Pieter van Vollenhoven, the husband of Princess Margriet of the Netherlands, has expressed his joy over receiving word that four children missing since a plane crash a month ago had have found alive.
He tweeted, “Wat een buitengewoon fantastisch bericht. Na 40 dagen en gelet op hun leeftijden…”, which translates as, “What an extraordinaly fantastic news. After 40 days and given their ages…”
The children were passengers on a flight that was headed for San José del Guaviare on 1 May. There were seven people on board the plane when it crashed into the jungle. The bodies of the three adults had already been found, but the children were missing, leaving rescuers to believe that they were still alive. They were eventually found about 5 kilometres from the crash site. How they managed to survive for forty days in the jungle has not been announced. They were 13, 9 and 4 years old, and the youngest was only 11 months old.
Pieter van Vollenhoven was the chairman of the Dutch Safety Board until February 2011, and he has previously led the investigation into the Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 crash, which happened happened in a field just outside Schiphol Airport. He also investigated the Schiphol fire, which happened in a holding facility for illegal immigrants.
