New evidence found that four children missing after plane crash may have survived

A dog from the search squad sniffs the traces left by the children. COLOMBIAN MILITARY FORCES

The authorities and the indigenous people involved in the search for the four children missing after a plane crash in a jungle place in Colombia have found new traces that they would have survived the accident, which makes them believe that they have been lost for 23 days. According to the army, in the last few hours diapers, a mobile accessory, a towel and tennis shoes have been found in two different places. They appeared almost 600 meters from the place where the plane fell, in which the four minors were traveling with their mother, another adult who accompanied them and the pilot.

Special forces commandos and a Nukak woman found the sneakers, which by size would belong to the four-year-old boy — his brothers are 11 months, 9 and 13 years old. Elsewhere, 428 meters northwest of the crash site, they found the other traces. Because of the wear and tear of the things they have found, the army believes that the children were in that place between May 3 and 8, that is, in the days after the crash of the plane, which reported the failure of an engine on day 1. These findings reinforce the idea that the children survived the incident and that they did so without major injuries, since no traces of blood have been found in the vicinity.

The special forces entered the jungle 17 days ago, on the border between Caqueta and Guaviare, "where you can not see what is beyond 20 meters away and with difficulty the sun's rays reach through the trees," the military forces told Efe.

Titanic effort

"This encourages the titanic effort of Operation Hope, where more than 350 Colombians, including state institutions, civilians and communities, use all their technological capabilities, knowledge and experiences to challenge the impossible and bring back the four children," the army said. The trackers have also found in this time a shelter built with sticks and branches, where there were scissors, a hair rubber and a bitten apple. On Monday, Gen. Pedro Sanchez, commander of the National Army's special forces, said they were imminent to appear. "According to the trackers, both our troops and Don Manuel, the father of the two boys and stepfather of the two girls, told us that the footprints are very fresh, about 24 to 48 hours. Helicopters have flown throughout that area, noise has been made and we say they are a few hours away," the general explained.

The children boarded a Cessna 1 on May 206, the most popular plane in extreme flights because they are small, resistant and can land on short runways. They left Araracuara and were to reach San José del Guaviare, the capital of the region. But halfway, when they were flying over the Caquetá, over the Apaporis River, in the middle of the Amazon jungle, the pilot warned by radio of an engine failure. He never communicated with the control tower again. The most plausible hypothesis is that they had lost height and crashed. For 15 days nothing was heard of the ship, until on the 16th it was found next to the three bodies of the adults, but without the minors.

The next day, President Gustavo Petro announced that the four had been found safe and sound. The news shocked the country immediately. The president learned about it from Family Welfare, the institution responsible for ensuring the rights of minors. That agency had been informed from a community that they had been found and were being transferred upstream to the command post of the authorities. With the hours, the children did not appear. The information turned out to be false. Petro had to say on Twitter that he had been misunderstood and that he regretted the mistake, but that the search continued and was the priority of the entire nation.

The same plane that crashed had already crashed in 2021. There were no deaths, but it was destroyed. The device was repaired without consulting the manufacturer because it was cheaper to restore. The plane was manufactured in 1982, in the United States, and arrived in Colombia in 2019. An aeronautical mechanic consulted by this newspaper maintains that he should not have flown in those conditions.

The Colombian Amazon comprises 42% of the geography of the entire country. Finding someone in that immense territory is an almost impossible mission. Moving between villages is also very difficult, and often risking your life. There are no airports, no taxiways, only runways without signage and with uneven patches between asphalt, dirt and gravel. Experts believe that it is urgent to invest in infrastructure in these remote places, which can often only be reached by air or river.

In this area of Colombia there are about 40 small companies that operate as air taxis. They are not commercial flights, but charter. They are usually precarious aircraft, whose flight autonomy is six hours. In the last five years there have been 16 plane crashes that have left 11 dead. Fourteen of those accidents were single-engine Cessna, as in which the children and their mother were traveling.

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