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A Downed Pilot Who Ran Away in a Stolen Enemy Plane and Other Historic Escapes

Khalid Elhassan September 13, 2020 28 min

A P=51 making a low level pass on a German airplane. Art Station

20. An Escape Record Going Back Decades

Frane Selak survived a derailment that sent his train plunging into an ice-cold river. Watt the Fisk

In 1962, Frane Selak kicked off his decades of ducking death when a train in which he was riding skidded off the rails, and plunged down a canyon into an icy river. Seventeen passengers drowned, but Selak managed to escape the Grim Reaper. He got away with a broken arm and hypothermia from immersion in the cold water.

In 1963, on his first and only plane ride, Selak was blown out of a malfunctioning door, but again managed to escape death: he landed on a haystack. The plane crashed, killing nineteen people. Three years later, he was on a bus whose driver lost control, plunging it into a river. Four passengers drowned, but Selak survived with just some cuts and bruises.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.