Five people have been rescued from a swamp teeming with alligators nearly two days after their small aircraft crashed in the Bolivian Amazon, according to a statement from the country's Defense Ministry.
The crash occurred on Wednesday as the plane, carrying the pilot, three women, and a child, was en route from Baures in northern Bolivia to the city of Trinidad. The group was not located until Friday morning.
An hour after take-off, the pilot reported technical difficulties before all communication with the aircraft was lost, the ministry said. Despite the emergency, none of the occupants sustained serious injuries. The survivors endured the ordeal by rationing chocolate and cassava flour salvaged from the partially submerged plane.
The pilot, identified by local media as 27-year-old Pablo Andrés Velarde, managed to perform an emergency landing—but dangerously close to a nest of alligators.
"We fell into a swamp, and right next to it, there was an alligator nest. But thanks to the fuel that spilled from the aircraft, it contaminated the water and the strong smell of that scared them off, not completely, but they didn't approach us to attack us," he told Unitel from his hospital bed on Friday.
One of the survivors, Mirtha Fuentes, described the group's emotional relief following the crash. "We all cried with happiness because we were alive, with bruises, but alive and very lucky, thanks to God and the pilot's quick thinking and intelligence," she told Unitel.
The Bolivian Defense Ministry and Civil Defense authorities launched a search and rescue mission, though the first 48 hours were hampered by poor weather conditions. Local media reported that several aircraft flew over the area without spotting the downed plane.
According to Velarde, the group relied on rationed food recovered from the aircraft until they were finally discovered by local fishermen early Friday.
The survivors were later airlifted to Trinidad by helicopter from the Bolivian Air Force.
"Thanks to the work of our specialized personnel, at this time the five rescued individuals, including a child, are alive and we are making every effort to take them to safe areas and provide them with the medical attention they need," Bolivian President Luis Arce said in a statement.
