Sole survivor: Eight days in the jungle after my plane crashed
Annette Herfkens and her fianc茅 were on a romantic trip in Vietnam when their plane crashed into a mountain. She was the lone survivor, spending eight days clinging to life.
How a romantic getaway ended in disaster.
Dutch financier Annette Herfkens boarded Vietnam Airlines Flight 474 in November 1992, embarking on what was meant to be a romantic break with her fianc茅 Willem van der Pas or 鈥楶asje鈥�. But fate had other plans. Midway through the flight from Ho Chi Minh City to the coastal resort of Nha Trang, the Soviet-built Yakovlev Yak-40 encountered severe weather and slammed into a remote, fog-shrouded mountain ridge in the dense Vietnamese jungle. The impact was catastrophic, killing all 30 other passengers and crew on board, including Annette's beloved Pasje.
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Incredibly, Annette emerged as the sole survivor of the crash, defying odds in one of the most amazing real-life tales of endurance. Thrown from the wreckage with devastating injuries鈥攊ncluding a collapsed lung, a broken jaw, two fractured legs, and a dozen fractures in her hips鈥攕he found herself stranded amid the twisted metal and bodies of her fellow travellers.听Unable to walk or even crawl far, she endured eight gruelling days in the unforgiving wilderness, battling excruciating pain, dehydration, and the psychological torment of her loss. With no food, she sustained herself solely on rainwater collected from the jungle foliage, her will to live fuelled by sheer determination and fleeting moments of hope that a rescue would come.
Annette鈥檚 book is called Turbulence: A True Story of Survival.
Presenter: Asya Fouks
Producer: Edgar Maddicott
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