Document-Based Questions - Debra J. Housel, M.S. Ed. 2008

Head Downhill and Follow the Water
True Survival Stories

Juliane Koepcke, 17, sat next to her mother in a Lockheed Electra plane on the night of December 24, 1971. The German girl had just graduated from high school in Lima, Peru. The pair was on the way to meet her father. But when lightning struck the plane, its right wing burst into flames.

Juliane has no memory of what happened next. She passed out. Still strapped into her seat, she awoke three hours later. The plane had crashed into a mountainous region of the Amazon rain forest. Juliane had a broken collarbone and a deep gash in her right arm. Even worse, she’d lost the sight in one eye. She searched for others. But of the 92 people aboard, she was the sole survivor.

Juliane was in shock. The pain was overwhelming. Yet she remembered her father saying that if a person was lost in the jungle, she should go downhill. That would lead to water, and water always leads to people. She had on one sandal and a skirt. Still, she knew she had to follow his advice if she were to survive. So she struggled along, breaking a path through the thick growth on the dark jungle floor. Several times she heard planes pass overhead. But she had no way to signal to them.

At last she found a muddy stream and followed it. Hundreds of mosquito bites drained her blood. Worms and leeches clung to her legs. Her feet were covered with blisters. Juliane did not know what was safe to eat. So she ate nothing. Her only water came from drinking the rain that fell on leaves. After ten days of walking, she came to a hunter’s hut. She stumbled into it and collapsed.

The next day a group of hunters arrived. They saw that the insect eggs buried in her skin had begun to hatch. To kill them, they poured gasoline on her. Then the men put her into their canoe and paddled for seven hours. They reached the town of Tournavista on January 2, 1972. From there a helicopter carried her to a hospital. When she was released, a local pilot flew her to her father.

Later she led rescue workers to the plane wreckage. From the remains, it was estimated that she survived a fall of two miles from the sky. High winds had slowed her fall so that she spiraled instead of plummeting. Today Juliane is a biologist in Germany.

These percentages come from 2,147 commercial aviation accidents from 1950 through 2004. In cases with several causes, the most important one was used. Military, private, and charter aircraft were not included.

Notes:

*Pilot error includes accidents in which pilots made a mistake based on weather conditions or mechanical problems.

*Other human error includes air traffic controller error, improper loading of aircraft, fuel problems, poor maintenance, etc.

*Sabotage includes bombs, shoot-downs, and hijackings.

Plane Crash Info. “Accident Statistics.” http://www.planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm

Head Downhill and Follow the Water

1. Why did Juliane walk downhill?

a. Her injured mother had begged her to find help.

b. She was in a canoe and water always flows downhill.

c. Her father had once said that doing so would lead to water.

d. She couldn’t go up the mountain.

2. Why did the hunters douse Juliane with gasoline?

a. as a snake repellant

b. to kill the insects living on her

c. to keep her from dehydrating

d. to kill her

3. Why did Juliane drink only rainwater?

a. She wasn’t sure if any other water was safe to drink.

b. She never found any other water.

c. Drinking water from a stream had made her very ill.

d. She only had access to saltwater.

4. Juliane was saved by a group of hunters. True or False? Explain.

5. Based on the pie graph, was the plane crash that Juliane survived caused by one of the two most common reasons for fatal aviation accidents? Give the percentages for each.

6. Look at the most common causes of fatal plane crashes. What could be done to reduce this type of accident?