers
that be started to become concerned that Julianne although she was doing homeschooling was not receiving a proper
education in the jungle and they said if she didn't return to Lima to take on a regular school curriculum they weren't
going to let her graduate they all understood this I was going to say you have to no one fought this everyone was
like we get it yeah well and they are two people that are like college educated and they were like you know
what she has great experience plenty and we are glad we gave that to her and now
she's got to do this but now she can finish she can always come back exactly now luckily because she was surrounded
her whole life by her family and people who loved her um she was able to stay with family friends in Lima and continue
her schooling at the same school while her parents stayed at panguana okay now Julian was always one to adapt in the
jungle and in social situations she was a Survivor through and through so she fell right back into the traditional
like School environment like nothing happened can you imagine one day and you're you're in the jungle and the next
you're in a desk yeah I've just been living in the jungle for a year and a half and here I am I'm at a desk and
like nothing's changed like we got new kids all the time but like none like that imagine that [ __ ] new kid
showing up not that she was new she was jul it's like whatever like nothing's changed so cool she fell right back into
the Traditional School environment right back in with her group of friends she refer to this as quote a wonderful
light-hearted time and one that helped her grow in a different way than her adventurous time in the jungle day yeah
so the following year in December of 1971 Julianne had blasted through her curriculum and had earned the credits
and all the grades to graduate she would graduate on December 23rd 1971 she was also looking forward to the
fiesta de prom promo I believe it is which is a party thrown by the school to celebrate graduation as well that's
awesome her mother Maria traveled to Lima that November to spend time with julienne and they had planned to fly
back to paopa after graduation they would spend the holidays together and the Maria would travel back
to panguana Maria had actually intended to leave a few days earlier but Julianne
had wanted her understandably to stay for graduation so she stayed she didn't leave earlier so Maria initially tried
to book them a flight on faucet Airlines but unfortun Ely with the holidays there
was no tickets so the literal only option they had was lan Airlines because they were the only other airline that
actually flew to poopa this Airline was bad it had a very bad history of crashes
and mishaps and Hans that her father was horrified that they were going to be flying on it well you said they only had
one plane left cuz all the others had been demolished yeah this is the last plane that's like that alone I'd be like
no no Hans actually insisted they cancel and book with another airline even if it
meant staying another day he was like I don't want you coming on that but Maria wanted to get back home really bad and
she didn't want to wait so Lan had 20 years of terrible history behind it in 1971 just to name a few a 1948 at lancea
flight from Colombia crashed 5 minutes after takeoff and killed everyone on board oh my God most of these crashes by
the way if not all of them are due to Pilot error and lack maintenance on the planes so they just weren't they didn't
care they were hiring anybody and not taking care of their planes less than two years after that a lance of flight
crashed into the side of a volcano in southern Colombia oh my God and one year after that another crash occurred where
27 passengers and crew were all killed in 1966 a lan of Flight 101 carrying 49 people went missing in the Andes and it
was found that due to Pilot error it had crashed into a mountain side my God in 1970 a lance oflight 502 from Cusco to
Lima carrying 99 passengers 50 high school students as well dropped from the sky when an engine stopped working
because it caught on [ __ ] fire oh my God LAX engine maintenance and pilot error were were this issue double time
so it was checkered God it it's like you're how are you flying to the side of a volcano in a mountain you're not
supposed to be that low no supposed to be way up it's pilot error these are all nothing is being maintained was being
maintained on this air like were they Pilots even that's what I'm saying so this was definitely checkered uh it was
bad it was tragic nightmare airline in fact people would say about Lan lancea lands on its belly ah but sometimes
these things these things seem less dire when you really want to get home and sometimes
you don't take it all into consideration it's like one of those things or when you're 19 and you book a little bit of a
wild flight to Texas and you're just like oh the $120 flight I'll take it yeah you did that so I'm still astounded
by that I did there and back I'm astounded by that that was a cheap ass flight so Maria told actually said to
Hans not every plane's going to crash and book the tickets for December 24th so Christmas Eve Julie and her
mother arrived to chaos at the airport because of the booked Airlines everyone was vying for the remaining lances
flight and since Lan had crashed so many planes like I said they only had the one
there was one plane left in this entire Airline but this one plane Julianne said
she looked out and she was like I don't know it looked brand new to me all right
she's like it looked fine like it didn't look like it was beat up it's not like I
looked over there and there's like a propeller hanging from it like it's just like wasn't all crusty and Dusty it
looked like a plane so she said she believed it looked completely fine completely fright like to this day she's
like it's not if I had looked out there and it looked janky I probably would have questioned a little bit but she was
like you look at a plane that looks brand new you don't know what the hell are you supposed to know exactly now Lan
oflight 508 model l188 88a was actually a plane that was designed specifically for flying in
desert conditions so not the rain Forest no this would be a flight through the Andes it was not made for this at all
and actually could not withstand heavy tur turbulence which you would undoubtedly face over mountains in
rainforest oh no as if this isn't bad enough like and this is wild as if it wasn't bad enough this plane was also
made with spare parts of other airl airplan airplanes I don't know why I can't talk sorry spare parts spare parts
from like whatever plane girly this was a junkyard plane this was just put to it
was a Frankenstein plane this was Herby fully loaded but worse this was Herby not loaded this was yeah this is bad
this is just herb but at the time no one knew this so it's like no one was told hey by the way this plane is made from
pieces of other planes I think they would all question that a little bit oh my God I like can't breathe now Maria
and Julianne sat in the second to last row 19 the flight like I said was supposed to be an hour and there were 92
passengers on board about halfway into the flight 30 minutes or so they brought lunch and as they collected it a bit
later they entered directly into a stormy patch of clouds uh a thunderstorm Julian now I know now after doing a lot
of research that like Pilots don't want to fly through storms and they don't they will divert the airplane around the
storm even if it means adding some extra time to your flight of course I would much rather that and we would all much
rather that Julianne says she felt a jolt in some severe turbulence luggage and things began falling from the
overhead bins Panic started ensuing pretty immediately she said and this is going to get very this I can feel my
entire body like lighting up right now so if you have a fear of flying even if you don't I am going to talk about a
pretty SP car experience on a plane yeah if you would like to skip ahead a little
bit I understand if you don't want to hear this part it's going to be pretty quick I don't have a and I'm like not
even kidding you I'm in my like Fighter for she like holding her hands so this is like a little scary I just want to
tell everybody um because this is like woo like my whole body but this immersive therapy we're going to be okay
proud of you for doing this oh all right so she said cuz I'm like Julian lived this so I can talk about it you know I
mean like like if she can live through this and get on another plane I can [ __ ] talk about it and her story
deserves recognition cuz she's a [ __ ] badass and I'm assuming Maria pass her stes so she said her mother was clearly
anxious as this began happening and then she remembers a flash of white light as
lightning struck the white right wing of the plane oh my God now I would like to
say right now lightning hits planes yeah that happens toy Cyrus recently but there are things put in Planes now and
have been for a while that divert the energy from that lightning out of the plane so it does not touch the
electrical system it's not going to explode the electrical system in fact if it does anything to a plane which it
rarely does anything you never have any evidence of a lightning strike it can literally like make a pole that's like a
dime size in the and it will do nothing okay just to put that out there cuz I looked it up yeah I scared of it but
it's something that is in the plane that literally like throws the energy out of
the plane it diverts it across the wings and out of the Wings and you can actually see the pieces on the wings
that do this which is interesting that will throw that energy out off the wings so it's it's very interesting and that's
why I'm going to link these books okay I think even if you don't have a fear flying it just might be very interesting
to see how this all works I'm interested but back then no no and not on the spare
part plane no yeah that's was not happening so what happened was when the lightning struck the right wing of the
plane this lightning hit the plane like it was something that had absolutely zero things in place to divert that
