Amazon plane crash: Oldest sister praised for ‘heroic role’, search continues for missing rescue dog Wilson

By Stefano Pozzebon, Ruba Alhenawi, Maria Plaza and Heather Chen, CNN

(CNN) — The oldest of four children who survived a plane crash in the Amazon jungle has been praised for her “heroic role” in keeping her siblings alive throughout the ordeal, their grandfather said, as search efforts turn to locating Wilson, a missing search and rescue dog who kept them company.

The Mucutuy children, ages 1 to 13, survived in the dense jungle for more than a month when their plane crashed on May 1 – killing their mother Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia as well as the pilot and another passenger.

In clips shared online by the Colombian Defense Ministry, the children’s grandfather Narciso Mucutuy detailed how 13-year-old Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy cared for her younger siblings during the traumatic ordeal.

“When she looked and saw that her mother was dead, she saw the foot of her youngest sister and she pulled them out,” he said.

“The baby Cristin survived because of her older sister feeding her slowly from the bottle until the bottle ran out,” he said, adding that she had also given the baby water.

The children, who included Soleiny Jacobombaire Mucutuy, 9, and Tien Ranoque Mucutuy, 4, survived by eating farina – a coarse cassava flour commonly used by indigenous tribes in the Amazon region, officials said Saturday.

They credited the children’s survival skills to their indigenous heritage. “Their learning from indigenous families and their learning of living in the jungle has saved them,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said.

The children had initially waited near the crash site for four days, waiting to be rescued, their grandfather said, but they they moved and left signs at places where they slept, hoping that someone would find them.

Mucutuy said Lesly told him she had no idea where they were going and eventually couldn’t walk any further. At that point, the children decided to wait “for the miracle which finally happened,” he said.

Manuel Ranoque, who is father to the two youngest Mucutuy children, had been assisting in search operations.

Ranoque says he was one of the last 16 people still looking for the children after most of the rescue teams were called off.

He told CNN that once the kids were found, “we started to see thunder and lightning bolts. We left at the right moment, ten minutes later and the helicopter could not have taken us,” he said.

During their ordeal, the children had seen movement in the jungle but they “hid when they saw helicopters or people from the community or members of the military because they thought they could be punished.”

At one point, the children encountered Wilson, a Special Forces search dog who “became their faithful friend and accompanied them on several occasions,” their grandfather said.

Wilson, a Belgian Shepherd, went missing during the search operations and was last seen on May 18, according to officials. The children “spent three or four days with Wilson and said that they (found) him quite skinny,” said Colombian military spokesperson Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez Suárez.

Finding him is now the Colombian army’s main goal.

‘We have a saying ‘We never leave an element behind,’ even less the four children, we would not leave Wilson. But we are also conscious of how difficult it is to find him in the depths of a hostile but blessed jungle,” said Suárez.

Colombian General Helder Giraldo said Tuesday that the operation to find Wilson will remain in force until the dog is found. “We have about 70 commandos looking for him right now,” he said.

All four children are currently recovering in hospital in Bogota after being flown there by air ambulance on Saturday.

Their disappearance sparked a massive military-led search operation that saw more than 100 Colombian special forces troops and over 70 indigenous scouts combing the forest.

Hopes for their survival waned as the weeks went on but the four were eventually found in an area clear of trees.

Doctors expect the children to remain in hospital for observation for up to three weeks.

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