The odyssey of Antonio Sena, the pilot who crashed in the Brazilian Amazon jungle and a key fact saved his life



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It was a Monday in January when the pilot Antonio Sena suffered a plane crash in the bowels of the Brazilian Amazon. There, in the vastness of the jungle, he was trapped for 36 days, in which he survived with a machete and a key fact: the help of the monkeys, which he observed in his search for food.

Sena, 36, was hired to run an air taxi service at an illegal gold mine in the heart of the Amazon, between the states of Pará and Amapá. In mid-flight, the engine of his small plane stalled. He managed to control the direction of the aircraft for a few minutes and ended up crashing in a hidden stream.

He got out of the plane unscathed and rushed to retrieve the food he was carrying: three bottles of water, twelve loaves of bread, four cans of soda, a rope and a cloth bag. A little after, the plane exploded.

“I spent the first night and tried to assimilate everything that was going to happen. Several years ago, I took survival training in the jungle, when I was working for another air taxi company, ”he says.

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Northeastern Brazil




Infographics: Bugle

As the manual says, the first seven days remained at the scene of the accident wait for rescue teams. Several planes flew over the area, but with each passing day the noise was less intense and so did their hopes of making it out alive.

On the fifth day of waiting, he decided to record a farewell video for her family.

“That night I decided to talk to God. I said to him: ‘If you want me to find my family, give me the strength, because I tried alone and I did not succeed. It looks like it worked“, remember.

The next morning it started make a plan to emerge from the clutches of the Amazon rainforest, which he describes as “a large, pulsating living organism”. A forest with many forests inside.

The lack of food greatly weakened him. In 36 days, he lost 25 pounds.

“On the eighth day, I grabbed all my things and started walking east. ‘I’m not going to die here’, I said to myself. ‘I’m not going to die’“, he recalls.

It was then that he entered the lush jungle with the help ofa makeshift machete which he made with a piece of wood, a razor and a knife.

Inside the forest, the routine was the same for long days: I woke up to the light of dawn and walked for hours towards the sun until shortly after noon, when I stopped to look for a place to camp, always far from rivers.

This is because water, he says, attracts large predators from the Amazon: the jaguar, the alligator and the poisonous anaconda.

“Everyone says it’s a region full of jaguars. I never found any. I think mixing God and knowing how to get away from them has helped me, ”he says.

The water, Sena says, attracts the Amazon's top predators: the jaguar, the alligator and the poisonous anaconda.  Photo: AFP

The water, Sena says, attracts the Amazon’s top predators: the jaguar, the alligator and the poisonous anaconda. Photo: AFP

Despite his temper, fear resurfaced at night, when the sound of nature broke the silence.

“The first few days, mainly at night, I was very scared. This is when the jungle manifests itself. There are a lot of unfamiliar noises and since you don’t recognize them, they seem to arouse your innermost fears, “he admits.” Over time, I started to recognize certain noises. It is impressive how much the jungle cheats on you. He deceived me a lot. “

Foraging

During the 36 days he spent lost in the jungle, hunger, he recalls, was “very common”. When the few foods he was carrying with him ran out, he turned to nature. But how to recognize if its fruits were toxic or not?

“I couldn’t find the fruits you find in the market: banana, mango, pineapple. There is none of that in the middle of the jungle. I started to observe small white fruits and I did not didn’t know what it was I saw that they fell from the trees because the macaques They moved them, I saw them eating. If the monkeys eat, it’s good“, he says.

He later found out that it was in short, a fruit widely used by the cosmetics industry. Four times he found cocoa and three eggs of nambu, a bird characteristic of the Amazon.

The lack of food greatly weakened him. In 36 days, he lost 25 pounds.

The sound of the saw

Sena had been wandering in the jungle for over 30 days when from afar he heard the sound of a chainsaw. His strength had reached the limit. He was having cramps and vision loss, but decided to make his last effort.

He entered a swamp and crossed a river. Drenched, he continued to walk through the forest in pursuit of the noise. It was then that he found a white tarp and, miles later, a man.

“He looked at me very scared. He stood with the chestnuts in his hand,” he recalls.

“On the eighth day, I grabbed all my things and started walking east. “I’m not going to die here” “

A few minutes later another man arrived and together they made their way to the chestnut pickers base. Once there, the rescue teams and his family were notified by radio. Was the end of his odyssey.

“My brothers didn’t give up at any time, they always believed he was alive. I felt their strength. They didn’t give up,” he said, crying.

Sena, who recently flew over the crash site, will now tell her story in a book titled “36 days: the saga of the airplane pilot who fell in the Amazon and found God”, from publisher Buzz.

“I was transformed in this jungle. My brothers have been transformed too. Thank goodness this story transforms a lot of people as well. It’s the only thing we want. Only that.

The author is a journalist for EFE

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