Annette Herfkens, the sole survivor of a 1992 plane crash in Vietnam, has spoken about her 30-hour ordeal alone in the jungle. The Dutch former trader was on holiday with her fiancé, Willem van der Pas, when the small aircraft carrying 25 passengers and six crew crashed into a mountain ridge. Herfkens initially refused to board due to claustrophobia, but was persuaded by van der Pas, who told her it was a short flight.
After the plane dropped sharply twice, everything went black. When Herfkens regained consciousness, she found herself covered by a dead stranger, with van der Pas also dead nearby. Despite sustaining 12 broken bones in her hip and knee, a collapsed lung, and a broken jaw, she managed to crawl out of the wreckage and away from the plane. She spent the next 30 hours alone in the jungle before being rescued.
Herfkens described focusing on the beauty of the jungle around her—the green and golden leaves, the dew, and sunlight—to block out the horror of the dead bodies and the leeches on her skin. She said she accepted her situation and trusted that rescuers would find her, staying in the moment rather than worrying about dangers like tigers or death. This mindfulness, she says, helped her survive.
Three decades later, Herfkens reflects on the trauma in her book 'Turbulence: A True Story of Survival'. She says the jungle has become her 'safe place', a mental refuge she returns to during stressful times. The crash killed everyone else on board, including her fiancé of 13 years.
