A young mother and her baby
have been found alive five days after their plane crashed in the jungle of
western Colombia.
A Colombian Air Force chief described their survival as "a
miracle".
Maria Nelly Murillo, 18, and her one-year-old son were found by
rescuers near to where their small Cessna plane crashed in Choco province.
Ms Murillo had some injuries and burns while her baby appeared
to be in good health.
Contact lost
The twin-engine Cessna plane, which was carrying fish and
coconuts, had been flying from the town of Nuqui on the Pacific coast to
Quibdo, the capital of Choco.
It disappeared from the radar of the civil
aviation authorities 20 minutes into the flight.
When the pilot did not respond to any calls, officials knew
something was wrong and despatched a plane to search the area.
It took the search team two days until they finally spotted a
white dot in the dense jungle, which turned out to be the remains of the
Cessna.
It had crashed, for reasons not yet known, in the Alto Baudo
region.
When the search team reached the Cessna, they found its pilot,
Carlos Mario Ceballos, dead in the cockpit.
Glimmer of hope
There was no trace of Ms Murillo or her baby, Yudier Moreno,
which the passenger list said had been on board.
But according to Col Hector Carrascal of the Colombian Air
Force, rescuers took hope when they noticed that the cabin door was ajar.
"It could have opened on impact, but
it could have been opened from the inside," he said.
"But that's when we started to worry. We didn't have a clue
what had happened to them: they could be lost in the jungle trying to survive
or they could have died already."
But then the rescuers found clues which led them to believe Ms
Murillo and her baby could still be alive.
Coconut shells near the plane and a discarded flip flop in the
jungle lifted their hopes.
They also found the baby's birth certificate near a tree, which
convinced them that Ms Murillo was trying to leave a trace of her path through
the jungle.
Part of the search party scoured the jungle on foot while others
flew over the area in a helicopter using a loudspeaker to shout Ms Murillo's
name and urge her to return to the crash site.
But for two days their search yielded no results.
'Miracle'
Finally, on Wednesday, they located Ms Murillo about 500m from
the site of the crash in a ravine on the banks of a river.
"It's a miracle. It is a very wild
area and it was a catastrophic accident," Col Carrascal said.
Of the baby, he said: "His mother's spirit must have given
him strength to survive."
The couple were airlifted to a hospital in Quibdo.
Ms Murillo told medical staff that she had managed to open the
cabin door and run into the jungle as fire was spreading in the cabin.
She then reportedly went back for her baby, at which time she
sustained burns to her face, an arm and a leg.
Afraid the plane might explode, she walked into the jungle along
the bank of a small river.
Details of how she survived are still sketchy, but local media
said she came across a couple of indigenous people who helped her.
She was also able to drink coconut water from the coconuts the
plane had been carrying, local media said.
She reportedly heard the calls over loudspeaker from the rescue
helicopter which prompted her to make her way back to the crash site.
She is being treated for her injuries in hospital. Her baby son
is said to be unharmed.
BBC
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