The moral of these stories should be, "Never give up hope!"

Over at The Belmont Club, Richard has put up the stories of people who have exited an airplane for one reason or another, fallen to earth, and lived to tell about it.  They should have all bought lottery tickets.

Ivan Chisov was a navigator on a Soviet Airforce Ilyushin Il-4 bomber. German fighters shot down his plane at 23,000 feet and “with the battle still raging around him, Lt. Chisov intentionally did not open his parachute… however, due to the thin atmosphere at that altitude, he lost consciousness on the way down and was unable to pull the rip cord.” He hit the edge of a snowy ravine at an estimated speed of somewhere between 120 and 150 miles per hour and was back flying in three months.

Alan Magee survived a 22,000 foot fall from his B-17 in 1943. On his 7th mission German fighters shot off his bomber’s wing. “Magee fell over four miles before crashing through the glass roof of the St. Nazaire railroad station. Somehow the glass roof mitigated Magee’s impact and rescuers found him still alive on the floor of the station. … Magee was liberated in May 1945 and received the Air Medal for meritorious conduct and the Purple Heart. After the war Magee earned his pilot’s license and enjoyed flying. He worked in the airline industry in a variety of roles. He retired in 1979 and moved to northern New Mexico.”

Nicholas Alkemade was in a Lancaster raiding Berlin in 1944 when a JU-88 night fighter shot his plane down. “He fell 18,000 feet (5,500 m) to the ground below. His fall was broken by pine trees and a soft snow cover on the ground. He was able to move his arms and legs and suffered only a sprained leg.”

The women had equally remarkable stories. Two women fell from the highest and lowest heights respectively.  Unlike the bomber pilots, it is hard to ascribe the monopoly of women survivors in this category to anything but random probability.

Vesna Vulović, was a Serbian Flight attendant on JAT 367. A bomb in the front baggage compartment of the plane blew up the airliner and she found herself falling from 33,000 feet. She was in a coma for 27 days, which in the circumstances, is understandable. “She claims she has no fear of flying, which she attributes to the loss of memory of the crash, and she even enjoys watching movies with plane crashes.”

Equally tough was Juliane Koepcke. It’s true she fell from a mere 10,000 feet. She was “the sole survivor of 93 passengers and crew in the 24 December 1971, crash of LANSA Flight 508…  in the Peruvian rainforest. After her airliner broke up in midair, she survived after falling about 3 km (~10,000 feet) still strapped to her airliner seat, before the seat crashed through the rainforest canopy and came to rest on the forest floor.”  Having reached the ground she got up to look for survivors.

Her first priority [upon coming to] was to find her mother, who had been seated next to her on the plane but her search was unsuccessful. With her eyeglasses lost and one eye swollen shut, she struggled to no avail. She later found out her mother had initially survived the crash as well, but died several days later due to her injuries.

Then she walked out of the jungle.

Koepcke found some sweets which were to become her only food on her trip. After looking for her mother and other passengers, she was soon able to locate a small stream. She then waded through knee-high water downstream from her landing site, relying on the survival principle her father had taught her, that tracking downstream should eventually lead to civilization.

To a certain extent the height from which all these fell was equalized by terminal velocity.  A skydiver belly down to earth will reach 122 mph, less if he has a higher drag coefficient, more if he’s slick. Maybe Juliane Koepcke was helped in part by being strapped to her seat, which may have created a higher drag and lessened the speed of her descent.

One person, Norman Cyril Jackson, who almost made the freefall club, reached the earth with the scant aid of a burning parachute. He won the Victoria Cross in 1944 by clambering outside the wing of his burning Lancaster and attempting to put out the fire from outside the plane.

On 28 July 1943, he joined No. 106 Squadron which operated Avro Lancaster bombers. Jackson completed his tour of 30 missions on 24 April 1944, but, as he had flown one sortie with a different crew, he chose to fly once more so that he and his original aircrew could finish their tour together.^[1] Jackson's 31st mission was a raid on the German ball bearingfactories at Schweinfurt on the night of 26–27 April.

Having bombed the target, Jackson’s Lancaster (serial ME669) was attacked by a German night fighter and a fuel tank in the starboard wing caught fire. Jackson, already wounded from shell splinters, strapped on a parachute and equipped himself with a fire extinguisher before climbing out of the aircraft and onto the wing, whilst the aeroplane was flying at 140 miles per hour (230 km/h), in order to put out the fire. He gripped the air intake on the leading edge of the wing with one hand, and fought the fire with the other. The flames seared his hands, face, and clothes. The fighter returned and hit the bomber with a burst of gunfire that sent two bullets into his legs. The burst also swept him off the wing.

He fell 20,000 feet (6,100 m), but his smouldering and holed parachute worked well enough to save his life. He suffered further injuries upon landing, including a broken ankle, but managed to crawl to a nearby German village the next morning, where he was paraded through the street.

Jackson received his VC at Buckingham Palace in the same ceremony as Leonard Cheshire who insisted Jackson precede him out sheer awe for his feat.

"When Cheshire went to Buckingham Palace to receive his VC from King George VI, he was accompanied by Norman Jackson who was also due to receive his award on that day. Cheshire insisted that despite the difference in rank (Group Captain and Warrant Officer), they should approach the King together. Jackson remembers that Cheshire said to the King, "This chap stuck his neck out more than I did - he should get his VC first!" The King had to keep to protocol, but Jackson commented he would "never forget what Cheshire said."

Wow.  I guess that after this, there is no complaining about the irritating little details of life!