This list includes sole survivors of aviation accidents and incidents that involved ten or more onboard. Within this list, "sole survivor" refers to a person who survived an air accident in which all other aircraft occupants died as a direct consequence of the accident. This list does not include initial survivors who later died (possibly in another location) due to injuries sustained during the accident. Also not included are the numerous incidents of sole survivors of accidents and combat losses related to heavy bombers during World War II which frequently had ten or more crewmembers.

History

The earliest known sole survivor is Lou Foote. On 17 March 1929, as the pilot of a Jersey sightseeing flight, he attempted to force land the monoplane when it suffered an engine failure shortly after takeoff. It was unsuccessful, however, as the aircraft slammed into a sand filled steel railroad car, killing all 13 in the cabin and a person in the cockpit. At the time of the accident, he was 34 years old. The earliest known female sole survivor is Linda McDonald. On 5 September 1936, she survived a Skyways sightseeing plane crash near Pittsburgh that killed nine other people, including her boyfriend. She was 17 at the time. The youngest sole survivor is Chanayuth Nim-anong, who on 3 September 1997, survived a crash when he was just 14 months old. He was the sole survivor of Vietnam Airlines Flight 815, which had 65 deaths in total. The oldest sole survivor is Alexander Sizov, who was 52 years old when YAK-Service Flight 9633 crashed on 7 September 2011, with 44 fatalities. The deadliest aviation disaster to have had a sole survivor was Northwest Airlines Flight 255, which crashed in Romulus, Michigan, on 16 August 1987, killing 154 of the 155 people on board the aircraft, as well as two people on the ground. The sole survivor of the crash was a 4-year-old girl named Cecelia Cichan, who was seriously injured.

Notable sole survivors

List