And Serbian flight attendant Vesna Vulovic holds the Guinness world record for the longest survived fall — over 30,000 feet — after her plane blew up in the 1970s, though some cynics think the real height of Vulovic's fall was a mere 2,600 feet.

The world record for the highest fall survived without a parachute is held by Vesna Vulović, a Serbian flight attendant who survived a fall of 33,330 feet (10,160 meters) in 1972. Her survival was a miracle resulting from JAT Flight 367 exploding in mid-air; she was trapped in a section of the fuselage that was pinned by a food cart, which acted as a sort of protective cocoon when the debris landed on a snowy, wooded mountainside at a favorable angle. In more recent times, Luke Aikins made history in 2016 by intentionally jumping from 25,000 feet without a parachute or wingsuit, successfully landing in a massive 100x100-foot net. While Aikins' jump was a planned stunt with specialized equipment, Vulović’s survival remains the definitive "accidental" record. Other notable survivors include World War II airmen who fell from 18,000–22,000 feet, often surviving because their falls were broken by glass roofs, thick pine branches, or deep snowdrifts that decelerated their impact just enough to prevent a fatal trauma.