Here is the extraordinary story of how a Dutch woman managed to stay alive for 192 hours alone in the Vietnamese jungle after being the sole survivor of a plane crash.
In November 1992, Annette Herfkens and her fiancé Willem van der Pas were travelling from Ho Chi Minh City for a romantic five day trip to the coastal city of Nha Trang.
Herfkens had initially been nervous about boarding the small aircraft however her partner of 13 years had convinced her it was the best way to travel to their destination.
However, Herfkens’ worst fears would soon come true when the 16-year-old Soviet-made Yakovlev Yak-40 aircraft slammed into a tree-lined ridge on the Ô Kha mountain after a descending too low due to bad weather.
The 25 other passengers and six crew members, which included Herfkens’ fiancé, would either die instantly upon impact or succumb to their injuries in the following days.
Devastated by the loss of her partner, Herfkens would have to spend a further eight days alone in the Vietnamese jungle before rescuers were able to locate her.
How Annette Herfkens survived 192 hours in the jungle
Over the next eight days Herfkens – who was 31 at the time – would face a gruelling battle to stay alive, as the other survivors died around her.
Annette Herfkens would survive eight days alone in the jungle (Annette Herfkens)
She revealed in an interview with Vice that she awoke to find the dead body of a stranger on top of her, saying: “He had a beautiful smile on his face but he was really white; white, like a dead person.”
Herfkens was alive but severely injured, suffering from a collapsed lung, 12 broken bones in her hip and knee and her jaw was ‘hanging loose’.
She had initially had the company of a Vietnamese businessman. However as the days went by, he would become weaker and pass away.
Survival instincts
Alone in the jungle Herfkens explained that she had concentrated on her survival as ‘What alternative did I have?’
Over the next eight days, she would use insulation from the plane’s wing to collect drinking water and tried her best to fend off starvation.
“I stayed in the moment,” she explained, via The Guardian.
Her fiancé Willem van der Pas died in the crash (Annette Herfkens)
“I trusted that they were going to find me… I did not think: ‘What if a tiger comes?’ I thought: ‘I’ll deal with it when the tiger comes.’ I did not think: ‘What if I die?’ I thought: ‘I will see about it when I die.'”
Eight days later the wreckage would be discovered by a local policeman, who initially fled upon seeing Herfkens.
“He first thought I was a ghost — he’d never seen a white woman before,” however the man would notify local authorities and after 192, she was rescued.
Herfkens has since written a book on her survival titled Turbulence: A True Story of Survival, published in 2014 and returned to the crash site.