energy so that just was like lightning hitting an object so she said quote with a jolt the tip of the airplane falls
sleep steeply down forward I can see the whole aisle to the cockpit which is below me people are screaming in panic
shrill cries for help the roar this is the part that I was like uh the Roar of the plummeting turbines which I will
hear again and and again in my dreams engulfs me this part gets me every time the last thing she heard which she said
was clear as glass over everything was her mother saying quietly and calmly now it's all
over oh my God how immediately afterwards the plane went into a sharp nose dive right after she said that and
she said she said the turbines I couldn't hear them I couldn't hear anyone else screaming I just heard my
mother say now it's all over oh my God I am liter my entire body is lit up I am covered in
chills oh my God and your oh to hear your mom say that now it's all over and your badass mom who you have seen face
everything in this world and do everything she could not even to cry it not even to yell it just quietly and
calmly say now it's all over a lot of people say that like the moment before you realize you're about to die it's
weirdly calm Cal a lot of people say that it just this is even scarier when Julian opened
her eyes again cuz she said she could hear those turbines that Roar cuz we've all heard that in like TV or movies when
you hear that like a plane something happen or even when you're starting to land you hear that like like it's that
but those are so much louder and she said it kind of like blacked her out yeah in the nose dive obviously so when
Julian opened her eyes again she was outside of the plane and no she was not on the ground she was 10,000 ft in the
[ __ ] air and still strapped to her seat with the row of seats still attached to her seat just Free Falling
Falling outside of the plane her row two miles up what yep her row of seats just freef
falling from the sky with her still strapped to her seat what it was wner Herzog who later
said about that and we'll talk about Herzog after this too he he said it pretty perfectly he said she did not
leave the airplane the airplane left her yeah and as chilling as that statement is it's also very correct the plane had
been essentially blown apart by the lightning and her row of seats with her still strapped to it was spiraling to
the Earth and julienne was just going in and out of Consciousness so was her mother like thrown from yeah her mother
was not in the seat next to her anymore oh my God and if you think about those little um
like peep pod things that like are little helicopters you make the little helicopters out of they're like that
little Boomerang shape Y how if you do that like you flip it and it kind of spirals down to the ground if you can
think of that that's what her seat was doing that's essentially what her seat was doing my God now interesting like a
quick little interesting note about uh we her Herzog cuz I just mentioned him he was supposed to be on Lance of Flight
508 oh [ __ ] that Day on in 1971 he he and his entire film crew had been scouting locations for his film The
Wrath of God and they were intended to be on that flight to head out to a scout a scout location but because of all the
chaos at the airport and this being the only flight he was not able to get a seat and he made arrangements for
another fight imagine all the people that weren't able to get a seat finding out about this plane crash and later he
took this brush with fade and he he went back to this and he did something with Julianne so we'll get to that after but
she survived remember she survived falling more than 10,000 ft to the ground outside of the plane tra strapped
to a row of seats how now Julianne being brilliant attributes her survival partially to this row of seats she was
still trapped to like I said it began spiraling as she fell and this caused wind resistance and it caused it to slow
as she was falling right then she also crashed into the canopy of the Jungle below there were trees leaves
Vines other vegetation that had she had already slowed thanks to that spiraling which was also bringing her in and out
of Consciousness God so she was also not tensed up cuz she was not even there right so it's spiraling creating the
wind resistance she's limp and then she hits the canopy which slows her down CAU
her she hit the ground below and immediately the world went black after an unknown period of time Julianne began
to have strange connected dreams she said she said first she was running through a tight dark space and she was
trying not to touch any of the walls and she said it was loud with a roaring humming sound like anine like a turbine
surrounding her and before she knew it she was shot into another dream where she was obsessively wanting to wash
herself because she was sticky and covered in mud huh she said in the dream she kept thinking one thing all you have
to do is get up okay and then she woke up she was no longer attached to the row of seats she had become come unbuckled
at some point but she was now huddled beneath them instead and it had rained she was soaking wet and covered in mud
dirt and blood oh my God she was hurt but her injuries will shock you when you consider that she fell 10,000 ft from a
plane that essentially blew up uh-huh she had a severe concussion that had her and a cut over her left eye and it
caused it to swell shut like huge she had a broken clavicle which that's a that hurts I'm not saying any of these
injuries are good or easy no but when you like you would expect her to be falling 10,000 feet I thought she'd be
in pieces to be quite honest all her bones broken now a very deep lateration on her arm and a pretty big open gash on
her leg oh later she found out she had ruptured a ligament in her knee but she didn't even know about it and she said
weirdly she didn't didn't feel pain at the time that's wild her body must have just she was in shock coursing with
adrenaline Julian said her first thoughts that were clear were ones of helplessness and quote a boundless
feeling of Abandonment I mean yeah you're all alone she saw no one around her either she didn't see bodies she saw
nothing she was like I'm alone I'm completely alone like like you said including her mother and she also had
lost her glasses which she needed to see oh no she managed to crawl from beneath
the row of seats and stand up everyone take that in for a minute she fell 10,000 ft strapped to a row of seats
outside a [ __ ] plane that blew up and then she just stood up like what stood up and she had blown apart a ligament in
her knee and stood up now unfortunately she immediately blacked out upon standing but Jesus so Flight 508 was
scheduled to land at 4:30 p.m. that day and when it didn't show up with no communic
everyone started to panic because this is L Airlines family and loved ones were trying to get information from Lan
officials but they were giving out contradictory and half statements they had no idea what had happened they had
they were just out like completely in the dark a search operation was started and is still the largest in the history
of Peru wow but it was still pretty small because it was the holidays and most of the officials were gone for the
holidays also there was no communication from the plane and the thick can copy of
the Jungle hid the crash site oh so helicopters were sent over the site several times and Rescue Planes but they
couldn't see the crash through the trees right Julianne however could hear and see them but was helpless to tell them
she was down there no throughout her entire Journey Rescue Planes flew above her and
she would just look up and be like and she'd tried to yell for them tried to show them but they never saw her oh cuz
she was not rescued by a rescue plane wow so day two so she was out for the entire
day she blacked out gone didn't wake up until the next day which was Christmas morning yeah exactly and she was unable
to stand without passing out but she fought and fought tried to do it slowly and slowly but she kep passing out
coming back that concussion must have been gnarly and think about how sick and awful you feel when you pass out if
you've ever passed out she was just doing it over and over again just trying to stand up that's so much on your body
and she finally got herself onto her knees and she stayed conscious and after a lot of time and a lot of struggle she
was finally able to stand and when she did this is when she realized that her clavicle was broken o she said
horrifyingly quote the two ends had pushed on top of each other oh but they had not broken the
skin and she couldn't feel the pain from it what so she could feel the two ends that had broken pushed on top of each
other like the middle part like that over could feel it which I'm sure was an outrageous even if it wasn't pain that
she could feel it was outrageously uncomfortable she dealt with this for 11 days oh my God 11 days and she has like
multiple open wounds oh yeah she was shocked that she was not feeling a lot of pain and once she had stood and
assessed her surroundings she was again confronted with the reality that her mother who had been sitting in the seat
next to her was nowhere to be found right no one was she wasn't seeing any one she was completely alone not even
bodies and she said it was the loneliness of this that was the worst part of course she said it made it made
it her mission to find her mother she was like even if my mom is dead I need to find my mom now this is when those
instincts in those years of her parents teaching her survival and strength kicked right in it's almost like her
whole life led up to this led to this yeah she was in the jungle she knew the jungle she knew how to survive this and
although she had never done it under these kind of circumstances she was ready to be that bad [ __ ] that she is
and in her book Julianne says that she immediately told herself one thing she said quote with calm and methodical
thinking you could Master almost any situation in which you end up in in nature I think that's such a good motto
to live by calm and methodical thinking is like my lifeline always so true and I
think it really is if you can calm yourself which is no easy task and you can get into that methodical thinking
