question: Why can someone fall out of a plane at 33300 feet (Vesna Vulovic) and survive but someone can fall down a flight of stairs and die
comment: Apparently I did not explain this well enough so it got deleted, I will try again. Typically it is not the fall that kills people it's the landing that does it. You can fall from standing height and die if you land a certain way.
passages: Vulović's fall was the subject of a "MythBusters" episode, which concluded it was possible to survive the fall depending on how the wreckage someone was sitting in landed.
  
  Section::::Vesna Vulović.
  
  Vulović holds the official record in the "Guinness Book of Records" for the highest fall survived without a parachute. Vulović received the Guinness prize from Paul McCartney.
   The investigators focused on the performance of the crew since they knew that this was the crew's first flight to Thessaloniki. Apparently, the crew had never conducted or trained for an approach to Thessaloniki Airport. Thus, the crew wasn't familiar with the environment.
   BULLET::::- cultural practices of the pilots: the investigations found that several pilots who fly in this region rely heavily on their experience and don't follow strict security procedures, including informal practices which inhibit an adequate analysis of the risks involved in this specific landing procedure.
  
  BULLET::::- Spatial disorientation: as a consequence of the bad visibility, the flight curve executed, the low level above the sea and the stress of the pilot, he probably lost control of the plane.
   Hostile fire on landings and take-offs, plus low-hanging clouds, mountains and tricky air currents, added to the difficulty of the flights, which the citation describes as feats of "almost superhuman skill combined with personal courage of the highest order."
   BULLET::::- Vera Lukić, the wife of a Yugoslavian diplomat, and her baby daughter, Vesna. Both passengers were saved by Harry Gregg. At the time, Vera Lukić was pregnant with her son Zoran.
  
  BULLET::::- Eleanor Miklos, wife of Bela Miklos
  
  BULLET::::- Nebojša Bato Tomašević, Yugoslavian diplomat (died 2017)
  
  Section::::Investigation.
   For the excellent results as flying teacher obtained, he was reward with the Flying Instructor title, as well as he was awarded with Gold Flight Medal.
   Air safety investigators attributed Vulović's survival to her being trapped by a food cart in the DC-9's fuselage as it broke away from the rest of the aircraft and plummeted towards the ground. When the cabin depressurized, the passengers and other flight crew were blown out of the aircraft and fell to their deaths. Investigators believed that the fuselage, with Vulović pinned inside, landed at an angle in a heavily wooded and snow-covered mountainside, which cushioned the impact. Vulović's physicians concluded that her history of low blood pressure caused her to pass out quickly after the cabin depressurized and kept her heart from bursting on impact. Vulović said that she was aware of her low blood pressure before applying to become a flight attendant and knew that it would result in her failing her medical examination, but she drank an exorbitant amount of coffee beforehand and was accepted.
   Two aircraft were involved in the collision. The larger of the two aircraft was a McDonnell-Douglas MD-87. The cockpit crew consisted of Captain Joakim Gustafsson, age 36, and First Officer Anders Hyllander, also 36. The Captain was hired by SAS in 1990 and he had more than 5,800 hours of flight experience to his credit. He had logged approximately 230 hours in the MD-87 aircraft. The first officer was hired by the airline in 1997. At the time of the accident he had more than 4,300 total flying hours. He was more experienced in the aircraft type than his captain, having logged 2,000 hours in it.
   BULLET::::- Nicholas Alkemade, British bomber tailgunner who survived falling from his burning Avro Lancaster B Mk. II in 1944
  
  BULLET::::- Alan Magee, American, World War II airman who survived a 22,000-foot (6,700 m) fall from his damaged B-17F Flying Fortress in 1943
  
  BULLET::::- Juliane Koepcke, who survived a 3 kilometre fall after her Lockheed Electra flight broke up over the Peruvian Amazon in 1971
  
  BULLET::::- Vesna Vulović, Serbian flight attendant who survived the mid-air breakup of her McDonnell Douglas DC-9 in 1972
  
