Werner Herzog understood this problem, which is part of why *Wings of Hope* works differently. Rather than dramatizing the events with actors and invented scenes, Herzog took Koepcke back to the locations, let her speak in her own voice, and documented her return to the crash site rather than recreating the original crash. The result is a documentary record of her account rather than a dramatic interpretation of it.
Neither film is a substitute for her memoir, which is the fullest account she has given of her own experience in her own words. The memoir, published in German in 2011 and available in English translation, is the closest available thing to a primary source on what she experienced and how she experienced it.
## The Question of the Other Survivors
The question of why Juliane Koepcke was the sole eventual survivor — why she and not one of the other people who survived the initial crash — is complicated by the limits of what is known about the other survivors.
The sources available for this article establish that as many as fourteen other passengers survived the initial crash and the fall, but died in the forest awaiting rescue. What is not established, in the sources consulted here, is the specific nature of their injuries, the specific locations in the debris field where they landed, or the specific circumstances of their deaths.
Without that information, it is not possible to say with confidence what the difference was between their situation and hers. It is tempting, and perhaps natural, to attribute her survival to her knowledge and her ability to walk — and these factors were undoubtedly relevant — but it is also possible that some of the other survivors had injuries that were incompatible with walking regardless of their knowledge or will. It is possible that some of them were in locations in the debris field that were further from the waterways that structured her navigation. It is possible that some of them were found by the search and were already too injured to be saved, a scenario the sources consulted here do not address.