space you really can get through most things that's exactly how you get out of an anxiety attack it's true but it's an
easier said than done but like you can do it if you really really find the tools to do it m now Julian said first
things first of course I want to find my mother but I need to put my oxygen mask
on first before anybody else's so she knew the first thing she had to do was find a source of of fresh water a human
can only last 3 days without water she started licking the leaves she found because it had rained so she was licking
water off of all the leaves and like drinking it off the leaves smart and she hadn't found a bigger source of water so
this was just going to have to hold her over now not only could she not see any bodies or people at all around her but
she said there was barely any plane wreckage around her either weird but luckily she did find a bag of candy and
a Christmas Stalin which is like a fruit cake oh that's that somebody had had in
there um unfortunately the the uh Christmas fruit cake had sat in the mud and rain for 2 days and it was soaked in
like muddy disgusting Julianne left it she took the bag of candy and left that she says now
she definitely should have taken it okay but at the time she was like [ __ ] that
that's gross well and she probably also was thinking like maybe like exactly but she says now she's like
I probably should have taken that fruit cake but just like cut the top off yeah I mean I think we can all forgive her
this little uh Mi mistake I suppose considering she fell out of a [ __ ] the sky yeah I would say she spent hours
around the craft site searching for supplies anything that could help her with survival she found no bodies no
survivors and no real supplies she could use either wow uh it was these hours that she first heard the rescue plane
above her oh she had nothing to signal with and told herself she had to make her way to people because she was like
they're not going to find me I have to find them so as she realizes this she hears the sound of Dripping and running
water okay we love it and so she follows it she found a river and she followed it
Downstream from hours and literally climbed over trees and huge Boulders bushwhacked her way along the river
until night came remember what just happened to her she's incredibly concussed she fell 10,000 ft from the
sky her clavicles are overlapping she has multiple lacerations and one of her eyes is swollen shut and she also can't
see without her glasses yeah that just that yeah like I did a pelaton ride last night and was
exhausted I was exhausted I was nauseous cuz I was hot and I was like oh my God me while you're just like in your attic
yeah and I'm like what the [ __ ] is wrong with you like this has put so much in
perspective for me I'm like [ __ ] literally godamn my ass got a facial last night was like well I can't work
out tomorrow can't do that damn yeah like Julianne thank you thank you for being who you are so night came she was
clearly exhausted and she found a place next to the stream where she just fell as sleep at this time news of the crash
had reached Hans Copa who had convinced who was at this time he thought his wife
and his daughter had heeded his warning about flying Lan oh and weren't on the plane oh so his hopes were crushed the
following day when he caught a news report that had listed all the passengers and Maria and Julia and Copa
were on there I can't imagine and knowing knowing that he didn't even want them on that flight oh and just and to
have some sense of calm like no they weren't on that flight they weren't on that flight they weren on that flight I
told them not to get on it and then like Julianne knowing that her father didn't
want them on that flight not knowing what happened to her mother knowing that her mother just wanted to get home to H
like just wanted to get to him quicker him knowing that she just wanted it like it's a whole it's horrible so day3 on
the third day December 26th she woke up and continued following the stream it was winding and not straight which made
it more difficult and long to follow and the obstacles were still there but she took them all like the badass she is she
recalled seeing a Goliath bird eater spider on her way I looked it up so you don't have to it's a giant tarantula
that eats birds I don't have words and she said that alone would have killed her like
that come close to her like that would have been it for her and honestly me just looking at it would have killed me
what did you say it was a giant a Goliath birde eating spider Goliath spider should not be in the scene it
would have been cardiac arrest for me it's it's it's giving Sinister babe I don't know if you guys follow B guys you
need to follow um oh I don't know the Tik Tok name now [ __ ] oh hang on I'll pause there's a there's a Tik Tok that
you guys absolutely need to follow yeah okay you tell them the Tik Tok name and then I've got a hot a hot Goss to throw
on you so there's a Tik Tok account that's given it's I don't even know how to describe
it but it makes me laugh and gives me joy just go follow every single time that I watch any video and it is @
Sinister pom B Pond babe I'm going to link it in the show notes because I hope she gets a billion followers because I
think she just reached like 100k followers and I'm like let's get her get her to a million let's bring bring her
to the billions because a it's the way she tells stories and she has the best accent and she says BBE after everything
and she'll say it's giving Sinister BBE I've been saying it in my real life can't conf all the time it's giving C
it's dark sided it's darked she is so [ __ ] funny please follow her I want BB's page to just blow the
[ __ ] up to pop off I want to make it pop off because she's so [ __ ] funny and
this is truly the Goliath bird eating spider is Sinister Vibe so Sinister babe that it's inch long fangs babe act like
hypodermic needles babe yeah inch long things yeah it is giving dark saded and she had to see this Sinister spot oh my
God she had to see this thing along the way and just avoid it just hope to avoid
it I feel like they are crawling all over Meep but besides that Sinister moment babe she also had to clean climb over
Boulders Fallen trees she had to dodge other animals other insects she faced it all with a concussion a swollen eye and
a broken clav clavicle throughout the entire Journey she heard the continuous sound of planes above her searching for
missing flight 508 to be that close to rescue and to to full well know like I'm so close but it's not going to happen
like I have no way to let them know I right there and you just keep heing it and you're like yep and then you're
probably like they're going to give up aw when are they going to give up when am I going to stop hearing them how
hopeless and when I stop hearing that that's the true like no one's coming yep like now the Amazon had Jaguars cougars
and at least 17 different species of supremely venomous snakes yeah finally after hours and
hours and hours and hours the stream opened up into a big river and into it Julianne waited because she thought okay
I'm going to just float down this River I'm going to let the current take me I'm
going to hope to make it somewhere there water snakes aren't there remember the Amazon is a constant barrage of threats
to humans in the water there were several different types of Cayman what is that which are like tiny looking uh
little alligator things they're very dangerous I say tiny but they get big um they're scary there's anacondas my
anaconda don't no and stingrays piranhas bull sharks sometimes yeah but remember
sharks are among the most dangerous oh yeah and there's some in this [ __ ] River yeah Piranha's just make me think
of Wednesday yeah there you go so but remember Julian is a bad [ __ ] always remember that never forget it and she is
also been prepared for this [ __ ] her whole life she would lead yeah right I'm sorry to interrupt but you said Tiny and
I know I don't cuz some sometimes I'm thinking of baby ones are tiny and cute but like big ones are scary they are
thickums McGee huge and they're they will eat you in one little they're like alligators or crocodiles like you know
what I mean like that kind of it's an Al alligatoroid alligatoroid there you go um that's terrifying but what she would
do is she would lead with one foot and she said she found her sandal like one sandal oh and so she would lead with the
sandal foot okay and feel things out in the water and then she used a large walking stick to touch in front of her
before moving forward so she didn't step on anything exactly the entire time she
was walking she was just slowly eating the candies out of the bag just to keep her going the just to picture her like
I'm just picturing her with like a big old bag of Skittles yeah just sitting there eating them just floating down the
Amazon River poking out for Piranha's bull after falling 10,000 ft out of the sky the [ __ ] now hours of walking
through the water was when she finally saw a piece of the plane wreckage it was in the middle of the river she saw a
large turbine that like it's that fear of big things that are not supposed to be I'm doing
I'm doing the naah the na motion right now like mm not for me like cut it out Uncle Joey cut it out no cut it out
I don't want seeing a large turbine in the middle of a r that's not it it's that's giving Sinister bab that's giving
dark sided that is the most dark sided because I'm telling you go follow that account I'm telling you it'll just give
you Joy when you need a little pickme up you need to laugh something silly this is the account for you I don't know why
uh but it is you're great things just speak to your soul if you're listening the person who owns that account you're
[ __ ] great you you are Sinister Vibe you're giving me a lot of Joy so she said Marie condos what Julianne said was
she just stared at this turbine she said she stared at it and she was just amazed
at what she was looking at but mostly she said which I'm like this is just this is
Julianne she was like like but then I got happy because it meant that I was likely going in the right direction to
