Green Hell

In the wild matted undergrowth of the Colombian jungle, infested with insects and savages, lurks Death in terrifying form. From "Green Hell" few lone white men come out alive. Fortnight ago five Goigira Indians, canoeing up the Uribe River near where a missing Trans-Andean airliner was believed to have crashed several weeks before, saw floating in the water a necktie, then a shirt. Further upstream they found the decomposing body of a man, sitting upright on the river bank. Continuing they came upon the twisted wreckage of an airliner, entombing two more bodies. Nearby lay the body of another man, a flashlight in one dank hand, a pistol in the other. Lastly they found a man, dazed and exhausted, sitting motionless upon a stone. Half-crazed, semiconscious, he was unable to speak.

Carried seven days through the jungle to civilization, he recovered sufficiently to identify himself as Newton C. Marshall, Milwaukee mining engineer, general manager of potent South American Gold & Platinum Co. To newshawks he told this story: "We crashed at noon March 10. Coming through a cloud we struck a hillside. Treetops broke the impact. I was stunned and my teeth were broken against the seat ahead of me. One man was killed instantly. Another had an arm and leg broken. He died in agony five days later, trying to give me a farewell message in German which I could not understand. The pilot and mechanic left the plane three days after the crash in search of aid. They never returned. I was unable to move from my chair in the plane and sat there for two weeks. I was alone with two dead bodies. After two weeks I was unable longer to stand the stench of the decomposing bodies of my companions. I made a supreme effort and succeeded in leaving the plane on March 25. I knew I must search for aid or die. I got lost in the jungle. I had been there three days. I had $200 in my pocket. I was sitting on a stone, awaiting death. . . .*

To the five Indians who found Survivor Marshall and guarded $100,000 in gold bullion in the wrecked airliner will go a reward of 7,000 pesos ($4,300).

*In the wreckage of a Trans-Andean airliner lost two years ago mountaineers last month found nine bodies well-preserved in snow. For news of the survivor of another SCADTA crash.

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