On Christmas Eve 1971,German teenager Juliane Koepcke was sitting next to her mother on a plane. Juliane had just graduated from high school in Lima,Peru,and was on her way to Pucallpa in the Amazon region of Peru,where she and her mother would meet up with her father,biologist Hans Koepcke. But the plane never made it. It was struck by lightning, and when the 17-year-old girl looked out the window,she saw the right wing on tire. The last thing Juliane remembered was feeling herself whirling in her seat in midair and then landing in soft vegetation. She ended up on the ground two miles from the crash.
Juliane lost consciousness,and she came to several hours latter,still strapped in her seat. Miraculously,she had survived,but she had fractured her collarbone,gashed her right are,and lost vision in one eye.And her ordeal was just beginning. She set out to find the plane and her mother,but all she found were some empty seats.And then suddenly she saw the bodies of three young women still in their seats. Of the 92 people on board the plane, Juliane was the lone survivor. Juliane then wandered away from the crash,wearing torn clothes and only one sandal to try to find help.