This list includes sole survivors of aviation accidents and incidents that involved 10 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

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. She was 17 at the time. 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 Vietnam Airlines Flight 815 was a scheduled Vietnam Airlines flight which crashed on final approach to Phnom Penh International Airport in Cambodia on 3 September 1997. The Soviet-built Tupolev Tu-134B-3 airliner crashed approximately short of t ...

, which had 65 deaths in total. The oldest sole survivor is Alexander Sizov, who was 52 years old when

YAK-Service Flight 9633 On 7 September 2011, YAK-Service Flight 9633, a Yakovlev Yak-42 charter flight operated by YAK-Service carrying players and coaching staff of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl professional ice hockey team, crashed on take-off near Yaroslavl, Yaroslavl O ...

crashed on 7 September 2011, with 44 fatalities. Another sole survivor is a former Serbian

flight attendant A flight attendant, also known as steward/stewardess or air host/air hostess, is a member of the aircrew aboard commercial flights, many business jets and some government aircraft. Collectively called cabin crew, flight attendants are prima ...

Vesna Vulović Vesna Vulović ( sr-Cyrl, Весна Вуловић, ; 3 January 1950 23 December 2016) was a Serbian flight attendant who holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: . She was the sole survivor after a ...

. According to the ''

Guinness Book of Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing worl ...

'' she holds the record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute at from

JAT Flight 367 JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 was a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 aircraft (registration YU-AHT) which exploded shortly after overflying NDB Hermsdorf (located in or around Hinterhermsdorf, in the present-day municipality of Sebnitz), East G ...

. Some controversy arose in 2009 when her story was reported as possible communist propaganda, but flight recorder data strongly supported the official story. Ben S. Cauley, Jr. was an American trumpet player, vocalist, songwriter, and founding member of the Stax recording group the Bar-Kays. He was the only survivor of the 1967 plane crash that claimed the lives of soul singer

Otis Redding Otis Ray Redding Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues. ...

and four members of the Bar-Kays. One of the more controversial lone survivors was Huang Yu (,

Hanyu Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

: ''Huáng Yù''), who tried to hijack the

Cathay Pacific Cathay Pacific Airways Limited (CPA), more widely known as Cathay Pacific (), is the flag carrier of Hong Kong, with its head office and main hub located at Hong Kong International Airport. The airline's operations and subsidiaries have ...

aircraft ''

Miss Macao ''Miss Macao'' () was a Catalina seaplane owned by Cathay Pacific and operated by subsidiary Macau Air Transport Company. On 16 July 1948 it was involved in the first hijacking of a commercial aircraft. Piracy for robbery and ransom was th ...

'' in 1948, but ended up crashing the plane, killing the other 25 people on board. The deadliest aviation disaster to have had a sole survivor was

Northwest Airlines Flight 255 On August 16, 1987 a McDonnell Douglas MD-80#MD-82, McDonnell Douglas MD-82, operating as Northwest Airlines Flight 255, crashed shortly after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, about 8:46 pm Eastern Time Zone, EDT (00:46 UTC Augus ...

, which crashed in

Romulus, Michigan Romulus is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 23,989 at the 2010 census. Romulus is a western suburb of Metro Detroit and is also considered part of the Downriver collection of communities. It is most not ...

, on 16 August 1987, killing 154 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.

Notable examples

List

Notes

Bibliography

References