How 4 children survived 40 days in the Amazon jungle after a plane crash

Lost and alone, four children managed to survive 40 days in the wilderness of the Amazon jungle before being rescued.

The four children – Leslie, 13; Solini, 9; Tian Noriel, 4; and Christine, 1 — they were found skinny but very much alive Friday after a rescue traversing more than 1,600 miles of dense forest.

Colombian special forces airlifted them to the capital, Bogotá, sparking scenes of jubilation across the country and headlines around the world.

But the rescue operation – dubbed Operation Hope – raises many questions.

Gen. Pedro Sanchez, who led the search, told NBC’s “TODAY” Monday that the children’s survival was down to three factors.

“First of all, wanting to preserve their lives. Second, they are indigenous, so they are immune to many dangers within the forest.” And third, they know the forest.

Here’s how four long-term unaccompanied children survived in circumstances that would be quite challenging for most adults.

Surviving the accident

The children were traveling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araraquara to the city of San Jose del Guaviare when their single-engine Cessna crashed early May 1, nose-diving in dense undergrowth.

Rescuers found the bodies of all three adults on board when the crash site was discovered 16 days later – but not the children.

Instead, rescuers found a feeding bottle, a small abandoned pair of shoes, and some footprints sticking out of the wreckage.

The children’s grandfather, Narciso Mokotoy, said in a video released by the Colombian Ministry of Defense on Monday that the older brother, Leslie, pulled the younger Christine from the wreckage after her foot was spotted.

Manuel Ranock, the father of the two young children, said at a news conference Sunday that Leslie, 13, told him her mother had been alive for about four days after the accident and told the children to leave her and fend for themselves.

He added that the children would tell their story when they were ready.

Knowing the indigenous people

Rescue workers also found fruit scraps and farinha – a type of cassava flour that is a staple food in the Amazon region – that was in the plane.

When the fruit and cassava ran out, the family said, the children ate the seeds.

The children are members of the Huitoto indigenous group, and from a young age they are well acquainted with the lore of the jungle. Everyone connected to the case agrees: this is what saved them in the end.

“Finding enough high-quality food, building shelters, and staying out of harm’s way for 40 days and nights in a remote part of the Colombian Amazon would challenge most adult Westerners…let alone three children under the age of 12 who are 11 months pregnant,” he said. Carlos Perez of the University of East Anglia in England, an expert on Amazonian biodiversity who grew up in the Amazonian city of Belém, Brazil, is an “old kid.”

“About 100 years ago, this amount of knowledge was very powerful, but there was no plane that anyone could crash into in the woods; 100 years in the future, there might be more efficient planes, but there would be very little of that knowledge left, ” He said.

Sanchez, who led the search, agreed. The children’s background, he said, meant they knew “how to live in the forest, how to eat, how to drink, to survive in the face of the hostile forest, how to shelter from the rain, because 16 hours a day is only rain”.

The children were lucky: the fruit was plentiful, one official told reporters, because “the forest was in the harvest.”

How were they found?

A massive rescue operation sweeping the country managed to track down the children, but only after President Gustavo Petro came under fire when he wrongly announced on Twitter last month that they had been found.

The Colombian army and the indigenous trackers—two groups not always on the best of terms—decisively agreed to work together.

About 150 soldiers and dogs were flown into the area to work with dozens of Aboriginal volunteers.

“Working between the armed forces and indigenous communities – who clearly know the jungle better than we do – this work has been successful,” Pietro said on Saturday.

Soldiers dropped boxes of food into the woods from helicopters, hoping they would help support the children. Aircraft flying over the area fired flares to help search crews on the ground at night, and rescuers used loudspeakers that blew out a message recorded by the children’s grandmother telling them to stay in one place.

Sanchez said the children were eventually discovered about 3 miles from the crash site in a small area in Caqueta Province, Colombia.

Rescuers came within 70 to 170 feet of the children on two occasions during the search.

“The minors were really very weak,” Sanchez said. “And surely their strength was only enough to breathe or reach for a small fruit to feed themselves or drink a drop of water in the forest.”

The jungle was so dense that the rescuers’ helicopter had nowhere to land and had to lift the children up with a rope one by one.

The search continues for the missing Special Forces dog, a Belgian Shepherd named Wilson, who found the children but became separated from the main search party. The children’s grandfather said that the dog accompanied the children and “became their faithful friend” before disappearing into the woods.

How are they now?

Given the children’s plight, they are doing remarkably well.

Astrid Caceres, director general of the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare, told reporters: “They speak little and they are vulnerable. … They don’t talk as much as we would like. So let’s give them some time.”

Defense Secretary Ivan Velasquez told reporters Saturday that the children are still too weak to eat and are still hydrated. Otherwise, he said, “the condition of the children is acceptable.”

They are expected to stay in the hospital for at least two weeks.

Fidencio Valencia, the uncle of one of the children, told the Colombian media: “They were drawing. Sometimes they need to get rid of force.”

According to one of the rescuers, the first words Leslie said after finding her were: “I’m hungry.” Local media reported that one of the boys said, “My mother is dead.”