find more pieces of the plane and possibly more people yeah she said she was convinced that she was not the only
Survivor she kept saying to herself she's like there is no way that only I survived this point I could understand
that there has to be more survivors yeah and she said years later she would return to this memory of seeing this
turbine in the middle of the river yeah and she said she would return to it over
and over and over again think about it all the time and she said it would just Amaze her how like she had this weird
Detachment from discovering proof that a plane had exploded around her yeah like
she was like I was looking at a piece of the plane that I had just been sitting on two days earlier and I'm sitting
there going wow that's interesting that means there's people over there I bet and instead of just being like what the
[ __ ] like crazy and she's like I just kept returning to it being like I don't know what was going on there I feel I
just feel like her mom was with her too you know 100% guiding her like giving her strength I think so too now this was
when Ground searches were knocking into high gear back in Lima and they had begun to Journey Through the Jungle
looking for the crash site damn now unfortunately this was not organized well and they were sending them in wrong
directions because they were getting false leads and like shitty tips because of all the false leads being sent in the
government actually had to impose a blackout on news reports because people are [ __ ] corre everywhere always and
this was to stop the false [ __ ] from spreading but also it kept the families in the dark they didn't know what was
going on how sad is that that like when certain media gets involved even like it
reminds me of the Idaho killings yeah the amount of misinformation being spread now that he's been apprehended
it's crazy and it's so it's so easy for it to spread too yeah now day four brought a horrific memory and Discovery
for Julianne and one that I can't imagine stumbling upon no she said on this day she had walked for a few hours
and then remembers distinctly hearing quote the flapping of large Wings unmistakable louder and lasting longer
than that of other birds this was very concerning because she knew what this was she said it was the king vulture
uhhuh and she remembered a lot about this kind of bird specifically she knew from her mother's lessons that its
presence meant there was a large amount of caran very close by is dead meat oh unfortunately she was right now she left
the river and walked into the jungle until she came across a row of three seats from Flight 508 oh no they were
lodged 3 feet deep into the ground upside down oh my God so on they were upside down so the head portions of them
were in the ground this meant that they had hit the ground with un unable Force Inc unbelievable Force what is
worse all three passengers was still strapped into the three seats oh God all of them were lodged head first into the
ground oh my God only their legs jutted out and as Julian described it quote their legs were just jutting grotesquely
upward oh and it was two men and a woman that's awful of course this would destroy anyone but Julianne fought
against any instinct to run cuz she said her first instinct in any of ours would
be to run the [ __ ] away from this site absolutely this would be the most horrific I would just want to get as far
away from this as possible and she knows that the [ __ ] king vulture is on its way yeah so I'm out which might I note
has a wingspan of about six feet yeah that's why the sound of it is very distinct cuz it's huge flapping like
this thing is massive and I'm sure the sound of it flapping is probably really scary I wonder if we can find a sound of
it yeah because just to give you a full picture here like we'll pause and find a
uh a little a sound clip I think we will not find you one because I looked and yeah you really can't get a
clear one that sounds like anything other than like we're not meant to hear it we're not that's that's what we
believe in trying to find that though I'm not going to live in this alone I found a [ __ ] video of an eagle that
found a goat and carried that [ __ ] into the air into to the air nature it's giving Sinister it's
getting Sinister by it really is but God what is the [ __ ] planet yeah so this is after Julianne discovered this
horrific scene she fought every Instinct she had to run the [ __ ] away from this
and instead she went closer because even though she knew logically that none of those passengers were her mother because
she had to be sure she had to be sure that's love so she used a stick to move the woman's shoe and saw that her
toenails had been painted and her mother never painted her toenails oh I that's just like such a I know it's such a like
a specific thing yeah meanwhile the king vultures perched above her in the trees
and were just waiting for her to leave essentially yeah cuz they're not very confrontational they're not so they were
just waiting for her to leave they were like can you please leave they also don't have eyelashes they don't we found
that out that's interesting um and she searched for anything else that could help her but nothing really could just
pieces of scorched plane were in the area so she went back into the river and it was just those three passengers she
found that's all she found now night four the candy was gone no food in the immediate area and that this crash had
happened in the rainy season when fruit was not plentiful in the trees like it would have been in dry season right she
didn't have tools to open any of the fruit anyways and she didn't have any way of getting up into the high trees to
get the fruit so she drinks from the salty River in like dirty river water just to keep herself somewhat hydrated
and distract herself from the Hunger right so as she fell into hunger and exhaustion she came across a barrier of
Driftwood and Tangled reads that would be impossible to climb in the river this made her have to leave the river again
which was dangerous yeah and difficult and she had to get through the dense unbeaten jungle for hours before finally
being able to get around that and back to the river when she does this is the first time that she sees that the canopy
above her head has opened like there's an opening of the trees and now she sees the plane as it flies over oh she can
hear it she can and now she's seeing it and she's like they might be able to see
me so she starts waving her arms and screaming throwing things like trying to get the intention it hovers and then
just leaves oh yep this would have been devastating I can't imagine this was the
closest thing to being able to be seen to her that could have happened and it didn't happen and this is night four
yeah this is night four um I believe it is let me no this is um this so this was
night four we're into days like five and six at this point like we're kind of like all bleeding into each other but
this is devastating um and Julian says it was it was this when she finally took stock of her situation and finally
started to think about not only what had happened but also how that vast and massive the jungle around her really was
and she said this made her start losing hope so she didn't let it consume her cuz she said if she had really fallen
into thinking about what was actually around her and what wasn't around her you'd Lose Yourself she wouldn't be able
to go forward now to give you context for what was around her Jaguars the Amazon rainforest covers more than 2.5
million square miles of land wow 59% or a little under 1.5 million square miles is per is in Peru and in 1.5 million
square miles of rainforest land there really estimated to live just a little over a thousand people wow yeah in 1.5
million square miles of land that's crazy which meant the odds of her running into a person for help was
essentially slim to none like more than that or less than that I mean but she didn't let this take her down a lot of
people would give an they would have let the insurmountable depression of this reality just make
them lay down hope to be found or Just Surrender but it's julienne we're talking about so she kept going down the
river she knew if she let the current push her down the river she was conserving her strength as well as
keeping herself safer on land too because if she's in the river the things on land can't get to her and she felt
like she could at least contend with the river [ __ ] yeah now also days in the Amazon were about 85 to 95 deg oh my God
and humid too and nights could get colder and remember she was wearing I think the only thing she was wearing at
this point was like a cotton short dress like and she's wet now too and she's wet
and during the day she was being beaten down by the Sun and then soaked and at night she was just freezing oh my God
she was also being assaulted by mosquitoes every other insect it was hell and at night they would just buzz
around her in the day they would Buzz around her constantly think mosquitoes and it's like those kind of bugs buzzing
all the time would drive you [ __ ] insane like I would lose it so Julian's concussion by like day seven so we're a
week into this my God Julian's concussion had actually kind of afforded her a big um like a bit of reprieve in a
way in the beginning days of her survival she was in kind of a brain fog of sorts right so she could really only
think and focus on survival in those days but by the seventh day she was really only thinking about her mother
and the reality of her situation finally and sometimes the thoughts were typical
you know she's a teenager so she would sit there and she would think about you know what she wish she would be doing
right now what her friends were doing who she missed like you know I wish I could eat my favorite junk food kind of
thing and then she would get like super existential as well like thinking about like what's the meaning of all this like
am I supposed to be here why did this happen like why me you know like all that and although she doesn't really
understand why or how she knew in that moment and she knows now that her survival meant something she just didn't
