Emergency workers in Costa Rica walked through a remote mountain forest on Tuesday carrying a woman who was in critical condition after she survived a plane crash that killed five of the six people aboard.
The Cessna 206 Stationair crashed Monday afternoon in the Pico Blanco area southwest of the capital, San José, the Costa Rican Red Cross said. The plane was carrying the pilot, the co-pilot and a family.
The 31-year-old woman was the only survivor. Efforts to rescue her were complicated by the remote location of the crash, which could only be reached on foot.
Emergency workers carried the surviving woman on a stretcher for some 14 hours overnight, said Patricia Solórzano Cordero, a Red Cross spokeswoman. They reached an ambulance on Tuesday morning just before 7 a.m., she said, with the woman still in critical condition. She was being transported to the San Juan de Dios hospital in San José, she said.
A video that Ms. Solórzano Cordero shared with The New York Times showed the workers wearing hiking gear and headlamps as they made their way through a dense jungle, scrambling over roots as they brushed against branches.
The search crew included 60 Red Cross personnel, 13 emergency vehicles and a canine unit, according to Ms. Solórzano Cordero. When a group of rescuers found the aircraft at 8:30 p.m., two of the people on board were alive, she said.
Ms. Solórzano Cordero said that she did not have details on what caused the crash. The bodies of the other passengers, she said, remained at the crash site, and the Red Cross was prepared to provide support if needed.
Costa Rica’s civil aviation agency did not immediately respond to inquiries about the crash.
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