(Bogotá) Intense searches are underway in Colombia to try to find four children who disappeared in the Amazon jungle after the crash in early May of the small plane in which they were traveling with two other passengers and the pilot, all three of whom were found dead, authorities announced on Tuesday.
Posted at 3:44 p.m.
Updated at 5:44 p.m.
Between Monday and Tuesday, “three adults were found dead”, announced German Camargo, director of civil protection for the department of Meta, where relief operations are coordinated. He specified that the wanted minors are three children aged 13, 9 and 4, as well as an 11-month-old baby.
The plane, a Cessna 206, had disappeared from radar on the 1er May in full flight over the jungle, in the vicinity of San José del Guaviare, in the department of Caqueta, in the south of the country.
A search was quickly initiated by air to try to find the aircraft and its occupants. But it was only Monday that help was able to reach the crash site.
According to the airline Avianline Charter, which operated the flight, the pilot’s body was found inside the aircraft on Monday, photos of which the army posted on Twitter. They show the plane vertically in the middle of the jungle, its nose crushed to the ground.
Soldiers, engaged in research with natives of communities close to the accident site and helped by sniffer dogs, discovered chewed fruit and personal effects, including a bottle, in the area of the crash.
Rescue teams found “nibbled fruits from the jungle, which is why we assume there is life”, said German Camargo.
However, the jungle is very thick in this region, which is particularly difficult to access. The emergency services notably had to make a nine-hour journey by river to be able to reach the site of the accident.
“The military forces and all the entities participating in the search remain hopeful and are concentrating all their efforts to find the six other occupants of the plane alive,” said Civil Aviation in its press release.
The causes of the accident have not yet been determined. According to civil protection, the pilot had reported problems with the plane’s engine before it disappeared from radar.
