The first of September, 1981, began inauspiciously enough for Rómulo Ordoñez, who piloted the Cessna YV-244-C. The last passengers he would ever carry were Colombian Judge, José Manuel Herrera, Venezuelan police officer, Salvador Mirabal, and Raiza Ruiz M.D. The policeman was carrying a slaughtered deer as a favor to friends in San Carlos who would pick it up there. The flight originated in Puerto Ayacucho and landed in Atabajo from whence it had flown to Maroa in the Amazonas Territory of Venezuela (now Amazonas State). It then headed to San Carlos on the Río Negro. The plans were to drop off the judge and the policeman in San Carlos and pick up a few of Raiza’s colleagues and then fly back to Puerto Ayacucho, the Territory’s capital. To understand the flight plan’s trajectory, refer to the map below.
No one imagined the Cessna would not arrive in either San Carlos or Puerto Ayacucho.
The Amazonas Territory was, and still is, one of the most unexplored regions of the world. To illustrate, imagine lodging somewhere in San Carlos from which you plan to explore the Baré and Yanomani regions. You’d begin by canoeing east on the Casiquiare and then, with an expert guide, you’d need to find the Río Parsimani from which you’d motor, paddle, hike carrying your canoe, wade in knee deep, waist deep, and chin deep waters and swamps to the Caño Emoni. A caño is a river or stream that can be many or few feet deep and wide and flows into the deep jungles sometimes through boundless swamps, with ever changing depths and currents. Some explorers find them a bit creepy. At any rate, if you get that far, you’d be doing better than many experienced explorers.
You might then decide to turn back as the Yanomami are not always friendly.
On that September 1st, the pilot, Ordoñez, had dropped off passengers in Atabajo and had picked up the policeman, Mirabal, and the Judge, Herrera. He then flew further south to Maroa where he picked up the medical doctor, Ruiz. They were now headed to the last stop, San Carlos, from whence they would fly directly back to Puerto Ayacucho.
Rains were now heavy as the plane took off from the Maroa airport.
About halfway to San Carlos, the plane, flying in heavy fog, hit a mountain with a high, thick canopy of trees. The trees, having “absorbed” the impact of the crash, also immediately “entered” the plane transforming the passengers’ environment from fog to green foliage which now scratched and blinded them. When they saw fire breaking out, they arose as one from their stupor, abandoned the craft, three of them jumping out the left side onto branches, trunks, and bush and catching twigs and trunks as they fell, and landed on the jungle floor. The policeman crawled out the right side, through the window he had broken in order to exit.
Within 30 minutes after takeoff three rescue planes took off from Maroa to seek the stricken craft. Another pilot who had been in communication with Ordoñez had suddenly lost contact with him and had raised the alarm. The search craft, assuming the mishap had occurred shortly after take off, focused their search area on the jungles surrounding Maroa, not knowing that Ordoñez was about halfway to San Carlos when he crashed.
The Cessna had lost its tail and almost immediately had caught fire; nevertheless, for a few minutes, it hung suspended above the canopy, mostly between two gigantic trees. The policeman had apparently not been badly injured by the impact. The pilot had broken his collarbone and three ribs. The Judge had a broken leg. Dr. Ruiz had bad scratches on her hands and legs, but all three were able to exit the plane, now enveloped in flames, on the left side.
As they fell and descended, the plane also fell, exploded, and caught the policeman on the right, covering his body in flames. He walked, robot-like, calling for help, before finally falling. Even so, he managed to smile to Dr. Ruiz and say, “Doctor, my lights are going out.” He died in terrible agony about an hour later. The survivors crossed his arms and prayed.
The others had also been burned, though not as badly and after about 3 hours, their thirst took over and they made the fateful decision of leaving the accident site in search for water. They did manage to find a small pond, but they lost their way and never returned to the plane.
At this point, I must note that other testimony and records say that Dr. Ruiz did not want to stay next to what would certainly become a rapidly putrefying corpse. This became a point of harsh criticism against her, despite her own ordeal.
Since one of the passengers was Colombian, and since the accident could have taken place in either jurisdiction, both countries, Colombia and Venezuela, initiated joint rescue efforts. After three days’ search they saw the remains of the craft. They initiated the journey via Caño Iguarapo for two hours followed by 6 hours on foot, arriving at the site late that afternoon.
The dreadful weather prevented the immediate evacuation of the remains of Mirabal, the dead policeman, whom they found with his arms crossed, although badly decomposed and exhibiting the gross results of scavenger jungle animals. The rescue team then deposited into a single bag what they had assumed were the now unrecognizable remains of the others. One of the members reported on human tracks heading out of the accident site but he was ignored because everyone knew that no one could possibly have survived this disaster and, besides, the remains were there for all to see, even though they could not be identified, other than the policeman’s. As to the crossed arms of his body, not much thought was given to that, even though, logically, someone must have done the crossing. Maybe he did so himself just before dying. They thought.
