List of sole survivors of airline accidents or incidents

Phil Bradley was the sole survivor in the crash of the Piedmont Airlines Flight 349 near Crozet, Virginia, in 1959.

In the history of aviation, there have been a small number of "sole survivors" of airline crashes.^[1] Lone survivors are often left with physical and psychological injuries.^[1] The youngest sole survivor is Paul Ashton Vick who on 28 January 1947, survived a China National Aviation Corporation crash when he was just 18 months old.^[2] His father survived long enough to write down directions for returning the child to his grandparents before succumbing to his wounds.^[2]

Another sole survivor is a former Serbian flight attendant, Vesna Vulović. According to the Guinness Book of Records she holds the record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute at 10,160 metres (33,330 ft). There was some controversy in 2009 when it was reported that her story might have been communist propaganda, but black box data strongly supported the official story.^[3]

One of the more controversial lone survivors was Huang Yu (Chinese: 黃裕, Hanyu Pinyin: Huáng Yù) who tried to hijack the Cathay Pacific aircraft Miss Macao in 1948 but ended up crashing the plane killing the other 25 people on board.^[4] The earliest known sole survivor is Linda McDonald. On 5 September 1936, she survived a Skyways sightseeing plane crash that killed ten other people, including her boyfriend.^[5]

Since 1970, one-third of lone survivors of airline crashes have been children or flight crew.^[6]

