Autumn Veatch: Teenager hikes out of mountains for two days after plane crash

 
Mountain ordeal: Autumn Veatch

A teenage girl who survived a plane crash with her step-grandparents in the mountains of Washington state has emerged from the wilderness after hiking for two days until she was picked up by a motorist.

Autumn Veatch, 16, was flying with Leland, 62, and Sharon Bowman, 63, from Montana, to Lynden in Washington on Saturday afternoon when the aircraft got into difficulties at about 2.30pm local time. Her family raised the alarm when the plane did not arrive.

Rescuers searched the area in the rugged North Cascades — described by officials as some of the “toughest mountainous terrain in the state” — based on mobile phone data and typical flight patterns. There was no sign of the aircraft, a Beech A-35.

She told her father, David Veatch, that the plane had crashed and caught fire after flying into a bank of clouds. She had tried to pull the Bowmans from the wreckage, and stayed there for some time hoping for help, but eventually decided she had to get out of the mountains on her own.

The fate of the step-grandparents was unclear, with authorities today still looking for the plane wreckage.

A spokesman for the Three Rivers Hospital, where Ms Veatch was taken, said she had no serious injuries but was suffering from dehydration and exposure.

She appears to have done what experts probably would have advised: she followed drainage down to a river, then the river, via a trail, downstream to the nearest road. A motorist took her to a shop in the settlement of Mazama, where rescuers were called.

The Seattle Times reported that CB Thomas, a manager at the shop, said she arrived wearing a loose sweater, jeans and sneakers. He said she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink on her journey.

“She was obviously upset and distraught,” Mr Thomas said. “She was shaking. She was certainly able to communicate her situation and kind of apologised for being upset and not speaking clearly.”

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