Five persons who survived a plane crash endured three days of being stalked by giant alligators after their aircraft crashed into a swamp in the Amazon jungle.
The plane was travelling from Baures in northern Bolivia to Trinidad when the incident occurred, the passengers three women, a child and the pilot were rescued on Friday by a helicopter dispatched by the Bolivian government.
The pilot Pablo Andres Velarde told the local media that he was forced to make an emergency landing, which caused the plane to flip over and crash into the swamp. He said they were left standing on top of the plane as it lay submerged in the water and within a short while they were surrounded by “huge alligators.”
“They stayed three to four metres away from us and stayed there all day and night but never got to us,” he said.
The pilot used the torch on his phone to keep watch of the reptiles and said he thought they were deterred by the smell of petrol leaking into the water from the plane.
They also saw snakes in the water and had to contend with mosquitoes.
The group “couldn’t drink anything,” he added, and the only thing they had to eat was cassava flour they rescued from the plane.
They eventually heard a fishing boat, and the pilot signalled with his phone’s flashlight and shouted for help.
They were later airlifted to a hospital.
“We were happy because we could not survive another night,” Mr Velarde said.
“We were very tired. We couldn’t stand anymore, because we had to stand so we could keep an eye on the animals.”
