BRASILIA, Oct 30, (AFP) -Indigenous tribesmen in the world's largest jungle have found at least nine survivors after a Brazilian military transport plane crash-landed on a river deep in the Amazon, the air force said Friday.
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| Unidentified survivors of the Brazilian Air Force plane helped by paramedics as they arrive at the Jurua hospital in Rio Branco, northern Brazil on October 30. AFP |
One person on the flight that went down on Thursday in far northwestern Brazil was found trapped in the plane and is presumed dead, while another apparently went searching for help and is missing, the statement said.
Members of the Matis, a tiny tribe of some 300 people first contacted by modern Brazilian officials in the 1970s, discovered the plane and its crew and passengers “in the middle of the Amazon jungle” between the Matis village of Aurelio and another tribe's village, the air force said in a statement.
The air force said the C-98 Caravan, a single-propeller Cessna transport plane, lost radio contact Thursday as it was flying from Cruzeiro do Sul, in northwestern Acre state, to the Amazonas town of Tabatinga, where the borders of Brazil, Colombia and Brazil come together.
The plane apparently crash-landed on the Itui river, a small tributary of the Amazon near the Peruvian border, and it was the pluck of the pilot who helped save the lives of his passengers, according to a survivor.
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