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Wednesday, May 21, 2025

4 children, including baby, survive plane crash, 40 days alone in Amazon jungle

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710 days ago
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In this photo released by Colombia's Armed Forces Press Office, soldiers and Indigenous men pose for a photo with the four Indigenous children who were missing after a deadly plane crash, in the Solano jungle, Caqueta state, Colombia, Friday, June 9, 2023. Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Friday that authorities found alive the four children who survived a small plane crash 40 days ago and had been the subject of an intense search in the Amazon jungle. (Colombia's Armed Force Press Office via AP)

In this photo released by Colombia's Armed Forces Press Office, soldiers and Indigenous men pose for a photo with the four Indigenous children who were missing after a deadly plane crash, in the Solano jungle, Caqueta state, Colombia, Friday, June 9, 2023. Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Friday that authorities found alive the four children who survived a small plane crash 40 days ago and had been the subject of an intense search in the Amazon jungle. (Colombia's Armed Force Press Office via AP)

Four In­dige­nous chil­dren sur­vived an Ama­zon plane crash that killed three adults and then braved the jun­gle for 40 days be­fore be­ing found alive by Colom­bian sol­diers, bring­ing a hap­py end­ing to a search-and-res­cue saga that cap­ti­vat­ed a na­tion but al­so prompt­ed ques­tions about their ex­tra­or­di­nary sur­vival.

Of­fi­cials in the South Amer­i­can coun­try an­nounced their res­cue Fri­day, fol­low­ing days of highs and lows as searchers fran­ti­cal­ly combed through the rain­for­est hunt­ing for the young­sters, mem­bers of the Huito­to peo­ple and aged 13, 9 and 4 years and 11 months.

As the chil­dren re­ceived treat­ment Sat­ur­day at a hos­pi­tal in the cap­i­tal, Bo­go­ta, au­thor­i­ties were yet to ex­plain how the sib­lings en­dured their time alone in the re­mote area. Ear­li­er, of­fi­cials had said the old­est chil­dren had some knowl­edge of how to sur­vive in the rain­for­est.

Pres­i­dent Gus­ta­vo Petro cel­e­brat­ed the news up­on re­turn­ing from Cu­ba, where he signed a cease-fire with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Na­tion­al Lib­er­a­tion Army rebel group. He vis­it­ed the chil­dren Sat­ur­day.

Petro called them an “ex­am­ple of sur­vival” and pre­dict­ed their saga “will re­main in his­to­ry.”

Damaris Mu­cu­tuy, an aunt of the chil­dren, told a ra­dio sta­tion that “the chil­dren are fine” de­spite be­ing de­hy­drat­ed and with in­sect bites. Mu­cu­tuy, who ar­rived at the hos­pi­tal at dawn with oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers, said the chil­dren had been of­fered men­tal health ser­vices.

De­fense Min­is­ter Iván Velásquez told re­porters Sat­ur­day the chil­dren were be­ing re­hy­drat­ed and can­not eat food yet. “But in gen­er­al, the con­di­tion of the chil­dren is ac­cept­able,” he said.

An air force video showed a he­li­copter us­ing lines to pull the young­sters up be­cause it couldn’t land in the dense rain­for­est where they were found. The mil­i­tary on Fri­day tweet­ed pic­tures show­ing a group of sol­diers and vol­un­teers pos­ing with the chil­dren, who were wrapped in ther­mal blan­kets. One of the sol­diers held a bot­tle to the small­est child’s lips.

Gen. Pe­dro Sanchez, who was in charge of the res­cue ef­forts, said that the chil­dren were found 5 kilo­me­tres (3 miles) away from the crash site in a small for­est clear­ing. He said res­cue teams had passed with­in 20 to 50 me­ters (66 to 164 feet) of where the chil­dren were found on a cou­ple of oc­ca­sions but had missed them.

“The mi­nors were al­ready very weak,” Sanchez said. “And sure­ly their strength was on­ly enough to breathe or reach a small fruit to feed them­selves or drink a drop of wa­ter in the jun­gle.”

Fi­den­cio Va­len­cia, an un­cle of the chil­dren, told re­porters out­side the hos­pi­tal that the sur­vivors were hap­py to see fam­i­ly mem­bers, who are tak­ing a “day-by-day” ap­proach to the sit­u­a­tion.

“When the plane crashed, they took out (of the wreck­age) a far­iña, and with that, they sur­vived,” Va­len­cia said, re­fer­ring to a cas­sa­va flour that peo­ple eat in the Ama­zon re­gion. “Af­ter the far­iña ran out, they be­gan to eat seeds.”

The crash hap­pened in the ear­ly hours of May 1, when the Cess­na sin­gle-en­gine pro­peller plane with six pas­sen­gers and a pi­lot de­clared an emer­gency due to an en­gine fail­ure. Snakes, mos­qui­toes and oth­er an­i­mals abound in the area.

The small air­craft fell off radar a short time lat­er and a fran­tic search for sur­vivors be­gan. Two weeks af­ter the crash, on May 16, a search team found the plane in a thick patch of the rain­for­est and re­cov­ered the bod­ies of the three adults on board, but the small chil­dren were nowhere to be found.

Sens­ing that they could be alive, Colom­bia’s army stepped up the hunt and flew 150 sol­diers with dogs in­to the area. Dozens of vol­un­teers from In­dige­nous tribes al­so helped search.

Dur­ing the search, in an area where vis­i­bil­i­ty is great­ly lim­it­ed by mist and thick fo­liage, sol­diers on he­li­copters dropped box­es of food in­to the jun­gle, hop­ing that it would help sus­tain the chil­dren. Planes fly­ing over the jun­gle fired flares to help search crews on the ground at night, and res­cuers used speak­ers that blast­ed a mes­sage record­ed by the sib­lings’ grand­moth­er, telling them to stay in one place.

Ru­mours al­so emerged about the chil­dren’s where­abouts and on May 18 the pres­i­dent tweet­ed that the chil­dren had been found. He then delet­ed the mes­sage, claim­ing he had been mis­in­formed by a gov­ern­ment agency.

The group of four chil­dren were trav­el­ling with their moth­er from the Ama­zon­ian vil­lage of Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare when the plane crashed.

Petro on Fri­day said the chil­dren were first found by one of the res­cue dogs that sol­diers took in­to the jun­gle. He added that for a while he had be­lieved the chil­dren were res­cued by one of the no­madic tribes that still roam the re­mote swath of the jun­gle where the plane fell and have lit­tle con­tact with au­thor­i­ties.

As the search pro­gressed, sol­diers found small clues in the jun­gle that led them to be­lieve the chil­dren were still alive, in­clud­ing a pair of foot­prints, a ba­by bot­tle, di­a­pers and pieces of fruit that looked like they had been bit­ten by hu­mans.

“The jun­gle saved them,” Petro said. “They are chil­dren of the jun­gle, and now they are al­so chil­dren of Colom­bia.” —BO­GO­TA, Colom­bia (AP)

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Sto­ry by MANUEL RUE­DA and REGI­NA GAR­CIA CANO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Gar­cia Cano re­port­ed from Mex­i­co City.


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