Sallah: I miss the desert. I miss the sea. I miss waking up every morning wondering what wonderful adventure the new day will bring to us.
Indiana Jones: Those days have... come and gone.
Sallah: Perhaps...perhaps not.
Indiana Jones: I've believed in magic a few times in my life. I've seen things... things I can't explain. I've come to believe it's not so much what you believe... it's how hard you believe it.
Sallah: Give 'em hell, Indiana Jones.
Answer: It was never explained and seems impossible that anyone could survive such an impact. My own thought was the scene was deliberately exaggerated to appear as if Voller was killed in order to fool and then surprise the audience when he later turns up alive. I also thought it looked as if he hadn't aged. Voller may have been much younger than Indy, possibly as much as 25-30 years. When Voller reappears in the 1960s, he looks more like actor Mads Mikkelsen's actual age. The film should have made him look younger at the beginning. There's a lot of "suspension of disbelief" here.
raywest ★