Heartbreaking message from dying mom to kids after jungle plane crash

Mom survived for four days before telling kids to ‘save yourself’ after their plane crashed in Colombia rainforest and 13-year-old Lesly helped siblings – aged 9, 4 and 12 months – stay alive for 40 days until they were rescued

  •  Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia was alive for four days after a plane with her and her children crashed in the Colombia Amazon rainforest
  • The children were rescued after 40 days in the jungle to the joys of the South American nation
  • The children remain in a military hospital as they recover from the ordeal, and doctors say they should remain for two to three weeks

The mother of the four children miraculously rescued from a Colombian jungle survived for four days before dying after their light plane crashed, her heartbroken husband revealed Sunday.

Manual Ranoque said his eldest surviving daughter Lesly, 13, told him his wife Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia battled to stay alive but in the end told them to save themselves.

Ranoque, speaking in the Colombian capital Bogota of the children’s astonishing 40-day ordeal before they were rescued by the military said: ‘Let’s be clear, the girl (Lesly) knows everything.

‘The only thing that she clarified is that the mother was alive for four days. Before she died… she told them “Go!” And you will find out what your dad is made of… and what your father’s love is like.’

The new heartbreaking revelation comes as the four children – Lesly Jacombaire Mucutuy, Soleiny Jacombaire Mucutuy, nine, Tien Noriel Ronoque Mucutuy, four, and one-year-old Cristin Neriman Ranoque Mucutuy – remain in a military hospital in Bogota after their astonishing ordeal.

 Magdalena Mucutuy Valencia seen with one of her children was alive for four days after a plane crash in Colombia. She told her eldest child to save herself and siblings 

Lesly Jacombaire Mucutuy, thirteen, Soleiny Jacombaire Mucutuy, nine, Tien Noriel Ronoque Mucutuy, four, and one-year-old Cristin Neriman Ranoque Mucutuy, were all saved after 40 days in the jungle

The drama began to unfold on May 1 when the group caught a routine flight on a Cessna 206 from Araracuara to the town of San Jose del Guaviare. In a country with such dense jungle, light aircraft and boats are often the only viable means of transport. 

Minutes after starting the 350km (220 mile) journey, the pilot reported problems with the engine and the plane disappeared from radars. 

When the wreckage of the plane was found after weeks of hunting not only were the children not found dead alongside the adults, there was part-eaten fruit that suggested they had all survived.

That sparked a huge hunt across miles of dense and remote Amazon rainforest and the President, Gustavo Petro, mistakenly caused false hope when he said they were safe only to retract his statement and say there was just evidence they might still be alive.

After they were miraculously found, dramatic footage shows how the four children were winched into a rescue helicopter, bitten, dehydrated and malnourished but mercifully alive, and taken to safety for medical treatment.

But the rescue efforts intensified and he delivered the news the country, and the watching world, had hoped for.

‘It is a joy for the whole country,’ Petro Tweeted.

‘They were alone, they themselves achieved an example of total survival which will remain in history.’

The siblings, members of the Huitoto Indigenous group, were dehydrated, malnourished and bitten by insects but are otherwise healthy, rescuers said. 

Military personnel unload from a plane one of four Indigenous children who were missing after a deadly plane crash at the military air base in Bogota, Colombia

The father of four children who were missing after a plane crash looks on during their arrival at a military base. They spent 40 days in the jungle while teams hunted for survivors

Their grandmother, whose voice was played from aircraft above the jungle during the search to reassure the youngsters they were being looked for, told reporters: ‘I never lost hope, I was always supporting the search. I feel very happy, I thank President Petro and my ‘countrymen’ who went through so many difficulties.’

After the siblings were found alive army radios could be heard saying: ‘Miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle’ – the army code for a child found alive and repeated four times to reflect all four children.

Colombia’s Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez, said: ‘It is thanks to [Lesly], her value and her leadership, that the three others were able to survive, with her care, her knowledge of the jungle.

