List of sole survivors of aviation accidents and incidents

This list includes sole survivors of aviation accidents and incidents that involved ten or more onboard. Within this list, sole survivor refers to a person who survived an air accident in which all other aircraft occupants died as a direct consequence of the accident. This list does not include initial survivors who later died (possibly in another location) due to injuries sustained during the accident.

Notable examples
33-year-old Phil Bradley was the sole survivor in the 1959 crash of the Piedmont Airlines Flight 349 near Crozet, Virginia.

The earliest known sole survivor is Linda McDonald. On 5 September 1936, she survived a Skyways sightseeing plane crash near Pittsburgh that killed 9 other people, including her boyfriend.[1]

The youngest sole survivor is Chanayuth Nim-anong, who on 3 September 1997, survived a crash when he was just 14 months old. He was the sole survivor of Vietnam Airlines Flight 815, which had 65 deaths in total. The oldest sole survivor is Alexander Sizov, who was 52 years old when the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash occurred on 9 September 2011, with 44 fatalities.

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) from JAT Flight 367. There was some controversy in 2009 when it was reported that her story might have been communist propaganda, but flight recorder data strongly supported the official story.[2]

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.[3] The deadliest aviation disaster which had a sole survivor was Northwest Airlines Flight 255, which crashed in Romulus, Michigan on 16 August 1987, killing 154 out of the 155 people on board the aircraft, as well as two people on the ground. The sole survivor of the crash was a 4-year-old girl named Cecelia Cichan, who was seriously injured.[4]

List
Date Sole survivor (if known) Age on

accident

 Passenger

or Crew

 Operator Flight / information Fatality Source
5 September 1936 Linda McDonald 17 P Skyways Skyways sightseeing plane 9 [1]
30 October 1941 Clarence Bates 41 C Northwest Airlines Northwest Airlines Flight 5 14 [5]
25 August 1942 Sgt Andrew Jack 20 C Royal Air Force Dunbeath Air Crash 15 [6]
22 January 1943 John Alfred Howard 26 P Pan American-Grace Airways Flight 9 14 [7]
14 June 1943 Foye Kenneth Roberts 22 P U.S. Army Air Forces Bakers Creek air crash 40 [8]
4 July 1943 Eduard Prchal 32 C RAF Gibraltar B-24 crash 10
5 September 1946 Peter Link 3 P Trans-Luxury Airlines California Trans-Luxury Airlines 20 [9]
12 January 1947 William Ellis Keyes, Jr. 25 P Eastern Airlines Flight 665 18 [10]
28 January 1947 Paul Ashton Vick 18 months P China National Aviation Corporation Hankou crash 25 [11]
1 February 1947 Eugene Leonard 38 P Air France Lisbon mountain crash 15 [12]
10 March 1948 Tripolina Meo 33 P Delta Air Lines Flight 705 12 [13][14]
15 April 1948 Mark Worst P Pan Am Flight 1–10 30 [15][16]
12 May 1948 Moutafis P Sabena Douglas DC-4 crash 31 [17][18]
17 July 1948 Huang Yu (Chinese: 黃裕,

Hanyu Pinyin: Huáng Yù, Cantonese: Wong Yu)

