Koepcke Juliane - Lost in the Amazon: A Battle for Survival in the Heart of the Rainforest

CONTENTS

I t was Christmas Eve day, and the terminal at Jorge Chvez International Airport teemed with people, vying for position. Bags full of presents, wrapped and unwrapped, crowded the floor. It seemed like half the population of Lima, Peru, wanted to get home for the holidayand at least some of them werent going to make it.

LANSA Airlines had canceled its flight to Cuzco, on the edge of the Andes Mountains. The plane had been delayed for repairs. Only Flight 508 would operate today, the airline announced. It would leave at 11:30 a.m. for Pucallpa and Iquitos, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

Dozens of frustrated passengers jostled in line at the airline counter, insisting that the plane take them to Cuzco. The German movie director Werner Herzog elbowed his way forward and made his case. He was desperate to get back to the mountains, where he was shooting a film about a Spanish conquistador who led a disastrous expedition through the jungle more than 400 years ago. Herzog had even bribed LANSA employees with a $20 bill to guarantee him a seat. But now, they said, there was nothing they could do.

Mingling in the crowd were the 86 lucky people who had seats on Flight 508. Maybe they were going to make it home after all.

But while Herzog and others pleaded for a flight out of Lima, at least some of the passengers on Flight 508 were dreading the trip. LANSA had a terrible reputation for safety. Two of its flights had crashed in the last five years; 135 passengers and 13 crew members had boarded a LANSA plane and never gotten off. The last crash had happened just 16 months earlier in Cuzco. LANSA Flight 502 to Lima had 49 exchange students from the United States aboard, fresh from a trek to the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu. An engine caught fire during takeoff, and the plane careened into a mountainside less than 2 miles from the airport. Only the copilot survived.

The accidents had left LANSA with just a single plane, an old Lockheed L-188 Electra. The planes wings carried four giant turboprop engines. When the Electra was first made, the engines had a tendency to vibrate so violently they would tear the wings off the fuselage. LANSA se lanza de panza , went the saying: LANSA lands on its belly.

They might joke, but few Peruvians got on a LANSA flight without a shudder of fear. Jos Guerrero Rovalino was feeling it. He had flown in from Iquitos for his job as an accountant. During the few hours he spent in Lima, he told his mother he didnt trust LANSA to get him back safely.

Narda Sales Rios, a singer, was nervous too. She had tried to change her flight at the last minute, but everything else was booked. Her sister was getting married over the holidays, and she needed to get to Pucallpa for the wedding. She waited anxiously in the terminal with her five-year-old son, Gerard, and a wedding bouquet she had bought for her sister.

Alberto Lozano, a college student, had a friends warning in the back of his mind. His roommate had come into Lima on a shaky LANSA flight two days before and told Alberto not to risk it. Dont fly LANSA, brother, the roommate said. That plane is in bad shape. Alberto shrugged him off. He wanted to get home to spend Christmas with his parents. Besides, he said, he had booked a seat in the tail of the plane, and that was the safest place you could be.

At least one passenger wasnt worried at all. Juliane Koepcke approached flying the way she did the rest of life, quietly optimistic and ready for anything. A few weeks earlier, her high school graduating class had flown to Cuzco to explore Machu Picchu, like the exchange students on Flight 502. On the way back, the plane hit a pocket of turbulence and bucked like a wild bull. Most of the class was terrified. Juliane thought the ride was fun.

Then again, at seventeen, Juliane was no stranger to adventure. Her parents were both zoologists. They had come to Peru from Germany to study the plants and animals of the rainforest, and Juliane had spent her childhood following them through the mountains and the jungle. Her city friends might have to deal with a cockroach or a rat every now and then. Juliane had grown up dodging poisonous snakes, alligators, and vampire bats.

For two years she had lived at Panguana, the familys research station deep in the rainforest. During the rainy season, she and her parents could only get there by boat. Their hut stood on stilts to keep it dry when the river flooded. Tarantulas and lizards dropped from the palm-frond roof. Every morning, Juliane had to shake out her boots to make sure no poisonous spiders had moved in during the night.

Now she split her time between Lima and Panguana, city and jungle. It was a strange existence that set her apart from her city friends. Since the age of five shed been referring to animals by their Latin names. She had raised fig parrots by chewing up bananas and feeding the mush to them. She could imitate the ominous hissing sound of a tarantula. When she came back to Lima after a stay in Panguana, her friends told her she walked strangely. Shed gotten used to lifting her feet high off the ground to keep from tripping over roots.

Over the years, Juliane had been recording bird calls or collecting insects during a lot of important social events. Had it been up to her mother alone, she would have missed the most important one of all. Her graduation from Limas Alexander von Humboldt school fell on December 23. The night before was the Fiesta de Promocin , Perus version of a senior prom.

Julianes mother, Maria Koepcke, had wanted Juliane to skip both events. She was anxious to get out of Lima. Julianes father was waiting for them at Panguana. He had already cut down a Christmas tree and put it up in one of the huts. And Faucett, the more reliable of the two airlines flying to Pucallpa, had no seats on December 24.

The last thing Julianes mother wanted was to fly LANSA. She had once been on a plane in the United States that had to make an emergency landing with a failing engine. The experience made her skittish every time she flew. Besides, as an ornithologist, she had spent her life studying birds. With their hollow bones, sail-like feathers, and inexhaustible energy, birds were made for flight. A plane, by contrast, was a bulky mass of metal that looked like it should never leave the ground. Maria Koepcke couldnt help feeling that humans werent meant to fly.

Still, Juliane stood her ground. She loved the rainforest and rarely complained when her parents work took her away from her friends. But she didnt want to miss graduation. She had saved her money for a long dress with a pretty blue pattern and short sleeves cinched at the end. A college student shed known for a month, tall and broad shouldered, was taking her to the dance. It would be the last chance she got to say goodbye to many of her friends.

In the end, Maria gave in and bought LANSA tickets. Juliane went to the dance and the next day crossed the stage to receive her diploma.

The following morning, on Christmas Eve, Maria and Juliane stood in line for Flight 508. Out the plate-glass window of the airport, they could see the L-188 Electra that would take them to Pucallpa. To Juliane, the plane looked beautiful, clean and shiny.