know what of course it did but she was like there's no way this was an accident there's no way this is coincidence I
meant to do this I'm meant to be here and I'm not meant to die alone in the [ __ ] rainforest with no one knowing
what I've done clear I just fell 10,000 ft from the air I've survived 7even days
I'm not supposed to die right now like I'm getting out of this the river is not taking me down nothing taken me down so
she resolves that she's like I'm going to get to safety I'm going to lead a life of meaning and I'm going to
contribute to the world when I get out of here wow like she sat there at 17 years old in the [ __ ] rainforest in
the middle of a river a week after falling 10,000 ft from the sky and said I'm going to make a difference in the
world that wherewithal at 1 alone but then you had all of those circumstances now at this point her resolve had not
dissipated she was still sure there had to be another Survivor of this flight there was no conceivable way in her mind
that she was the sole survivor so she was just always looking out for people and by this time a week after the crash
she noted that the cuts on her arms and legs were starting to look pretty bad and now they were starting to hurt the
laceration on her calf had become very irritated and very swollen oh no she's in the dirty river water too it's not
helping and the laceration on her arm was feeling very painful and very hot but was in a place that was difficult
for her to see it was like behind her arm so unless she strained her neck to look at it she really couldn't see a lot
of it but when she did finally see it she saw that maggots had actually begun to burrow into the wound oh my God yep
flies had laid eggs in the wound probably while she was sleeping oh my God she knew that this meant she knew
that it meant that if she allowed them to continue buing into the wound her arm off really going to get bad and possibly
need to be amputated so she tried to pull them out herself oh my God using a piece of bent plain metal that she
molded into tweezers oh but she couldn't get them and just had to give up and keep going down the river with maggots
in her arm I don't even yep she just was going down the river with live maggots eating
the wound on her arm that she got when she fell 10,000 ft out of the sky I'm not well [ __ ] I am not well [ __ ] this
is coupled with another scary turn of events like we've stated many times before Julian was very experienced so
very know knowledgeable about the jungle and survival and she knew that most of the animals in this jungle would
probably be terrified of her and pretty much keep their distance they would run from her normally but she now sees that
they were making themselves known and seemingly watching her following her acting curious of her I'm so [ __ ]
stressed what this told her was that they had probably rarely possibly never seen a human before Oh my God their lack
of fear was evidence of that this was a crushing blow to her spirit because she now knew that she was completely
isolated from anyone else these animals had not seen a human before Oh my God she was the first one to roll through
here oh my God so da eight and n it was now that the sun started to unleash the Full Assault on her body oh and her like
infected it was 8 days in and she woke up in searing pain on her back and shoulders and realized that she had
about a second degree sunburn on her back and shoulders that had actually broken open and was now bleeding what
the [ __ ] yep unfortunately she can't do literally anything about this and just
has to keep going in this Unbelievable pain while bleeding from not like she has any [ __ ] copper tone on her nope
this day is when she began to hallucinate as well her mind started to play a lot of cruel tricks on her she
keeps being sure that she's seeing houses in the distance but it's just a sea of trees why does your mind do that
it's just I don't know if it's I think it's partially like a survival thing a preservation thing it's trying to get
you in yeah trying to get you to keep going she also has auditory hallucinations thinking she hears
chickens which would mean that humans were nearby but it's just jungle Le birds that she hears um this may have
broken someone else's Spirit hearing and seeing things only to realize that they
were not real but julienne said it made her strive even harder to survive because she was now determined to really
see and really hear those things okay now while she is hearing and seeing these false images and sounds she
accidentally gets her foot stuck in a sandbank no and it makes her trip and fall oh my God now she's been traveling
through the jungle for over a week straight with no food and little water no medicine or aid for her wounds and
she's likely fighting various infections when she hits the ground all she wants to do is sleep she was like I hit that
ground and I was like I can't get up like this is it and she can't fight the urge anymore her body is telling her
like you go to sleep go to sleep so she closes her eyes and just lets herself rest on the jungle floor for a few
moments but then she said she was woken up by a chirping sound and it's not a bird chirping she knows that
sound go away it's a baby Cayman when she opens her eyes she sees a baby Cayman and then she sees its
mother no and they are approaching her in a very aggressive and very threatening way oh my God and she said
if she jumped up like she wanted to they would have attacked her in and got her in an instant they would have she would
had no choice no chance but she said what she knew she had to do was just slide away from them so she slid on the
ground away from them slowly when every cell in her body was screaming at her to
jump up and run the [ __ ] out of there she was slowly sliding like a worm on the ground until she slid back in the
river and let the current take her away and got away Eliza [ __ ] Thornberry yep but
unfortunately this also cemented her the knowledge she already knew that there were no humans anywhere near here
because she said there was a large amount of Cayman and that made it sure that there was no humans around [ __ ]
alligators y'all yeah [ __ ] aligators yeah but the ninth day she was beyond exhaustion and her hunger was
something that was no longer something she could ignore and it just ate away away at her it's all she could think
about she tried for hours that day she said to catch poison dart frogs to try to eat something you can eat them even
though they're them I think there's a poison sack that she I'm sure she knew where it was and she said she tried for
hours literally all her energy was spent trying to catch these frogs she couldn't
couldn't catch one and ended up just falling asleep in the middle of it so the 10th day was the same she just let
the current take her down the river and unfortunately the river is now becoming less open and expansive and now there
are dams of Driftwood and rocks that are she's having to climb over and a void she has zero energy so you can imagine
how difficult this was getting she has [ __ ] maggots in her arm y'all yep as the day went on and eventually the sun
was beginning to set Julien saw what she thought was like a gravel Bank on the shore so she was like you know what
that's a great place to get some sleep I'm going to lay on the bank and just let my body chill so she laid down she
just let her body begin to let go but right before she was closing her eyes God she saw something oh no it was a
boat she saw a boat and in her head she was like this is a Mirage like close your eyes look at it again so she
thought like she blinked and when she blinked it was still there and she's like and I looked around and it was
still there still tied to the bank no one's in it so she shook her head still there she reached out and touched it it
was a boat and she was touching it and she said and it looked new and it looked like it was in working order meaning
someone who ran this boat is nearby yeah like at the very least yeah so she explores the area around the boat she's
got like a new found energy she didn't even know existed within her at this she she finds a foot path that she said was
not natural it was cleared by hand okay she follows it and finds a Tambo then you're like who the [ __ ] am I going to
find exactly so she finds a Tambo which is a small like Shack that was made by hand where people will store supplies
like gasoline for boats and such yeah yeah now this was crucial because it confirmed there had been a human around
and also there was gasoline in there which could be used to help her maggot infested wound Debbie bought Gasolina
there you go I don't even think she gritted her teeth and poured the gasoline onto her wound which would
cause unbelievable staring pain but because she is brilliant and learned from experience and from her parents she
knew this would be some do something internal to heal like to help get those maggots out that's so horrific first it
made the maggots try to dig deeper into the wound but eventually it forced them out oh my God so she was able to pull
some of them out she pulled over 30 magets out of I need you to stop saying the word mag and she later found out
that there was far more that had to be removed later oh my God so she's trying to sort out her thoughts make a plan so
far she didn't see a human but just evidenced that one was around at one point in the recent past so she did
think really quickly about just using the boat to take her down the river honestly but then she was she was just
so tired but literally I mean she just performed amateur surgery on her arm essentially um but she just laid down
and she was like I'm going to lay down first and think this over and then when she started thinking about it she was
like well taking the boat is a non-starter because it would help me but I could potentially be abandoning
someone else in the Amazon rainforest and she's like I literally can't do that and she wrote later I cannot possibly
save my own life and jeopardizing others that's a human right there so she did borrow a tarp from The Shack and laid
down on the banks to sleep again okay now day 11th when she woke up there was still no one around her suddenly a
