MEXICO CITY (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th May, 2023) The Colombian armed forces have found the bodies of the co-pilot and an adult female passenger of the Cessna 206 light aircraft that crashed in the country's Caqueta Department on May 1, the military said on Tuesday.
The Cessna 206 light aircraft, headed from the town of Araracuara to San Jose del Guaviare in the Caqueta Department in the country's south, reported an engine failure and sent a distress signal on May 1. On Monday, the plane was found after more than 370 hours of searching, the Civil Aviation Authority of Colombia said. The body of the pilot was found inside the plane, but the bodies of the co-pilot and five passengers, including four minors, were not in the aircraft or around it.
"We have found three bodies that belonged to three adults. The children have yet to be found," the military told El Tiempo newspaper, adding that the search for three children aged 13, 9, and 4 years old and one child aged 11 months old, who were also aboard the plane, was underway in a hard-to-reach jungle area.
The bodies were identified as co-pilot Herman Mendoza Hernandez and passenger Magdalena Mucutui Valencia, the mother of the four children, the report said.
The search, ordered by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, was being carried out by military and civilian personnel. During the search, a baby bottle with a teat and fruit scraps with bite marks from three days ago had been found in the forest. The findings gave the authorities hope that the children could be found alive, the newspaper reported. The authorities believe that the children had left the crash site and were heading through the jungle toward the nearest settlement in the municipality of Solano.
