How four children survived after plane crash killed every adult on board
On 1 May 2023, a Cessna 206 aircraft nose-dived into the Amazon jungle, but when help finally arrived two weeks later, rescuers came across something unprecedented among the mangled wreckage.
The light aircraft has been transporting four children and their mother from their home in southern Colombia to San José del Guaviare, but tragically, the engine failed during the trip, causing the aircraft to plummet out of the sky and crash into the rainforest below.
The impact killed the children’s mother, Magdalena Mucutuy, 33, pilot Hernando Murcia Morales and local indigenous leader Hermán Mendoza Hernández, with rescuers saying the wreckage had been so mangled they couldn't even see how many bodies were inside when they got to the scene a fortnight later.
And there was one burning question remaining: where were the four children who were also on board?
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Soldiers attending the crash site quickly noticed something unusual. They spotted evidence of luggage being rummaged through, a baby's bottle appearing to have been used and even some fruit with human bite marks, only adding to the mystery.
It turns out that this was the work of 13-year-old Lesly, who had taken what supplies she needed from the plane and bravely headed into the jungle with her three siblings; Soleiny, nine, Tien Noriel, four, and Cristin Neriman, 11 months.
Since two weeks had passed since the devastating crash, the children could have been miles away by this point, and there was nothing to indicate whether they were still alive or not.
Headed-up by the Colombian military with the help of local indigenous volunteers, a massive search operation was launched to find the missing kids - but it was far from straightforward.
First off, the dense environment doesn't exactly lend itself to being easy to search and navigate, plus it also marked the first time the military and indigenous groups had collaborated on a mission in an official sense after decades of conflict between the two.
On the other side, the odds weren't great either. The children would have been facing starvation, attacks from wildlife, dehydration and disease.
The search team employed various tech to aid their search of the jungle, including having a helicopter fly over playing a recording of the siblings' grandmother's voice.
Meanwhile, they utilised lights and flares and sent out a rescue dog in an effort to trace the scent of the kids.
But as the days trickled on, hope started to fade that the four children would ever be found, let alone alive.
Weeks rolled by, until a breakthrough by the indigenous volunteers.
The group managed to finally find some traces of the children as they spotted a used nappy, a baby's bottle and even some track marks.
On the 40th day of the search - just before everyone was about to leave - local volunteer, Nicolás Ordóñez Gomes, heard a child crying.
After following the sounds, incredibly, the team found all four children alive.
The kids were underweight and scared, but remarkably were okay apart from that.
Lesly would later tell her father that she and her siblings had headed into the jungle after their dying mother had urged them to go and find help.
Speaking to investigators, the then-13-year-old said: "After the accident, I don’t know how long I lay unconscious for. When I woke up, there was a lot of blood. It was very painful. I was crying and crying. My mother was making a lot of noise, then she stopped.
"Maybe if I had woken up earlier, I could have saved her. I pulled my sister from underneath my mother. I knew we couldn’t stay. We had to abandon the plane to find more food and something to drink."
Revealing she could 'hardly stand' from being in so much pain, Lesly explained that she had been forced to drag herself for the 'first 20 days' after the horror crash.
"My biggest worry the whole time was keeping baby Cristin alive. I knew that she needed more food than we did," she said of the ordeal.
"My mother had taught me about fruits we could eat in the jungle, like milpesos. I made a fishing rod out of what I could find. With the rod, we were able to catch some fish. We ate the fish raw. It tasted horrible."
It turns out the kids did hear the voice booming from the rescue helicopter too, but they kept losing it.
"We kept trying to follow the voice that we heard [from the helicopter], but it would fade. I would try to get my sisters and my brother to go to sleep each night. I didn’t really sleep. One night in the jungle, we almost sat on a snake. I was able to kill it with a stick, though.
"Tien became so weak he could no longer stand on his own any more. One day I dreamt they would never find us."
The incredible rescue mission has gone down in Colombian history, with each of the team receiving a hero's welcome as they carried the children to safety.
After being treated in hospital, the kids were ultimately put into the care of Colombia’s Institute for Family Welfare and are reportedly in regular contact with their family at home.
Topics: World News
Chloe Jackson