After a plane crash in a remote mountainside in north-west Colombia, María Nelly Murillo and her eight-month-old son survived on coconuts and water for days

After four days combing through the rain-drenched jungle and swollen rivers, the rescue party was on the verge of calling off the search.

They had discovered the remains of the small plane which had smashed into a remote mountainside in north-west Colombia. They had found the body of the pilot – and a few tantalising clues suggesting that at least one person had survived the devastating impact.

But there was no trace of the missing passengers, and the emergency workers were starting to discuss ending their mission.

They decided to push on and a few minutes later, just 500 metres from the crash site but hidden by a dense wall of vegetation, they discovered a crude shelter.

Inside was the young mother who with her baby son had walked away from the plane wreck and survived for days in the one of the most inhospitable corners of the earth.

Authorities in Colombia have described the survival of 18-year-old María Nelly Murillo and her eight-month-old son Yudier Moreno as a miracle, after their Cessna 303 plane crashed into trees in the north-west of the country.

“It is a very wild area and it was a catastrophic accident,” Colonel Héctor Carrascal of the Colombian air force told AFP.

Murillo was pictured on Thursday looking exhausted, with burns on her arms, and clinging to a rescue worker after she was lifted from a rescue helicopter.



Mother and baby are now in hospital, with Murillo suffering minor burns, a fractured ankle and dehydration. Her son is in good health, the air force said in a statement. “His mother’s spirit must have given him strength to survive,” Carrascal said.



The body of the plane’s pilot, Captain Carlos Mario Ceballos, was found three days ago in the ruined aircraft in the Serranía del Baudó mountain range.



The plane had been flying from the Pacific coastal town of Nuquí to Quibdó, the capital of Chocó region in the west of the country. Just 20 minutes into the flight, the plane disappeared from the radar of civil aviation authorities. The cause of the crash is not yet known.



It took rescuers two days to locate the crash site, in an area teeming with both poisonous snakes and armed groups battling for control of coca plantations, illegal gold mines and lucrative drug smuggling routes to the Pacific ocean.

Threaded by rivers and drenched with rain throughout the year, the region is one of the wettest on Earth. It is also one of the poorest and least-developed parts of Colombia.

When rescuers found the plane, the doors of the plane were open, said Carrascal. There was no sign of Murillo and her baby, both of whom had been on the passenger list. “We started to worry – we had no idea what could have happened to them. They could be lost in the jungle and trying to survive or could have died already,” he told the news magazine Semana.



But they also saw a reason for hope in the open door. “The door had been opened from the inside, suggesting one of two things: either it had opened on impact or someone had opened it to get out,” said Carrascal.

There were other clues suggesting Murillo and her baby had survived the crash, said Rafael Caviedes of the Colombian air force. “We found the remains of food at the site, a few peeled coconuts as if they had been used for water and food. And we didn’t see her body anywhere or any traces of blood,” he told El Tiempo.



As the formal search and rescue operation got under way, rescuers continued to find clues left behind by Murillo, from a discarded flip-flop to the baby’s birth certificate sitting next to a tree in the jungle.

As coconut shells turned up and even mobile phones that someone had apparently tried to use, rescue workers began to assume Murillo was leaving a trail so that she could be located in the impenetrable jungle and tangle of rivers that make up the area.



Meanwhile aviation experts studied the plane wreckage and noted that, while the pilot’s cabin had been destroyed, the rest of the plane was in decent shape. The plane’s cargo of coconuts and fish had helped cushion part of the plane from the shock of the crash.

A 14-man team scoured the dense jungle for two days without finding the mother and child, before finally resorting to using loudspeakers to broadcast their presence and instruct Murillo to stay as close to the plane wreckage as possible.

Meanwhile, said Caviedes, Murillo had made her way about 500 metres from the site of the crash to the banks of a creek where she fashioned a shelter for her and her son, and survived on unripe coconuts.

Speaking to local media from her hospital bed in Quibdó, Murillo said she and her son also drank rainwater. “When it rained, I’d get up and gather water from the few leaves that had water on them and I’d drink it with the boy,” she said.

Red Cross volunteer Acisclo Rentería told Blu Radio that after failing to find the missing passengers, the rescue party had been debating whether to call off the search for the day. They decided to push on for a few more minutes, and a few minutes later, he spotted a swarm of flies circling above something on the ground.

As he approached, he realised it was Murillo, who began shouting and trying to get to her feet, Rentería told the Associated Press. She was in a state of near-starvation and apparent shock, but not seriously injured.

Rescuers gave Murillo first aid, and spent the next four hours feeding her water and crackers while waiting for an airlift. Meanwhile, Rentería comforted the baby.

The 38-year-old rescuer, who is unemployed and displaced from his hometown by Colombia’s five-decade civil war, described the rescue as a blessing

“I thanked my God for allowing me to save these two people,” he said.

The moment he spotted Murillo, he said, he was overcome with emotion. “It’s tremendous. It’s a feeling that can’t be explained.”