depressing thought hit her like a ton of bricks sometimes hunters or wood cutters
would use these tambos while they were out in the jungle and then they would just abandon them for months sometimes
forever even their boats so when she didn't know she was like I don't know oh no so she made the impossible decision
to continue floating down the river now just hoping that maybe she would come across a village or evidence of more
people so she's about to go into the river and then it begins to rain and once again her exhaustion and her lack
of nutrients and infection were making it impossible to move very much and she didn't have a lot of strength so she's
like you know what it's raining I'm going to stay in the shack until the rain passes okay I think a lot of this
is her mom I do too that the Universe and her mom working together to sure cuz in the afternoon the rain finally
stopped and she was still alone so she made the decision to move but unfortunately her body still just
wouldn't even stand like she had no strength I mean she just had to pour gasoline into her arm exactly it's
almost like something was working there to her to keep her there so she decided to rest another full day she was like
I'm going to give myself another full day to regain some of the strength and then I will start moving in I might as
well just stay in the shack while I can so she's in a serious state of despair at this point she hasn't eaten even a
little something in over six days and has only drank Dirty River water she's been bitten on every inch of her body by
a variety of insects as she tried to sleep and they're buzzing in her ears she's cold she's soaking wet suddenly
her brains begins telling her that she was correct more people survived the crash but they stayed put and they were
saved that's what her her brain is telling her now you were correct yes people survived but they were all saved
and you're left here alone no no this she said this was just she was like I I was the only one left I was the only one
that left the crash site and now I'm stuck in the jungle forever because of my decision no that's what she like her
brain just started going against her and in her book she said she thought to herself how strange is it that a person
can disappear just like that and no one knows about it it is crazy so she just lays in the shack for most of the 11th
day just trying to catch something like a frog to eat she was seeing them she just couldn't catch them she never gets
one the hunger really starts to shut her body down even more and as Twilight seeps in and another day passes behind
her in the jungle she hears it voices in the distance immediately she sits up but
then just as quickly her head tells her that's just another auditory hallucination don't listen to it she
doesn't want to get excited but she keeps hearing them and then she's hearing them getting closer and closer
and closer and she's still trying to convince herself that this is just another hallucination when suddenly
three men just emerged from the jungle immediately they all like jumped back when they saw her in the shack cuz it
was their Shack so they was like what the [ __ ] but they look at her and they knew about the plane crash oh my God and
they're like holy [ __ ] she was almost too stunned to speak but she quickly regained her composure and said in
Spanish I'm a girl who was in the lanac crash my name is Julianne oh my God these three men were Forest workers and
they immediately hustled Julianne to safety oh my God they brought her back to their Camp they fed her they gave her
clean water dry clothing they helped attend to her wounds the to the best ability they could God they even took
out more maggots out of her arm themselves stop they then praised her for staying at their Shack they were
like that was a brilliant decision we're so glad you did that and they said if you had left that area you would have
never been found because like the uh the rainforest as you go further out gets more uninhabited you would have been
going deeper into it and they said her body by the way like they the C condition they found her in they said
your body would have given out by tomorrow you'd be gone like there's no way you were going to be living wow and
they said that um she if she had even tried to float down the river that would have been out she was literally on her
last breaths essentially when they got her that was her strength and her mom with her no [ __ ] doubt in my mind
exactly they weren't and what's even crazier and this is why I'm like holy [ __ ] everything worked they weren't even
supposed to have returned to the shack that day wow they were just but they wanted to make sure that the boat was
still tied up after the rainstorm otherwise they weren't coming back to the shack Kismet and he said they said
they never would have found her that all of that was meant to be 100,000 gajillion perc so she immediately asks
them about other passengers other survivors and they tell her the airplane has hasn't even been found and you are
the only Survivor oh my God and she asked about her mother even though they had just told her no one survived and
they said no you're are the sole survivor can you imagine the weight of that falling on you hearing that like
out loud it's just you she tells them the story too like cuz they're like you have to tell us like what have you been
through like it's been almost two weeks like what's going on so she tells them the story she told they sh and they kind
of tell her too like about the massive search that's been going on and is like I heard the planes and they're like holy
[ __ ] like they were on top of you like that's wild and they're telling her like
you know they like everyone thought everybody was gone no one thought that somebody survived like no one's going to
believe this she told them about like going down the river about the vulture she told them everything the alligators
yeah and they tell her that the next morning after she sleeps a real sleep they will take her to turn a Vista where
they can get her proper help and medical care they're angels and Julianne couldn't sleep that night even though
she was safe she was like I just couldn't believe I was going to get out of here yeah she was probably so excited
now it is very shortly after Julianne's discovery that it's like headline news worldwide a lot of lies were told
because the Press they somehow tried to make her story like even more Sensational which they did not have to
like there was they were saying that like she had like made a makeshift raft that she lived on for 11 days and it's
like no she didn't yeah I think it's even more impressive that she didn't and that she woke up under three bodies or
something like that and she's like no I didn't like that none of that was true why would you why did your brain even go
there and the times actually quoted Julian as saying and this isn't not a real quote they quoted her as saying I
felt a sensation of emptiness but I don't remember anything else until I woke up on the ground with three bodies
on top of me she didn't say that how do you what and then they said that she told them that she survived by eating
the Christmas cake which she had been taking to her father and she's like nope that was mine that wasn't my Christmas
cake and I didn't need it so what's worse is in the days that followed the rescue also the Press started to kind of
turn on her a little bit what and they started saying well she ran away from injured passengers who could have been
helped no honey they were them for themselves into the ground or just gone yep like [ __ ]
off luckily for the most part the overall tone and the most of the tone was celebration that she was alive isn't
is it wild that there were trolls in this situation there trolls in every situation always they will always find a
way to be miserable trolls be trolling but they spent so these three men and julienne spent 11 hours on a boat going
to turn Vista God once they arrive inav Vista she's taken to a hospital where she's finally able to get real treatment
and medicine for the various infections she was suffering from unbelievably she has to
fly to Jaren coka I believe it's called to get better medical treatment and this
is where she would actually stay and be stabilized but she was actually she was absolutely terrified OB this is less
than two weeks after she from the sky but she was also so out of it and had no strength so she was
like I couldn't fight it I just got on the flight I just needed to get to the hospital holy [ __ ] wow and she wouldn't
have lived if they tried to take her a slower way like she had to get on this flight to get there it's almost like a
flight Julian spent months in that medical facility in YN coka but she was strong and by March she was back in Lima
and back in school oh my God yes she loved being back in her normal routine and around those she loved D but the
Press were [ __ ] nightmares and they hounded her day and night like leave her alone day and night so because of all
the craziness her father Hans actually had her sent to Germany to get away from it she lived with her grandmother and
her aunt there MH and Julianne said that he had good intentions moving her there
but she felt very betrayed by it because she said she was in such a state she just through and she had lost her mother
in that way that she was like being sent away felt like I was abandoned yeah and
that's not his intention but like he was also going through the trauma that he had gone through so it's like this was
just all a lot of confronting a lot of different trauma well and I'm sure in his mind he probably felt like she
needed to be with her grandmother as like a maternal figure I think he just didn't know what to do and with his own
grief of losing his wife which he and his wife were so close like they were it was just jungle 247 you know like their
bond must have been outrageous absolutely so it's like this is just Unthinkable it's so layered and she said
panguana and my school were the only things left for me and she said that's when she felt the sense of Abandonment
unfortunately Hans was very understandably devastated by the loss of Maria and Julian said she quote
