SAO PAULO – A plane that went missing over the Amazon made an emergency river landing in a remote part of the rain forest and nine of the 11 people aboard survived, Brazil's air force said Friday.
Members of the Matis Indian tribe found the plane and the survivors in a sprawling jungle reservation, the air force said in a statement.
One person aboard the single-prop Cessna Caravan plane was missing and another may have died in Thursday's emergency, the air force said. It did not say why the plane was forced to set down on the Itui River.
Military helicopters picked up the survivors Friday afternoon at a roadless site near several Indian villages close to the Peruvian border. They were being flown to a hospital for evaluation, but Globo TV said none had life-threatening injuries.
The air force plane carried a four-person military crew and seven members of a government medical team who travel by plane and boat across the Amazon vaccinating rain forest dwellers who can't be reached any other way.
The plane took off Thursday morning from the small city of Cruzeiro do Sul in Acre state. It was scheduled to land about two hours later in the city of Tabatinga in Amazonas state.
The aircraft went down in the Vale do Javari reservation, one of Brazil's largest. The area nearly the size of Portugal is home to at least 12 tribes, some believed to have never had contact with western civilization.
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