The biggest tragedy in the world is to lose someone you love the most. A young woman Annette Herfkens would never thought a romantic getaway for her and her fiance would become the darkest day in her life. Herfkens, a former Wall Street trader was recently engaged to Willem van der Pas. The couple were on Vietnam Airlines flight 474, going for a romantic trip from Ho Chi Minh City, unaware of the fateful moment that would shatter their dreams forever. The plane crash is the story of the sole survivor Annette Herfkens who was trapped in the jungle in Vietnam for eight days, surviving only by drinking rainwater.
Coming from a Dutch family, Annette Herfkens was born in Venezuela but grew up in the Netherlands. She studied law at Leiden University. After working in Santiago, Chile, she became a management trainee for ING Bank. She was the first woman from a Dutch bank to work abroad. She worked in New York and London. In 1989, she joined Banco Santander in Madrid to help start the Emerging Markets Department.
Annette, 31, was the only survivor among 22 passengers and six crew members. Her book, “Turbulence,” tells her story. She talks about her struggles and how she managed to survive both physically and mentally. She describes feeling light-headed and disconnected from her body after the crash. She felt a sense of peace and unity with nature, despite being seriously injured. Her fiancé, Willem van der Pas, whom she called “Pasje,” was among those who died in the crash.
Annette and Pasje were on their way to a romantic vacation in Nha Trang, Vietnam, in November 1992. Annette was visiting from Madrid, where she was working at Santander Bank, while Pasje had moved to Vietnam for work. They had been together for 13 years and were planning to get married. Despite feeling nervous about flying in a small plane, they decided to take the flight because the roads were difficult to travel. During the flight, they experienced turbulence, but Annette reassured Pasje that it was normal. However, the plane crashed into a mountain ridge, leaving Annette as the sole survivor.
“We knew we were destined to get married from the fourth year of college,” Herfkens recounted to the New York Post. “After school, we lived for a while in Amsterdam; later, because of our work as bankers, we lived together or apart in various financial capitals in South America and Europe.”
Annette didn’t want to get on the plane because she was claustrophobic. Pasje told her a lie to make her feel better, saying the flight would only be 20 minutes. But the flight lasted 40 minutes, and the plane suddenly dropped. “This I don’t like,” he said nervously. Pasje seemed worried, and when the plane dropped again, he held Annette’s hand. Then everything went dark.
When Annette woke up, she heard noises from the jungle. The plane had crashed into a mountain. Someone she didn’t know was dead on top of her. Van der Pas was also dead, with a smile on his face.
“I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I guess I tumbled around in the cabin like a lonely piece of laundry in a clothes dryer, hitting my head and limbs against the ceiling and lockers. I may have been the only one not wearing a seat belt.
“At some point I must have landed and slipped under a seat, legs first, and gotten stuck. This kept me in place for the second, bigger impact, which caused the plane to break up,” she recalled. Annette had 12 broken bones in her hip and knee, her jaw was hanging loose, and one of her lungs had collapsed.
Annette said that in situations like that, you either fight or run away, and she chose to run away. She found herself outside in the jungle, but she did not remember exactly how she got out of the plane. She only remembered some parts of the experience and tried hard to forget the smells.
“Soon, I was sitting outside of the cabin, on a mountain slope, under the trees in dense undergrowth. Everything hurt and I couldn’t move. My wraparound skirt had been torn off and I could see four inches of bluish bone sticking out through layers of flesh on my shin.”
Annette Herfkens finds herself in a surreal and terrifying situation after a plane crash. She describes the jungle wilderness around her, noting the abundance of greenery and the loud sounds of the jungle. Despite her injuries, she becomes aware of the presence of dead bodies scattered below and hears faint moans from survivors still trapped inside the plane wreckage.
During the crash, she was not the only survivor. Beside her was a badly injured Vietnamese man but alive. He sympathized with her and said, “Don’t worry, they will come for us.” He somehow gave her a pair of trousers from his suitcase to protect her modesty and comforted her with his words.
Annette and the man talked a bit to comfort each other, but then the man got sicker and died. Annette was then all by herself, feeling very alone among the wreckage with no sounds from the plane anymore. Even though Annette was hurt and upset about losing the man, she was determined to stay alive. Moving even a little hurt a lot, but she kept thinking about how to survive.
Annette couldn’t stand seeing the horrible things inside the plane, like bugs coming out of dead people’s eyes. So, she avoided looking inside and focused on getting water to drink. She used things from the plane to collect rainwater.
Annette grieved losing her fiancé, Pasje, in the crash, but she knew she had to stay strong. She didn’t let herself cry because she thought it would make her weaker. Instead, she stayed focused on what she needed to do to survive and listened to her instincts. “Over the following days, even though I was grieving for Pasje, I concentrated on my survival,” she later recalled. “What alternative did I have?”
Annette went through a very tough time after surviving a plane crash. She had thoughts about what might happen next, like being saved or facing dangerous animals, but she tried not to think about them too much. Instead, she found comfort in the beauty of nature around her and remembered happy times from her childhood and the love of her family. “I stayed in the moment. I trusted that they were going to find me.”
After spending 192 hours in the ordeal, eventually, she saw a Vietnamese policeman who turned out to be her savior, even though he first thought she was a ghost.
Annette had to be carried down the mountain by rescue workers because she was too hurt to move by herself. She felt sad about leaving behind her partner, Pasje, who died in the crash. Despite feeling both physical and emotional pain, she was thankful for the help she received.
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After miraculously surviving, Annette was airlifted to Ho Chi Minh City before being transferred to a hospital in Singapore. Her family and friends were relieved to discover she was alive, as they had feared the worst. Annette had to undergo surgeries and treatments to heal physically.
However, the crash had a deep emotional impact on her. She lost her partner, Pasje, in the crash, which felt like becoming a widow. She attended his funeral in a surreal way, being brought into the church on a stretcher, similar to how a bride walks down the aisle.
Annette began her physical recovery by taking her first steps again on New Year’s Eve, although it was painful. She was happy to regain her ability to walk on her own.
Annette’s journey to getting better was challenging but she didn’t give up. She went back to work, got married, and had children. But life kept bringing challenges, like her son Max being diagnosed with autism in 2001. Even though things were tough, Annette chose to focus on the present and accept what was happening, just like she did when she was trapped in the jungle after the crash.
Even though her marriage ended, Annette thinks that every experience, good or bad, helps a person grow. Even though many years have passed since the crash, the cause of the plane crash remains a mystery.
Decades later, she chose to go back to the story of the plane crash. She wrote a book called “Turbulence: A True Story of Survival.” It was published in 2014.
One of the biggest shocks to come out of the whole affair was my discovery 10 years ago that there had been two air crashes in the jungle that November in 1992. While researching my book, I had gone back to Vietnam to retrace my steps, revisit the mountain, and meet my rescuers, including the orange man.
Annette Herfkens told the New Zealand Herald that she found out that not wearing a seatbelt probably saved her life. This is because other passengers who wore seatbelts had injuries to their ribs and lungs. She also realized she did everything right to survive. She made a plan, drank enough water, celebrated small successes, and stayed focused on the present moment.
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