What remarkable Guinness world record did Vesna Vulovic achieve on Jan 26, 1972?

Vesna Vulovic survived the highest fall ever, without a parachute.

On the 26th of January 1972, Vesna Vulovic was a flight attendant onboard JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367.

The flight path, between Stockholm in Sweden and Belgrade in Serbia, took the aircraft over Czechoslovakia - now the Czech Republic - and that is where the plane exploded into three pieces.

The explosion and crash killed everyone on board. Everyone except Vesna, who survived a fall of 33,333 feet (10,160 metres; 6.31 miles).

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2022/4/how-vesna-vulovic-survived-the-highest-fall-ever-with-no-parachute-697786

Her survival has been attributed to being pinned down in the tail end of the fuselage by a food cart. That and the thick snow where the wreckage landed. She did not survive unscathed, but suffered serious injuries, taking 10 months to regain the ability to walk.

There has been much speculation whether the story was completely true. Yugoslav authorities claimed the aircraft was blown up by Croatian nationalists. This version was backed by Czechoslovakian government.

Later investigations by journalists Peter Hornung and Pavel Theiner, however, seem to reveal that the whole story was a hoax by Communist authorities to cover up a mistake.

They said it was likely that the jet - a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 - was mistaken for an enemy aircraft as it attempted an emergency landing, and was shot down only 800 metres above the ground by a MiG fighter of the Czechoslovak air force. While the Czech Civilian Aviation Authority dismissed the 2009 claims, a spokesman for Guinness World Records said: "It seems that at the time Guinness was duped by this swindle, just like the rest of the media."

Sources:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/too-good-to-be-true-miracle-woman-who-survived-33-000ft-fall-6294556.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/13/flight-attendant-record-fall-hoax