I accidentally saw in the news feed a mention of the only two women who survived the plane crash. I wanted to write about this, the topic hooked me. Many people are probably familiar with the awe, if not fear, of flying. Many films have been made about plane crashes. Consider the phantasmagoric scene in the modern version of the film “Crew,” where passengers were moved on a cable from an emergency plane to another! Who is not interested in the question of the possibility of surviving a plane crash. Why did only these women survive, while everyone else died? A lucky accident, carried out? One survivor, Serbian Vesna Vulović, worked as a flight attendant on JAT flight 367 on January 26, 1972. The woman remembers how the explosion went off, after which she lost consciousness. What happened? As it turned out, the Croatian far-right organization Ustasha planted a bomb in the luggage compartment. The bomb exploded when the plane was at an altitude of 10,160 meters. The plane's debris fell near the town of Ceska Kamenice in the Czech Republic. Vesna Vulovich was the only survivor of 28 passengers and crew members after the debris fell to the ground. In one of the debris they found a flight attendant with multiple fractures and a head injury. She was in a coma and lost 4 liters of blood. For several days the doctors fought for her life. When Vesna came to her senses, she had a long road of rehabilitation ahead of her. In an interview, Vesna told how for a long time she was haunted by the feeling of guilt that she survived while others did not. The woman was surprised that she remained alive, because... other passengers died during the fall from ruptured lungs and hearts. Vesna died at the age of 66, the cause of death was not disclosed. She had no children. Another woman who survived the plane crash was our compatriot Larisa Savitskaya. On August 24, 1981, the An-24 plane on which Larisa and her husband were flying collided with a Tu-16K long-range bomber at an altitude of 5220 m. After the collision, the crews of both aircraft died. As a result of the collision, the An-24 lost both wing consoles with fuel tanks and the top of the fuselage. The remaining part broke several times during the fall. At the time of the disaster, Larisa Savitskaya was sleeping in her seat in the rear of the plane. I woke up from a strong shock and sudden cold (the temperature instantly dropped from 25 °C to −30 °C). After another break in the fuselage, which passed right in front of her seat, Savitskaya was thrown into the aisle. When she woke up, she made her way to the nearest chair, climbed in and pressed herself into it, still not wearing her seat belt. Savitskaya later said that at that moment she remembered an episode from the film “Miracles Still Happen,” where the heroine squeezed into a chair during a plane crash and survived. Probably, Vesna and Larisa were lucky that a piece of the plane they were in fell on a forested area , and this absorbed the blow. As a result of the crash, Larisa’s teeth were knocked out, multiple vertebral fractures, a broken arm, and a head injury. These injuries later left the woman paralyzed, but she fought on and gradually recovered. According to Larisa, thoughts about her husband, who died in that disaster, helped her live. When she woke up after the crash, she saw the body of her dead husband in a chair in front of her, as if he was looking at her, saying goodbye. This terrible memory came to her in her dreams for a long time. Times were difficult, health problems, unemployment... Larisa gave birth to a child, Gosha, just for herself, but the child turned out to be not entirely healthy. For a long time they survived on Gosha's disability benefits. It is no secret that children with disabilities and their parents often have to survive, experiencing additional stress due to discrimination in educational institutions and when hiring. The woman says that fate sent her trials for two, since she survived and her husband did not. On Larisa’s face you can see a “mask of depression”, lack of vitality, dark circles under the eyes... What is the “survivor’s guilt” complex? This is a manifestation of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): a feeling of guilt towards the dead.