Teenager arrives home in Bellingham, Washington, as reports suggest plane piloted by step-grandparents, who did not survive, has been found

An American teenager who survived a small plane crash, then managed to find her way off a rugged mountainside, finally made it home just as word came that searchers had located wreckage in the Washington state area where she emerged.

'The only one that made it out': Autumn Veatch tells plane crash survival story Read more

Aerial searchers reported spotting wreckage, but crews were not able to reach the heavily wooded site on Tuesday night and no positive identification had yet been made of either the missing plane or its two missing occupants, Leland and Sharon Bowman of Montana, said Barbara LaBoe, a Washington state transportation department spokeswoman.

LaBoe said efforts to reach the site would resume on Wednesday.

Autumn Veatch, 16, has said the Bowmans, her step-grandparents, did not survive the Saturday crash. The plane piloted by Leland Bowman was bringing her home from a visit to Montana.

The teenager was released from a hospital on Tuesday evening and arrived home in Bellingham, Washington, north of Seattle, shortly before midnight. Family friends had gathered in anticipation of a happy homecoming, bringing balloons and flowers to her father’s apartment.

Bellingham, Washington

“We just want to show her and her family that we care and we love her,” said one friend, Amber Shockey. She added that Autumn had said “she was happy to be coming home”.

“I mean, all in one, it’s pretty much sad and happy,” Shockey said. “It’s everything. It’s astonishing that she could do this.”

Bruised by the impact, singed by the fire that accompanied the crash, fearing an explosion and knowing she could not help the other victims, Autumn said she headed down the steep slope, following a creek to a river and spent a night on a sandbar, where she felt safer. She drank small amounts of the flowing water but worried she might get sick if she drank more.

She said she followed the river to a trail, and the trail to a highway. Two men driving by stopped and picked her up on Monday afternoon, bringing her – about two full days after the crash – to the safety of a general store.

“We crashed, and I was the only one that made it out,” she told an emergency services operator, after a store employee called 911 for her. “I have a lot of burns on my hands, and I’m kind of covered in bruises and scratches and stuff.”

Dr James Wallace told a press conference on Tuesday that her “youthfulness” and “her baseline state of health” was partly responsible for her survival. He also credited her “innate knowledge, wisdom to pick the right path out and really to do everything right in an environment that was very foreign to her.

“She did it all right and all the pieces came together to support her in getting here and getting well,” he added.



Autumn Veatch: US teenager survives plane crash then walks for days to safety Read more

Later she managed to joke from her hospital bed about how it was a good thing her father made her watch a reality television show about people surviving in the wilderness.

“It’s traumatising what she went through,” Autumn’s friend, Chelsey Clark, said at the press conference. “She’s 16, and [for] anybody at that age … It’s absolutely amazing to see her in good spirits.”



Okanogan county sheriff, Frank Rogers, who had interviewed the 16-year-old and relayed details of her ordeal to AP, said: “She’s got an amazing story, and I hope she gets to tell it soon.”

According to Rogers, the Beechcraft A-35 was flying over north-central Washington on its way from Kalispell, Montana, to Lynden, Washington, when it entered a cloud bank. Then the clouds suddenly parted, and from her seat behind the cockpit, Autumn could see the mountain and trees ahead. Leland Bowman tried to pull up – to no avail.

They struck the trees and the plane plummeted to the ground and caught fire.

“When they came out of the clouds, she said it was obvious they were too low,” Rogers said. “They crashed right into the trees and hit the ground. She tried to do what she could to help her grandparents, but she couldn’t because of the fire.”