Stewardess who survived fall from 10,000 metres dies 45 years later.

LONDON• A Yugoslav air stewardess who miraculously survived a fall of 10,058 metres without a parachute when her airliner exploded above Czechoslovakia in January 1972, has died.

Then 22 years old, Vesna Vulovic was not supposed to be aboard the JAT DC-9 that Jan. 26, but a mix- up with another stewardess with the same forename meant she joined the Belgrade- bound flight at Copenhagen. The last thing that she could remember was greeting the passengers.

An hour into the journey the airplane disintegrated above Srbska Kamenice, now in the Czech Republic. A Czech secret service investigation concluded that a bomb had been planted in the baggage hold, supposedly by Croat nationalists.

Vulovic fell in the central piece of fuselage, her body pinned into place by a food trolley. Pine trees and snow cushioned the final impact. Her screams were heard by a woodsman who had served as a German Army medic in the war and knew how to treat her bleeding. None of the other 27 people aboard survived.

Doctors found that she had a fractured skull, three crushed or broken vertebrae and two broken legs. She was temporarily paralyzed and in a coma for a month. The first thing she did on coming around was to ask for a cigarette. “When I saw a newspaper and read what had happened,” she said, “I nearly died of shock.”

Her survival was not unprecedented. In 1944, for instance, Nicholas Alkemade had recovered from a fall of about 5,500 metres in similar circumstances after jumping from his stricken Lancaster bomber. However, no one had escaped from such a height. Paul McCartney presented her with an award from the Guinness Book of Records and Tito, the Yugoslav dictator, turned her into a national heroine.

Albeit with a twisted spine, she walked again and returned to work at JAT, taking a desk job. She did fly occasionally and, having no memory of the accident, had no fear about doing so. She even enjoyed watching films featuring air disasters. She was, however, very scared of cockroaches.

Vulovic was born in Belgrade on Jan. 3, 1950. Her father was a businessman and her mother a fitness instructor. She joined the Yugoslav national airline after seeing a friend wearing its uniform.

She continued to work until 1990, when she lost her job for openly criticizing the extreme nationalism of Serbia’s leader Slobodan Milosevic. It was thought that only her fame saved her from arrest.