4 Children alone for 40 days in the Amazon

On May 1st, a small single-engined Cessna 206 was making a flight between the Amazonian village of Araracuara and the town of San Jose del Guaviare in southern Columbia when it ran into engine trouble. It didn’t take long before the engine failed completely and the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing, but since they were over thick rainforest there was nowhere to land and the pilot was forced to crash into the trees.

Onboard the plane was a total of seven people, including four children and three adults, one of which was the pilot and another the children’s mother. The plane came down about halfway along its journey, but since it was so small it quickly disappeared into the trees and left little sign from the air of the crash site.

(A Cessna 206, the same model the group were in during the crash)

It is believed the crash happened nose first since the worst of the damage was concentrated at the front, and the pilot who was sitting next to an adult passenger was killed in the crash. The children were sitting in the rear four seats with their mother in the middle left seat holding a baby on her lap. All three adults were killed in the crash on impact, but somehow all four children not only survived but didn’t suffer a single major injury.

The children were aged 13, 9, 4, and 0, with the last one having his first birthday stranded in the jungle. At this point, the four children were terrified and trying to make sense of the loss of their mother and the crash they managed to survive, but unfortunately, the plane’s radio and any useful equipment were destroyed on impact.

Fortunately, the children were from the Huitoto Indigenous group and knew the jungle well. It’s also thought that the knowledge the oldest girl received from her grandmother was a key factor in keeping the group alive, and together they gathered wild fruits and seeds they knew to be safe.

They stayed close to the plane for the whole time they were stranded as there were bags of cassava flour on board, but it’s not known whether they stayed near the crash site because they knew they should, or because they didn’t know where to go. There are numerous small villages located about 30km away from the crash site, but apart from not knowing where they were, walking through that much jungle is far too dangerous, and simply not an option for four children, one of which was a baby.

(Some of the soldiers and volunteer searchers posing with the rescued children)

When the engine failure first happened, the pilot had time to send a distress call to the control tower and reportedly told them of their situation and said he was going to look for a river to make an emergency landing, and that was the last communication with the plane. This message should have provided a fast rescue, but nowhere on earth is as hard to search as the thick jungle that covers millions of acres.

The search team was dispatched right away but it returned the same result over and over, with no sighting of the plane or its crash site. In the end, it took almost 200 soldiers and dozens of volunteer rescuers from local tribes and villages to find them, and they were all located together about 3 miles from the crash site.

They were all malnourished, dirty, and covered in insect bites, but considering their ages and how long they were out there, all of them were in surprisingly good condition. They were taken to the hospital where they spent just over a month before being released into protective services. There is currently an ongoing dispute over who is going to take over custody.