Serbian stewardess who survived jet crash in 1972 dies at 66

FILE-In this Friday, Feb. 15, 2008 file photo, Vesna Vulovic, an ex-air stewardess, and survivor of a fall from 10,000 meters when in 1972 her plane was blown up in mid-fight by a bomb, gestures as she gives an interview to the Associated Press in Belgrade, Serbia. Serbia's state TV reports Saturday Dec. 24, 2016, Vulovic was found dead by her friends in her apartment in Belgrade, aged 66. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic) (The Associated Press)

BELGRADE, Serbia – Vesna Vulovic, a Serbian stewardess who miraculously survived a plunge from 10,000 meters after her plane exploded in mid-air in 1972, has died. She was 66.

Serbia's state TV said Saturday Vulovic was found dead by her friends in her apartment in Belgrade. The cause of death was not immediately known.

Vulovic was 23 and working as a Yugoslav Airlines hostess on Jan. 26, 1972, when the Douglas DC-9 airliner she was aboard blew up high above the snowy mountain ranges of Czechoslovakia. All 27 other passengers and crew aboard perished.

Vulovic entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1985 for "the highest fall survived without a parachute."

It was suspected that a bomb was planted inside the jet during a scheduled stopover in Copenhagen, Denmark, but no arrests were ever made.