List

Note that, under "Position", P = Passenger and C = Crew

Name	Age	Position	Operator	Flight/info	Date	Fatalities	Refs
Linda McDonald	17	P	Skyways	Skyways sightseeing plane disaster	5 September 1936	10	[5]
Clarence Bates		C	Northwest Airlines	Northwest Airlines Flight 5	30 October 1941	14	[7]
Lt Andrew Jack	24	C	RAF	RAF Short Sunderland flying boat crash killing Prince George, Duke of Kent	25 August 1942	15	[8]
John Alfred Howard	26	P	Pan American-Grace Airways	Flight 9	22 January 1943	14	[9]
Foye Kenneth Roberts	22	P	U.S. Army Air Forces	Bakers Creek air crash	14 June 1943	40	[10]
Eduard Prchal	32	C	RAF	Gibraltar disaster of the Liberator II in which Commander in Chief of Polish Forces General Władysław Sikorski was killed.	4 July 1943	10
Peter Link	3	P	Trans-Luxury Airlines	California Trans-Luxury Airlines crash	5 September 1946	20	[11]
William Ellis Keyes, Jr.	25	P	Eastern Airlines	Flight 665	12 January 1947	18	[12]
Paul Ashton Vick	18 months	P	China National Aviation Corporation	Hankou crash	28 January 1947	25	[2]
Eugene Leonard	38	P	Air France	Lisbon mountain crash	1 February 1947	15	[13]
Tripolina Meo	33	P	Delta Air Lines	Flight 705	10 March 1948	12	[14][15]
Mark Worst		P	Pan Am	Flight 1–10	15 April 1948	30	[16][17]
Moutafis		P	Sabena	Douglas DC-4 crash	12 May 1948	31	[18][19]
Huang Yu (Chinese: 黃裕, Hanyu Pinyin: Huáng Yù, Cantonese: Wong Yu)	24	P	Cathay Pacific	Miss Macao	17 July 1948	25	[4]
Isaac Allal	12	P	Aero Holland	Hurum air disaster	20 November 1949	34	[20][21]
Olga Rada	10	P	LANSA	Galeras Douglas C-47 crash	24 May 1950	25	[22][23]
Sgt. Haru Sazaki			U.S. Air Force	Douglas C-47 crash	27 July 1950	25	[24][25]
Maj. David Lowther			RAF	South China Sea Douglas C-47 crash	30 August 1950	9	[26]
P/O P. D. Cliff		P	RAF	1954 Aldbury Valetta accident	6 January 1954	16	[27]
Paul Olsen		C	Royal Norwegian Air Force	Bjørnøya Accident	28 March 1954	8	[28]
Concetta Finamore		P	Linee Aeree Italiane	LAI Flight 451	24 November 1956	34
Néstor Mata	31	P	Philippine Air Force	Cebu Douglas C-47 crash	17 March 1957	25	[29]
		P	Eagle Aviation Limited	1957 Blackbushe Viking accident	1 May 1957	34
Phil Bradley	33	P	Piedmont Airlines	Flight 349	30 October 1959	26	[30][31]
Louis Matarazzo		P	Allegheny Airlines	Flight 371	1 December 1959	25	[32]
Lt. Joseph "Leo" Guenet	29	C	U.S. Air Force	USAF Lockheed EC-121H Super Constellation crash	25 April 1967	15	[33]
Capt. George A. Burk	28	P	U.S. Air Force	T-29 Convair crash	4 May 1970	13	[34]
Juan Loo	26	C	LANSA	Flight 502	9 August 1970	99	[35]
Lt. Christopher E. Schiess	24	C	Hughes Airwest / U.S. Marine Corps	Mid-air collision with Flight 706	6 June 1971	50	[36]
Juliane Koepcke	17	P	LANSA	Flight 508	24 December 1971	91	[6]
Vesna Vulović	22	C	JAT Yugoslav	Flight 367	26 January 1972	27	[37]
Neil James Campbell		P	Pan Am	Flight 816	22 July 1973	78	[38]
John McCafferty	16	P	Downeast Airlines	Flight 46	30 May 1979	17	[39]
Larisa Savitskaya	20	P	Aeroflot	Flight 811	24 August 1981	31	[40][41]
Remberto Aparicio	26	P	Taxi Aéreo El Venado	1981 Paipa Embraer Bandeirante crash	2 September 1981	21	[42][43]
AT2 Melissa Kelly	30	P	U.S. Navy	USN Convair C-131 crash	30 April 1983	14	[44]
	27	P	Aeroflot	Flight 3519	23 December 1984	110	[45]
George Lamson Jr.	17	P	Galaxy Airlines	Flight 203	21 January 1985	70	[37]
Prof. Neuba Yessoh		P	VARIG	Flight 797	3 January 1987	50	[46][47]
Cecelia Cichan	4	P	Northwest Airlines	Flight 255	16 August 1987	154	[6]
Lt. Edilberto Villar		C	Peruvian Navy	Alianza Lima air disaster	8 December 1987	43	[48]
Bambang Sumadi		P	Indonesian Air Force	1991 Indonesian Air force Lockheed C-130 Hercules crash	5 October 1991	136	[49]
Annette Herfkens	31	P	Vietnam Airlines	Flight 474	14 November 1992	30	[50]
Erika Delgado	9	P	Intercontinental de Aviación	Intercontinental de Aviación Flight 256	11 January 1995	52	[37]
Ulziibayar Sanjaa	27	P	MIAT Mongolian Airlines		21 September 1995	42	[51]
	1	P	Vietnam Airlines	Vietnam Airlines Flight 815	5 September 1936	65	[52]
Sergei Petrov	37	C	Tajik Air	Flight 3183	15 December 1997	85	[53]
Youcef Djillali	28	P	Air Algérie	Flight 6289	6 March 2003	102	[53]
Lt. Martin Farkaš		P	Slovak Air Force	Slovak Air Force Antonov An-24 crash	19 January 2006	42	[37]
James M. Polehinke		C	Comair	Flight 5191	27 August 2006	49	[54]
Abdülkadir Akyüz		P	AerianTur-M	2007 Balad aircraft crash	9 January 2007	34	[55][56]
Surendra Kunwar		C	Yeti Airlines	Flight 103	8 October 2008	18	[57]
Robert Decker	28	P	Cougar Helicopters	Flight 91	12 March 2009	17	[58]
Bahia Bakari	14	P	Yemenia	Flight 626	30 June 2009	152	[6]
Ruben van Assouw	8[59] or 9[60][61] or 10[6]	P	Afriqiyah Airways	Flight 771	12 May 2010	103	[6]
		P	Filair	2010 Bandundu Filair Let L-410 crash	25 August 2010	20	[62]
Francis Mwamba		P	Georgian Airways / United Nations	United Nations Bombardier CRJ-100 crash	4 April 2011	32	[63]
Alexander Sizov	52	C	Yak-Service	2011 Lokomotiv Yaroslavl air disaster	7 September 2011	44	[64][65]
Nimer Djelloul	21	P	Algerian Air Force	2014 Algeria Lockheed C-130 Hercules crash	11 February 2014	77	[66][67]

Bibliography

• Darby, Paul; Johnes, Martin; Mellor, Gavin (2005). Soccer and disaster (2005 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7146-8289-1. - Total pages: 193
• Williamson, Ronald M. (2000). Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida, 1940–2000: An Illustrated History (2000 ed.). Turner Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1-56311-730-5. - Total pages: 200
• U.S. Congress (2003). Congressional Record (2003 ed.). Government Printing Office. - Total pages: 15591

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