‘In general the children, the boy and the girls are in an acceptable state, according to the medical reports they are out of danger.’

Military doctor Carlos Rincon said while the children have ‘nutritional deficiencies’ they only survived with only ‘some soft tissue injuries, bites, and skin lesions’.

He added: ‘We will begin the process of incorporating food when we complete the process of clinical examinations that will be done today.

‘If things go well, we believe they will stay in the hospital for two to three weeks.’

Officials are crediting Lesly for her efforts to help save her siblings, and family members said a survival game the played helped prepare them for the ordeal. 

Lesly, the eldest, ‘knew what fruits she can’t eat because there are many poisonous fruits in the forest. And she knew how to take care of a baby,’ aunt Damarys Mucutuy told the Caracol news network.

‘She gave them flour and cassava bread, any fruit in the bush, they know what they must consume,’ Ms Valencia said.

‘They were raised by their grandmother,’ said John Moreno, a leader of the Guanano group in Vaupes, in the southeastern part of Colombia where the children were raised.

‘They used what they learned in the community, relied on their ancestral knowledge in order to survive.’

The drama began to unfold on May 1 when the group caught a routine flight on a Cessna 206 from Araracuara to the town of San Jose del Guaviare. The pilot reported engine problems minutes into the flight

A baby’s drinking bottle and half-eaten pieces of fruit had been spotted before the shelter’s discovery.

A dog standing next to a pair of scissors found in the forest in a rural area of the municipality of Solano during the search for the children.

Between May 15 and 16, soldiers found the bodies of the three adults and the debris of the plane, which was wedged vertically in the thick vegetation, its nose destroyed.

But the children remained missing.

Some 200 soldiers and indigenous people with knowledge of the terrain have been combing a dense jungle area of some 320 sq km (124 sq mi) – about double the size of Washington, DC.

The air force had dumped 10,000 flyers into the forest with instructions in Spanish and the children’s indigenous Huitoto language, telling them to stay put.

The leaflets also included survival tips, and the military has dropped food parcels and bottled water for the children.

Powerful searchlights were shone into the area ‘so that the minors can approach us’, search team member Colonel Fausto Avellaneda told the Noticias Caracol TV show.

Huitoto children learn hunting, fishing and gathering, and the kids’ grandfather, Fidencio Valencia, had said the children are well acquainted with the jungle.

At one point the search team believed it had come to within 100m (300ft) of them, but storms, thick vegetation and marshy terrain prevented them from reaching them.

Members of the indigenous community held traditional ceremonies ‘speaking to the jungle’ and asking it to give up the children.

But the jungle began giving up tantalizing clues that hopes were not lost for the youngsters. In photographs released by the military, scissors, shoes, and hair ties could be seen among branches on the jungle floor.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro (right) greeting a nurse while visiting the four Indigenous children who were found alive after being lost for 40 days in the Colombian Amazon rainforest

Colombia’s First Lady Veronica Alcocer (left) and Sofia Petro (right), daughter of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, visiting one of the four Indigenous children as they receive treatment

The air force had dumped 10,000 flyers into the forest with instructions in Spanish and the children’s indigenous Huitoto language, telling them to stay put.

A baby’s drinking bottle and half-eaten pieces of fruit had been spotted before the shelter’s discovery.

Then nearly two weeks ago, a footprint was found on the muddy jungle floor. Army officials believed it to belong to 13-year-old Lesly.

Leaders from the Huitoto indigenous group expressed hope that the children’s knowledge of fruits and jungle survival skills should give them better odds of being found alive.

Boxes of food were dropped to the jungle floor to help sustain the children. And yesterday the efforts paid off when one of the rescue dogs who had been on their scent led soldiers to the group, the President confirmed. They had been following footprints left on the muddy floor.

‘The jungle saved them,’ Petro said. ‘They are children of the jungle, and now they are also children of Colombia.’

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