  BULLET::::- Other
  
  BULLET::::- Freefall
  
  BULLET::::- List of sole survivors of aviation accidents or incidents
  
  Section::::References.
   This was one of the first accident investigations to include a study into the contribution of "human factors". These included:
  
  BULLET::::- Captain Veldhuyzen van Zanten, a KLM training captain and instructor for over ten years, had not flown on regular routes during the twelve weeks prior to the accident.
   The second aircraft was a Cessna Citation 525-A. There were two German pilots aboard. The Captain was 36 years old. He had approximately 5,000 total flight hours, of which roughly 2,400 were accumulated in the Cessna Citation. The First Officer was 64 years old. He had approximately 12,000 flight hours experience. He had logged roughly 2,000 hours in the Cessna Citation.
  
  One of the passengers was Luca Fossati, chairman of Star – Stabilimento Alimentare S.p.A. and owner of the Cessna Citation.
  
  Section::::Accident.
  
  The accident occurred in thick fog, with visibility reduced to less than .
   Thessaloniki Tower reported to the crew of Flight 241 that they had overshot the airport. Confusion occurred in the cockpit as they didn't know the heading for an approach. They later asked for a heading, however their request was not heard by the controller and they immediately handed over to Thessaloniki Approach.
   BULLET::::- On 10 July 2014, a Macedonian police Mi-17-V5 crashed overnight during a training flight near the southern town of Strumica, killing all four people on board. The four crew members were all pilots, each with more than 30 years of flight experience. They were on a night training flight when the Mi-17-V5 hit a 120-meter (394-ft) tall television transmitter tower near Strumica, about 190 kilometers (120 miles) south of the capital Skopje.
   Following the crash, Vulović spent days in a coma, having fractured her skull and then hemorrhaged. She also suffered two broken legs and three broken vertebrae, one of which was crushed completely. Her pelvis was fractured and several ribs broken. Her injuries resulted in her being temporarily paralyzed below the waist. She had total amnesia from the hour preceding her fall until one month afterwards. Vulović's parents told her that she first learned of the crash about two weeks after it occurred. She fainted upon being shown a newspaper headline by her doctor and had to be tranquilized. The last thing that Vulović could remember from before the crash was greeting passengers as they boarded. The next thing she remembered was seeing her parents in her hospital room about one month later.
   Section::::Accident and death.:Coroner's report.
   BULLET::::- TWA Flight 840 — Bombed on the way to Athens, Greece, sucking out 4 on board — the plane landed safely.
  
  BULLET::::- Olympic Aviation Flight 545 (August 3, 1989) — A Shorts 330-200 (SX-BGE) crashed on Kerkis mountain coming from Thessaloniki towards airport Pythagoras in Samos. All 31 passengers and crew of 3 died.
  
  BULLET::::- Malév Flight 262 - On the first attempt of the landing, the aircraft performed a belly landing and skidded with the runway, causing a significant damage. The aircraft initiated a go-around and landed safely.
   Since the day of the accident, there was uncertainty about who boarded the plane and about the exact cargo manifest—all leading to uncertainty as to the identity of the bodies recovered from the crash site; some bodies, including that of Sikorski's daughter, Zofia, were never recovered. Since several bodies were never found and the bodies of several members of Sikorski's entourage were never positively identified, some conspiracy theorists such as journalist and amateur historian Dariusz Baliszewski postulate that some might have been murdered on the ground while others might have been abducted to the Soviet Union.
   BULLET::::- A Piaggio P.136L-2 amphibious plane, tail number SX-BDC, crashed shortly after takeoff from runway 33. The crash occurred as a result of the reversing of the aileron connecting cables during the installation of a new control column on the plane. The aircraft had three passengers, one of whom, Alexander Onassis, died as a result of injuries sustained in the accident.
  
