Global Courant
A month after four children disappeared in the Colombian Amazon, a preliminary report from the country’s Civil Aviation Authority offers clues as to how they might have survived the devastating plane crash that killed every adult on board.
The extraordinary story of the missing children has attracted huge interest across Colombia and internationally as a massive military-led search operation continues in the forest.
The ill-fated May flight had pilot Hernando Murcia Morales, Yarupari indigenous leader Herman Mendoza Hernández, an indigenous woman named Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia and her four children, the oldest 13 and the youngest just 11 months, on board.
Shortly after takeoff early in the morning from the remote community of Araracuara, the pilot radioed air traffic control to request an emergency landing, according to the report.
“…Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, 2803, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, I’m on the bottom of the engine, I’m going to look for a field to land on,” he said.
The pilot later reported that the engine had regained power and continued on his way, only to hit trouble again less than an hour later: “…Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, 2803, 2803, My engine failed again… I’ll be looking a river… I have a river on the right…”
And this time the problem did not improve, the plane crashed and everyone on board lost their lives except three children. Air traffic control immediately tracked the plane turning right, the report said. Then it went off the radar.
Despite air and water searches that immediately followed the incident, according to the report, the plane would not be found until more than two weeks later — time that could still be crucial in the fate of the plane’s passengers as investigators continue to investigate the crash and its consequences.
The report says the plane likely hit the trees of the dense forest first, severing the engine and propeller, followed by a vertical fall to the forest floor.
In search of minors
Five days after the plane disappeared, the Colombian military deployed special forces units to control the ground on May 6. Ten days later, on the night of May 16, they finally spotted the wreckage.
The three adults were found dead at the scene. But all four children were missing, leading rescuers to assume they had survived, evacuated from the plane and were walking alone in the jungle.
Investigators’ photos of the crash scene show the upturned tail of the small blue-and-white-painted plane intact, its nose and nose smashed into the jungle terrain. The report says the plane likely hit the trees of the dense forest first, severing the engine and propeller, followed by a vertical fall to the forest floor.
Although forensic examinations are still ongoing, the report suggests that the adults seated in the front of the plane’s cabin suffered fatal injuries in the crash. “The accident injury diagram recorded fatal injuries to persons in positions 1 (Pilot), 2 (adult male passenger) and 3 (adult female passenger).
But the back seats, where the older children were, were less affected by the impact, according to the report, which offers a possible explanation for their survival. Search and rescue teams have also found tracks in the jungle that show signs of survival, including a baby bottle and a used diaper.
A total of 119 Colombian special forces troops and 73 indigenous scouts have so far been deployed to comb the area to find the children. Relatives have previously said the children knew the jungle well but were worried they would realize the outside world had not given up on them.
According to the report, the impact with the tree caused the engine and propeller to separate from the aircraft structure.
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