Juliane Koepcke fell from a plane into the Amazon Jungle. For 10 days she survived on lollies and instinct.

It was late December, 1971, when 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke and her mother, Maria, boarded a Líneas Aéreas Nacionales S.A. (LANSA Flight 508) flight to Panguana, to spend Christmas with Juliane's father. 

For the first half of the flight, everything seemed fine, but as time went on, passengers began to experience extreme turbulence, as pilots made the dangerous decision to fly through treacherous weather. 

The Crash.

A bolt of lightning struck and ignited the plane's fuel tank, blowing a hole in the plane and sending it crashing. According to reports, the last words Juliane ever heard from her mother were: This is the end, it's all over. 

The plane disintegrated in the air, as Juliane — strapped into the seat — free fell to the muddy ground, where she remained, in and out of consciousness for the next 24 hours. The other 91 passengers and crew on board perished in the crash.

Koepcke described her experience to Vice in 2010. "I was in a tailspin," she said. "I saw the forest beneath me — like 'green cauliflower, like broccoli,' is how I described it later on. Then I lost consciousness and regained it only way later, the next day."

When Juliane woke, dressed in a minidress and sandals, she was in immense pain, thanks to a deep gash on her arm and a bruised eye that was swollen shut. 

Although she'd survived the crash, the teenager quickly realised that her mother probably didn't.

"I searched for a full day and then I realised there was no one there," she told Vice. "I crawled around all over the place and called out, but I couldn't hear anything."

Juliane was alone, facing survival in an extremely dense rainforest. 

The crash. Image: Instagram@juliane_koepche.

An unbelievable tale of survival. 

In what can only be described as almost-unbelievable good luck, following incredibly bad luck, Juliane found herself in one of South America's most dangerous rainforest, armed with a unique arsenal of survival information, given to her by her zoologist parents, who set up their own research station in the Amazon rainforest. 

From a young age, Juliane's parents taught her how to identify different plants, animals, and insects’ species along with various survival techniques.

Her father had always told her if she got lost in the rain forest, she should find a stream and follow it, and that's exactly what she did.

"I try to follow the rivulet closely, but there are often tree trunks lying across it, or dense undergrowth blocks my way. Little by little, the rivulet grows wider and turns into a stream, which is partly dry, so that I can easily walk beside the water," she explained to Reader's Digest.

Juliane with her father after being rescued. Image: Instagram@juliane_koepche.

Surviving the forest.

As she walked in search of water, Juliane always threw a sandal in front of her to test the area for hidden dangers, like snakes. 

Stumbling across a wreck of the plane, Juliane found a bag of lollies, which would prove instrumental in her survival. Then, she found the stream. 

Koepcke followed the water for 10 days straight until it eventually became a river. During this time she encountered stingrays, anacondas and alligator-like reptiles called caimans.

As the days passed, Juliane survived on water from the stream, and the lollies she'd discovered at the crash site. The temperature rose and fell, forcing Juliane to hide under bushes and leaves to keep warm. 

When the lollies ran out, Juliane survived on water alone, her exhaustion causing hallucinations. As walking became more difficult, she took to the water, swimming through the stream or holding on to logs. 

Eventually, she came across a tiny hut, where she found a can of gasoline. She poured it over her open wounds, another survival technique she learned from her father. She spent the night in the hut, and when she woke, she heard voices, though she was unsure whether they were real or more hallucinations. 

"At twilight I hear voices. I'm imagining them, I think. But the voices get closer. When three men come out of the forest and see me, they stop in shock," she told Reader's Digest.

"'I’m a girl who was in the LANSA crash,' I say in Spanish. 'My name is Juliane.'"

Image: Getty. 

The aftermath.

Incredibly, Juliane made a full recovery, and became the centre of a media frenzy. With her help, the crash site and the bodies of the other passengers were recovered. 

Juliane is the only survivor from the Flight 508 crash. Further investigation revealed Juliane's mother and 14 other passengers survived the crash itself, but died from their injuries.

She and her father moved to Germany, though the plague of nightmares, grief over her mother's death and survivor's guilt haunted Juliane for many months. 

In 2011, Juliane wrote a book about her amazing story of survival. She now works as a biologist and librarian at the Bavarian State Zoological Collection in Munich.

Feature Image: Getty.