suspected that for him it was a problem that I survived and not my mother oh and
what I think she means by that is that only one of us came out of that yeah not that it was a not that it was bad that
it was her who came out of that it was just like I would rather have both of you you know like I really want both of
you would be a reminder constantly and she looks like her mom yeah like you know what I mean like she has a lot of
her mom's features I'm sure that's like really tough that's that's on a different level of TR it's a different
grief like I don't know that grief I can't imagine that grief I don't know the grief that Julianne was going
through and I don't know the grief that Hans was going through so I'm not going to judge either or I have no idea what
that feels and oh that makes me want to cry right now and Julian loves her parents and respects her parents to this
day she does not have bad things to say about what happened here I don't think anybody could have handled that
situation I don't think there is a proper way to situation I don't know what this I honestly don't what the way
to handle it would have been but Hans left panguana for per um uh for Peru in 1974 uh he just kind of left and didn't
say goodbye to anybody and didn't tell anyone he just started Living in Germany but everyone said he was just never the
same it just destroyed a huge part of him he died in 2000 at 87 years old wow Julian said their relationship
definitely changed when she came home that's really sad um it never really recovered but she kind of like she could
understand in some way okay uh later Julianne actually learned she wasn't initially the sole survivor of that
crash when the crash site was later found they discovered bodies and were able to bring them out of the Jungle and
there was also evidence that at least a few of them 17 to be exact had survived the fall from the sky wow but their
injuries were so significant that they died very shortly after hitting the jungle floor one of those people was
Maria she survived initially but she was nowhere near like nowhere near her to find
nowhere near where she would know where she was but they were able to recover her body they were able to recover her
body she said when she Julianne said when she found this out it did shatter her knowing that her mother had survived
at some point that she wasn't near her yeah now an investigation into the crash found that the crew was under a ton of
pressure to keep the schedule on that flight because things had fallen behind during the holidays so they pushed
through the storm instead of diverting around it and adding more time to the flight dude time is made up lightning is
notat yeah fatal error that's ridiculous also the plane was in terrible shape like I said it was put together with
scraps of other plane to begin with and after this Lance shut down good bye lansa now Julianne did not return to
Peru for a decade and honestly I probably would never return but she was a PhD student oh my god of course she
was yeah and had an opportunity to St study and Amazonian bats in panguana again the place where she'
lived with her parents and formed such a strong bond with them and foundations for her eventual unbelievable survival
and she took the opportunity and spent 18 months living in panguana finishing her disertation my God after surviving
in the jungle she went back to the Jungle she's the the most badass woman I think I've ever heard of she also became
the director of panguana after her father died wow and in the 19 1990s she returned to the crash site with director
Warner Herzog the actual crash site and he was the one who was supposed to go on
that plane with his crew exactly and she said this is when she really realized how badly she wanted to return to the
jungle and she wanted to preserve her parents Legacy she said this was when it hit her and she said the way she looks
at it quote the jungle caught me it saved me it was not its fault that I landed here yeah how do you look at it
that way I don't know how do you have the [ __ ] you're a beast of a human now we talked earlier about how
filmmaker wner Herzog was supposed to be on Lance of Flight 508 um but he actually made a documentary in 1999
called Wings of Hope wow and where he returned to the jungle and to the crash site with Julianne they walked to where
she crashed and also visited where she was rescued and the stops along the way of her unbelievable Journey where she
just tells the story and she talks about all the emotions she felt the pain the numbness the times when she thought she
couldn't go on anymore she talked about the isolation and feeling of loneliness that truly goes unmatched I can't
imagine no none of us will ever know what that's like no as they go through this experience she would stop and pick
up pieces of the scattered rest like picking up pieces of the plane that are still there today wow it's just
scattered over a crazy amount of space and they actually visited P Pula where there's a cemetery that many of the
passengers from flight 58 are buried and there's a big Memorial that the graves are all around and there's this map in
the memorial that traces with dotted lines from the crash site to turnov Vista where Julianne was eventually
healed wow under the memorial there are the words um a lost day esparanza or wings of Hope MH all 71 passengers and
all six of the crew of the plan's crew died in the crash with only Julianne surviving that is so remarkable yeah
today Julian Copa is married and actually goes by Julianne Diller her married name and she splits her time she
go she lives in Munich and she also works as a librarian at the Bavarian State collection of zoology and panguana
my God she does it all still she has spent decades in panguana building it up making the facility in The Institute
larger more like with more resources um and it has actually been designated as a conservation area now
she flies all the [ __ ] time my God all the time flies all the time is making the world a better place is
treating animals is studying is researching is bringing new information into the world is a [ __ ] G the GS G
there was a point earlier where you said she was like all right first things first and all I could think of is first
things first I'm the realist drop this and let the whole world feel it like that's julan she's still in the jungle
business Julian my God is one of the most inspirational people I have ever read about I want to play this episode
for my children someday and be like never [ __ ] complain about anything like I know we all like
everyone's allowed to complain about [ __ ] like [ __ ] goes down we we're not saying like oh now you're never allowed
to complain no jokes but it's like if you feel yourself slipping into a rut of like everything sucks and I'm mad and
this is annoying to me and let julen guide your way think about julienne just think about Julianne just think about
that Journey think about maggots in her arm I could be stuck in the rainforest right now face to face with an alligator
in it's [ __ ] baby I could be sitting next to my mother one second in a plane and then I could be crash 10,000 ft out
of the air in the second and then I could spend almost 2 weeks battling the Amazon [ __ ] rainforest you know
what's [ __ ] just to survive we're going to be on a plane in two weeks and that's [ __ ] yeah but you know what
it's okay this plane is from 200 whatever yeah this plane can withstand a lightning strike this plane has had
regular maintenance this plane has a very professional pilot yeah and flying is different now I flew over tornadoes
earlier last year so we good we good actually I was flying the day that Miley Cyrus's uh flight was hit with lightning
that that day we all know that day I know that do you know where you were that day how could you forget that day I
was on a flight and she was too and it got hit by lightning but she was fine but she was all right exactly because
the planes come withstand lightning now that's my point and also no plane has ever crashed due to turbulence there you
go so you can take that with your hat and Jello and Jello oh yes if you I I don't know if I've mentioned this before
I think maybe um maybe I have but if if I have hear it again uh if you haven't here you go there's a Tik Tok where this
girl said that she heard from a pilot that if you ever get nervous about turbulence and you can't understand what
it is because it is a little very scary I was going to say a little it's very scary I like [ __ ] my pants every time
there a little uh she put a little rolled up piece of paper in a little cup of Jello-O and she put it in the middle
and she said here's the plane and the Jello around it is the air that you're flying through and then she Taps the
Jello-O and you see the Jello-O just kind of wiggle and she said is that piece of paper going to drop and you say
no Tik Tok it's not she says that's because there's all this air pressure underneath and all this air pressure on
top and on either side and that little piece of paper isn't going anywhere it's just jostling around because the air is
jostling around boom and then she said anytime you get in turbulence just think of that think about Jello yeah and I'm
telling you it helps the last time I was on the plane I thought about jell that's
what I thought about too and it helped me but again I will link some of those books in the show notes in case you are
a fearful flyer or if you're not and you're just interested in it yeah totally but I'm telling you Julianne did
it jul jul still does it she gets on a plane so I can get on a plane Julianne forever yeah Julianne for life she's a
inspirational inspirational Bish to say the least yeah I love her wow well with all of that
being said I thought this was going to be a short Episode by way you're insane you always think it's going to be a
short episode and then we have like four parts yeah but we love you for it I try
and we love you guys we love you and we hope that you keep listening and we hope
you keep it we weird Oh weird I was like why did you just say weird I don't know
cuz we did the the I don't know I don't know we were like giving Sinister babe giving Dark Side did
[Music]