  BULLET::::- Stopover of hijacked Lufthansa Flight 303
   BULLET::::- On 13 February 2009, Austrian Airlines Flight OS780, Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 scheduled flight from Skopje to Vienna failed to retract landing gear after take-off and performed an emergency landing on Skopje Airport.
  
  BULLET::::- On 14 November 2011, a private flight Socata TBM700N (TBM850), from Maastricht Achen Airport to Skopje, hit several treetops and approach light while landing and missed the extended asphalt of the runway and touched down on grass. All five occupants escaped unharmed. The plane received substantial damage and was sent to Daher-Socata at Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrénées Airport for repairs.
   BULLET::::- The captain, 29, had a pilot's license that was valid until 30 May 1963. In August 1962 he was certified to serve as a captain on the Vickers Viscount; having a total of 2,925 flight hours on the Viscount.
  
  BULLET::::- The first officer, 38, had a pilot's license that was valid until 17 May 1963. In June 1960 he was certified to serve as a captain on the Vickers Viscount; having a total of 4,200 flight hours on the Viscount.
  
  Section::::Aircraft Involved.:Turkish Air Force C-47.
   Flight 367 departed from Copenhagen Airport at 3:15 p.m. At 4:01 p.m., an explosion tore through the DC-9's baggage compartment. The explosion caused the aircraft to break apart over the Czechoslovak village of Srbská Kamenice. Vulović was the only survivor of the 28 passengers and crew. She was discovered by villager Bruno Honke, who heard her screaming amid the wreckage. Her turquoise uniform was covered in blood and her stiletto heels had been torn off by the force of the impact. Honke had been a medic during World War II and was able to keep her alive until rescuers arrived.
   Section::::Crew.
  
  The captain was 55-year-old Ivan Kunovic. He received his pilot license on 16 April 1968 at the Yugoslav Academy of the Air Force and was qualified to fly the F-84, T-33 and F-86. Kunovic was hired by Inex-Adria in 1970 and became a first officer on the DC-9 the same year. He then became a captain of the DC-9 on 4 April 1972 and then an MD-80 captain on 13 August 1981. At the time of the disaster, Kunovic had a total of 12,123 flight hours, including 5,675 hours on the DC-9 and 188 hours on the MD-81.
   The film is about the 300 Spartans defending the passengers against German terrorists. The Spartans defend the entryway to the cockpit of the plane in a parallel to how the Spartans in "300" defended the narrow pass of Thermopylae. 
   The flight was a daily flight to Pristina carrying UN officials and aid workers to Kosovo. At 08:11 UTC, Flight 3275 departed Rome on 12 November 1999 for Pristina, Kosovo with 3 crew members and 21 passengers. Most of the passengers were diplomats, aid workers and journalists. At 09:57 UTC, the flight was transferred by Skopje air traffic control to the Pristina military air traffic control organization. Pristina military ATC service was being provided in accordance with established procedures in Kosovo at the time of the accident. At 09:59 UTC, the Pristina military air traffic controller requested that KSV 3275 descend initially to 5,200 feet. At 10:03 UTC, the controller asked KSV 3275 to descend to 4,600 feet. 11 minutes later, the aircraft struck the mountain and fell off from the radar.
   A police officer who was one of the first to arrive at the scene reported that a baby on the ground was "still giving feeble signs of life near the [British] plane, but even if the ambulances had arrived before me, it would have been too late to save it."
  
  Section::::Trial.
  
  By noon that day, all controllers were in custody for interrogation. Later, all were released except Tasić, who remained in custody until the trial.
  
presuppositions: If someone falls at a much higher height and survives, they should survive from falling at a much lower height. 
corrections: The height of a fall does not determine if it is deadly, the way the person falls is the determining factor.
raw_presuppositions: If someone falls at a much higher height and survives, they should survive from falling at a much lower height.  Height from a fall should determine if the fall is fatal or not.
raw_corrections: The height of a fall does not determine if it is deadly, the way the person falls is the determining factor. The height of a fall does not determine if it is deadly, the way the person falls is the determining factor.