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Annette Herfkens was 31 when she boarded a Vietnam Airlines flight in November of 1992. It was supposed to be a romantic trip; a surprise getaway with her fiancé who was working as a banker in Ho Chi Minh City. But instead of reaching the resort town of Nha Trang as planned, the plane hit severe turbulence, clipped a mountain, and disintegrated into the jungle.
According to Annette the crash occurred in just the same nightmarish way you’d imagine. “There was the sound of accelerating motors,” she recalls. “Then there was a gigantic drop and everyone started screaming. We looked at each other, he stretched out and grabbed for my hand, I grabbed his, and then everything went black.”
Thirty people lost their lives in the crash, including her fiancé, and when Annette came to she found herself alone in the ruined fuselage, surrounded by luggage and bodies. And there she stayed, for a…
