A pilot lost in the Amazon

Antônio Sena was 3,000 feet over the Amazon when the engine of his propeller plane died, said Maneula Andreoni in The New York Times. As he rapidly lost altitude, Sena sent an SOS message and aimed his plane and its highly flammable cargo—160 gallons of diesel bound for an illegal mine—at a valley lined with palm trees. “Palm trees mean there is water,” he recalls thinking, “perhaps a river.” After smashing to the ground, Sena, 36, grabbed a pocketknife, a flashlight, and a couple of lighters and sprinted away from the aircraft, which soon exploded. He camped next to the wreckage and screamed and waved at the search planes that circled the area for several days. “They couldn’t see me.” With no hope of rescue, he started walking in the direction of the nearest settlement, 60 miles away. To avoid jaguars and other predators who hunt near rivers, Sena slept on hilltops; his palm-frond shelters were repeatedly attacked by gangs of spider monkeys. “They are very territorial. I never want to cross their path again.” A pink fruit he saw the monkeys eating became his primary sustenance. On March 6, 36 days after setting out, he stumbled into the camp of some Brazil nut collectors. Sena had lost 55 pounds but was safe. He has a new appreciation for the rain forest and says he’ll never again fly for the wildcat miners who are razing it. “If I had fallen in a deserted plantation site, I wouldn’t have water, shelter, [food]. The Amazon is so rich.”