 24 P Cathay Pacific Miss Macao 25 [3]
20 November 1949 Isaac Allal 12 P Aero Holland Hurum air disaster 34 [19][20]
24 May 1950 Olga Rada 10 P LANSA Galeras Douglas C-47 25 [21][22]
27 July 1950 Sgt. Haru Sazaki P U.S. Air Force Douglas C-47 25 [23][24]
6 January 1954 P/O P. D. Cliff P RAF Aldbury Valetta accident 16 [25]
24 November 1956 Concetta Finamore P Linee Aeree Italiane LAI Flight 451 34
17 March 1957 Néstor Mata 31 P Philippine Air Force Cebu Douglas C-47 crash 25 [26]
1 May 1957 Ernest Taylor P Eagle Aviation Limited Blackbushe Viking accident 34 [27]
16 January 1959 P Austral Líneas Aéreas Flight 205 51 [28]
30 October 1959 Ernest P. "Phil" Bradley 33 P Piedmont Airlines Flight 349 26 [29][30]
1 December 1959 Louis Matarazzo P Allegheny Airlines Flight 371 25 [31]
25 April 1967 Lt. Joseph "Leo" Guenet 29 C U.S. Air Force Lockheed EC-121H Super Constellation 15 [32]
29 February 1968 P Aeroflot Flight 15 83 [33]
4 May 1970 Capt. George A. Burk 28 P U.S. Air Force T-29 Convair 13 [34]
9 August 1970 Juan Loo 26 C LANSA Flight 502 99 [35]
24 December 1971 Juliane Koepcke 17 P LANSA Flight 508 91 [36]
26 January 1972 Vesna Vulović 22 C JAT Yugoslav Flight 367 27 [37]
22 July 1973 Neil James Campbell P Pan Am Flight 816 78 [38]
30 May 1979 John McCafferty 16 P Downeast Airlines Flight 46 17 [39]
24 August 1981 Larisa Savitskaya 20 P Aeroflot Flight 811 31 [40][41]
2 September 1981 Remberto Aparicio 26 P Taxi Aéreo El Venado Embraer Bandeirante crash in Paipa 21 [42][43]
30 April 1983 AT2 Melissa Kelly 30 P U.S. Navy Convair C-131 14 [44]
23 December 1984 27 P Aeroflot Flight 3519 110 [45]
21 January 1985 George Lamson Jr. 17 P Galaxy Airlines Flight 203 70 [37]
22 February 1985 Ouologuem P Air Mali Air Mali (TZ-ACT) crash 51 [46][47]
3 January 1987 Neuba Yessoh Damase P VARIG Flight 797 50 [48][49]
16 August 1987 Cecelia Cichan 4 P Northwest Airlines Flight 255 156 [36]
8 December 1987 Lt. Edilberto Villar C Peruvian Navy Alianza Lima air disaster 43 [50]
11 December 1988 Fahraddin Balaev P Soviet Air Force Soviet Air Force CCCP-86732 crash 77 [51]
5 October 1991 Bambang Sumadi P Indonesian Air Force Indonesian Air Force A-1324 crash 136 [52]
14 November 1992 Annette Herfkens 31 P Vietnam Airlines Flight 474 30 [53]
11 January 1995 Erika Delgado 9 P Intercontinental de Aviación Flight 256 52 [37]
21 September 1995 Ulziibayar Sanjaa 27 P MIAT Mongolian Airlines 42 [54]
7 December 1996 Irianto 40 P Dirgantara Air Service Flight 5940 18 [55]
3 September 1997 Chanayuth Nim-anong 14 months P Vietnam Airlines Flight 815 65 [56]
15 December 1997 Sergei Petrov 37 C Tajik Air Flight 3183 85 [57]
6 March 2003 Youcef Djillali 28 P Air Algérie Flight 6289 102 [57]
8 July 2003 Mohammed el-Fateh Osman 2 P Sudan Airways Flight 139 116 [37][58]
19 January 2006 Lt. Martin Farkaš P Slovak Air Force Slovak Air Force Antonov An-24 crash 42 [37]
27 August 2006 James M. Polehinke 44 C Comair Flight 5191 49 [59]
9 January 2007 Abdülkadir Akyüz P AerianTur-M Balad aircraft crash 34 [60][61]
26 August 2007 2 P Great Lakes Business Company Kongolo Antonov An-32B crash 14 [62]
8 October 2008 Surendra Kunwar C Yeti Airlines Flight 103 18 [63]
12 March 2009 Robert Decker 28 P Cougar Helicopters Flight 91 17 [64]
30 June 2009 Bahia Bakari 12 P Yemenia Flight 626 152 [36]
12 May 2010 Ruben van Assouw 9[65][66] P Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 103 [36]
25 August 2010 P Filair Bandundu Filair Let L-410 crash 20 [67]
4 April 2011 Francis Mwamba P Georgian Airways / United Nations United Nations Bombardier CRJ-100 crash 32 [68]
7 September 2011 Alexander Sizov 52 C Yak-Service Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash 44 [69][70]
11 February 2014 Nimer Djelloul 21 P Algerian Air Force Algerian Air Force 7T-WHM crash 77 [71][72]
18 May 2018 Mailen Diaz Almaguer 19 P Cubana de Aviación Flight 972 112 [73][74][75]
14 January 2019 Farshad Mahdavinejad C Saha Airlines Saha Airlines Boeing 707 crash 15 [76][77]
24 November 2019 Muma Emmanuel P Busy Bee 2019 Busy Bee Congo crash 26 [78]
25 September 2020 Viacheslav Zolochevsky P Ukrainian Air Force 2020 Chuhuiv An-26 crash 26 [79]

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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