They camped there for the night and evacuated the next day having concluded their mission as accomplished. The remains were delivered to doctors in San Carlos. There were no forensic personnel there; they naturally assumed that the charred deer remains were what was left of the pilot, Ordoñez, the judge, Herrera, and the doctor, Ruiz. These were sent in three different coffins to their respective origins and were buried.
However, the three survivors had been wandering in the vast jungles, disoriented, with multiple fractures and burns about their bodies. It was a terrifying place. Dense foliage and vegetation that, they knew, would severely hamper any efforts to find them. But they were determined to find help in or through those intimidating lands. They came to a small stream and decided to follow it, thinking it would take them to the Río Negro, thinking they were near San Carlos. They were not.
After a long journey on foot, Judge Herrera, who could no longer walk on his broken leg and who was severely exhausted, sat down on a trunk. His burns, wounds, and traumas had become too heavy a burden for him. He decided to stay there, next to the stream and begged the others to stay with him there, to accompany him.
The pilot and the doctor felt they had to keep going. They promised Herrera that they’d return with help and went on, hopeful of returning for him soon. This did not happen. The judge was never seen alive again.
That night, Ordoñez and Ruiz essayed to cross a swamp to then find to their horror that it seemed to never end as the waters had risen to terrifying levels because of the rains. Exhausted, they each embraced a trunk and held on through the night, hoping to somehow rest a bit. They could not rest, but held on, each to his or her trunk, till daylight. Sharp leaves, underwater sliced their legs, further aggravating their injuries and further providing cracks and slits for worms to feast.
Hungry, ceaselessly attacked by insects, legs horribly cut by leaves that were sharp as blades, even underwater, Ordoñez and Ruiz went on, Ordoñez coughing badly and in one fall breaking his ankle. Both stumbled and fell often, which was especially a danger for the pilot, Ordoñez, with broken ribs. Ruiz was “covered” with worms seeking to burrow into her open wounds and cuts and scratches. She cleaned her cuts every time they stopped for water, not knowing that in her situation the best thing to have done was to cover her open wounds with mud instead of water.
They came to what appeared to once have been a large clearing of sorts. Later, it was learned that that area had been a rubber harvesting sector over 60 years earlier, now abandoned and nightmarishly ghostlike. While they looked around, they heard the sounds of an airplane! They ran in opposite directions thinking that would give them more of an opportunity to be seen from above. They yelled and jumped.
But to no avail.
Ruiz then realized she could no longer hear Ordoñez. She made her way, stumbling, to where she had heard him yelling.
He was dead. It may be that in the excited jumping and waving and yelling, the broken ribs had punctured his lungs. Or it may be he had finally succumbed.
Ruiz was now alone. She thought she was losing her mind. Her body was bloated, her skin covered by worms which ran up and down her. It was as if death stalked her and its agents had begun their work before her passing. She also noticed that she was losing her eyesight.
Nights in the jungle are never-ending and terrifying, especially when one is alone and lost.
On the seventh day, she fell and knew she would not get up again.
Here, the accounts diverge greatly. Some say she was rescued by Baré Indians, whose children were playing nearby and saw her, thinking her to be dead. Other accounts say a local fisherman and his young son had decided to go near the crash site to scavenge for metal to use in their fishing enterprise. Her own accounts vary in this.
Regardless, she was indeed found alive. Barely. Covered with worms.
They ignored her delirious demands to be left alone, and gave her spoonfuls of water with cinnamon, little by little, until about half a glass was consumed. They made a makeshift cot and carried her to a nearby stream and from thence to Río Negro where she was eventually taken to San Carlos and tended by medical personnel who cut and peeled the little clothing she still wore and gave her antibiotics and anis to apply to the horribly infected skin. When they first saw her legs they initially thought they would have to amputate. But Ruiz had demanded that she be treated first and then any decision could be made. The demand was met and she kept both her legs.
Months later, she learned that the plane she and Ordoñez had heard that day was carrying her remains to Caracas where she was buried a day later.
It took over 15 years for the paperwork to be fixed and the courts officially corrected her status from dead to alive.
And the doctor who had declared the charred deer bones to have been Dr. Ruiz’s remains was named as minister of health by President Chavez and a “revolutionary” hospital bears his name.
To give an idea of the difficulties in finding a lost craft in the State of Amazonas, the following photographs were taken during the search of a lost plane in 2007. In this case, the crash site was never located and all are presumed dead.