This episode is a fan favorite that was originally published as Episode 476. We hope that you have a happy and safe holiday!

Juliane Koepcke's story will have you questioning any recent complaint you've made. This woman was the sole survivor of a plane crash in 1971. After the plane went down, she continued to survive in the AMAZON RAINFOREST among hundreds and hundreds of predators. It took 11 days for her to be rescued and when you hear what Julianne faced within those 11 days, you will be a changed human.

When I Fell From the Sky by Juliane Koepcke

List of books to help with fear of flying OR just education on flying and flying mechanics!

Cockpit Confidential by Patrick Smith

Soar by Tom Bunn

Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!

References BBC. 2012. Juliane Koepcke: How I survived a plane crash. March 24. Accessed November 30, 2022. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17476615.

1998. Wings of Hope. Directed by Werner Herzog. Performed by Juliane Koepcke.

Koepcke, Juliane, and Beate Rygiert. 2011. When I Fell From the Sky: the True Story of One Woman's Miraculous Survival.Translated by Ross Benjamin. Green Bay, WI: TitleTown Publishing, LLC.

New York Times. 1951. "Colombia Plane Crashes: 27 killed when Lansa Craft Falls." New York Times, March 22: 13.

—. 1970. "Peru panel studies crash fatal to 99." New York Times, April 13: 2.

—. 1971. "Plane Carrying 93 Missing Over the Mountains of Peru." New York Times, December 25: 20.

United Press. 1948. "2 Britons Among 30 Dead In Colombian Air Crash." New York Times, December 16: 16.

Wigg, Richard. 1972. "Girl's ordeal starts a jungle search." The Times, January 6: 5.

Williams, Sally. 2012. "The woman who fell to earth." Daily Telegraph, March 17.

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

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