Five people were rescued from an alligator infested swamp almost two days after the plane they were crashing into Bolivia’s Amazon jungle.
The small aircraft, which was carrying the pilot, three women and a child, fell on Wednesday (30), but the group was only rescued on Friday morning (2), the Bolivia Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
None of the group members were seriously injured and they survived chocolate and cassava flour.
The plane had taken off from the municipality of Baures, in the north of the country, bound for the city of Trinidad, the ministry said.
One hour after takeoff, the pilot reported technical problems before the contact was lost, according to the folder.
The pilot, identified by the press as Pablo Andrés Velarde, 27, managed to perform an emergency landing, but stopped near a jacques nest, he told Unitel agency.
“We fell into a swamp and, right next door, there was a jacques nest. But thanks to the fuel that leaked from the aircraft, the water was contaminated and the strong smell startled them, not completely, but they did not approach to attack us,” he reported in an interview on his hospital bed on Friday.
A survivor, Mirtha Fuentes, reported to the press the thrill of surviving the crash of the plane.
“We all cry with happiness because we were alive, with bruises, but alive and lucky, thank God and the speed of pilot’s reasoning and intelligence,” she told Unitel.
Bolivia’s Ministry of Defense and Civil Defense activated a search and rescue operation, but the first 48 hours were harmed by “adverse weather conditions,” the folder said.
Several planes passed through the survivors, but did not see them, the press said.
The group survived with rationed food recovered by the submerged plane pilot, the aviator commented to Unitel before being found by fishermen on Friday morning.
The five survivors were transported by helicopter to the city of Trinidad, in a rescue of the Bolivia Air Force, the Defense Ministry said.
“Thanks to the work of our expert team, at this time, the five rescued, including a child, are alive and we are making every effort to take them to safe areas and provide them with the necessary medical care,” said Bolivian President Luis Arce in a statement.
This content was originally published in Bolivia: Group is saved days after plane crashed into an alligator swamps on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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