Pilot survives 36 days after crashing in the Amazon

"Mayday, mayday, mayday… Papa, Tango, India, Romeo, Juliet is falling between Alenquer and the California track.” The last message the pilot Antonio Sena sent on his radio before vanishing from radar and crash-landing back in January.

His Cessna light aircraft ended up in one of the remotest parts of the Brazilian Amazon while transporting supplies to a mine. What followed was a walk which lasted more than a month, during which he says he came to appreciate what the rainforest had to offer in order to survive. Antonio told Newsday what happened.

(Photo: Antônio Sena, centre, in black shirt, with Maria Jorge dos Santos Tavares, her two sons and other nut collectors he stumbled across after over a month of wandering in the Amazon. Credit: Antônio Sena)