Miraculous survivors of aircraft crashes

On May 1, a Cessna 206 light aircraft with seven people on board crashed in the thick Amazonian jungle in the Caquetá area of Colombia.

Two of the occupants, the pilot and one adult, were killed on impact. Five passengers, a mother and four children, survived the crash.

The mother, Magdalena Mucutuy, and the children – a 13-year-old girl named Lesly, a nine-year-old boy named Soleiny, a four-year-old boy, Tien, and a 11-month-old baby named Cristin – are members of the Huitoto indigenous community. The mother died several days later from serious injuries, leaving the children to fend for themselves.

On June 9, after surviving for 40 days in the dense tropical rainforest, the children were rescued by volunteers from local indigenous groups and the Colombian military.

From an early age, Lesly, Soleiny and Tien were raised in the forest and learnt survival skills from their parents and grandparents. They came across deer, tapirs, oncillas (wild cats) and poisonous snakes. They were constantly attacked by mosquitoes, flies and ants, and sometimes ran out of food.

The children found a bag of yuca flour in the aircraft and kept baby Cristin alive by feeding her the flour dissolved in water. Lesly used a leaf to drip the mixture into the baby's mouth.

The others ate an Amazonian fruit called
juan soco, similar to passion fruit, and seeds from the milpesos palm tree, which contain oil and vitamins.

They had a plastic tarp and piled banana leaves on top of it and huddled together underneath to stay warm during the night.

The Colombian military used reconnaissance flights, infrared sensors, satellite imagery and other technology in the search for the children, and deployed 110 special forces in the thick jungle.

Rather than use modern technology, the indigenous guides leaned on tradition. Every day, they held ceremonies to asked permission of the spirits to enter the jungle. Some of them took ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic brew made from jungle plants, in the hope that the visions would point them in the right direction.

No doubt, scriptwriters are assiduously work on a movie to capture this dramatic rescue.

There have been several other instances of aircraft crashes with “miracle survivors.”

On Christmas eve 1971, lightning struck Lansa flight 508 over Peru, causing it to explode. Juliane Koepcke was the only survivor of the 92 people on board after falling two miles strapped into her seat.The final words of her mother, who sat next to her, were: "That is the end, it's all over."

Completely alone in the rainforest, the 17-year-old was covered in deep gashes, and had a broken collarbone and ruptured knee ligaments. Her father had taught her survival skills while she was being raised at a remote jungle research station. After walking for ten days, fighting mosquitoes and hunger, she began to float down a large river where she was saved by a passing boat.

On October 13 1972, a Uruguayan plane carrying 45 passengers crashed in the middle of the Andes mountain range. More than a quarter of those on board died in the initial crash. Rescuers gave up after ten days of searching, assuming no one could have survived.

Stranded in the mountains, with no food, the survivors were forced to resort to cannibalism, eating the flesh of those who had died. Another eight were killed when an avalanche hit their shelter amongst the wreckage.

Realising they would die on the mountain, two passengers set out to find help. They trekked for ten days before reaching Chile. After they had alerted the authorities, the 14 remaining survivors were rescued from the crash site, 72 days after the plane went down.

A book, Alive, was written about this event and a movie was produced based on the book.

On June 30, 2009, a Yemenia Airways flight en route to the Comoros Islands nosedived out of the sky and crashed into the Indian ocean. Bahia Bakari was the only one of 153 people on board to survive. Just 12 years old,barely able to swim and with no life vest, she clung to a piece of wreckage for hours until rescuers found her.

She was flown to a hospital in France to be treated for burns and broken bones.

On May 12, 2010, Afriqiyah Airways flight 771 crashed on approach to Tripoli International Airport, killing 103 of the 104 people on board.

Nine-year-old Ruben van Assouw was the only survivor. His father Patrick, mother Trudy and brother Enzo were among the 103 people who died.

Pulled unconscious from the wreckage, Reuben had surgery for fractured legs and made a good recovery.

However, the most miraculous survival was that of 22-year-old Serbian flight attendant Vesna Vulovic. On January 26, 1972, a suspected terrorist bomb placed on board JAT Yugoslav Airlines flight 357 detonated over Czechoslovakia, blowing the plane apart in mid-air. Of the 28 people on board only Vulovic survived.

Trapped by a food cart in the tail of the DC-9 aircraft, she was left in a coma with injuries including a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae and two broken legs.

She is the Guinness World Record holder for the highest fall without a parachute (33,333 feet). She died on December 23, 2016, at 66.