Marc Gonsalves - Out of Captivity: Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle

A Place to Crash

Choices and Challenges

Changes in Altitude

Quin Sabe?

The Transition

Settling In

Proof of Life

Caribe

Broken Bones and Broken Bonds

Ruin and Recovery

Getting Healthy

Dead

Running on Empty

Reunited

The Swamp

Politics and Pawns

Fat Camp

Freedom

Homecoming

This story is not over. At the very moment that you are reading this, another world exists deep inside the vast jungles of Colombia. Hundreds of hostages are still held there, twenty-eight of them are our companions. They are chained, they are starving, and all they want is to go home. Let them not be forgotten:

Civilians

Alan Jara (captive since July 15, 2001)

Sigifredo Lpez (April 11, 2002)

Police and Military Prisoners

Pablo Emilio Moncayo Cabrera (December 20, 1997)

Libio Jos Martnez Estrada (December 20, 1997)

Luis Arturo Garca (March 3, 1998)

Luis Alfonso Beltrn (March 3, 1998)

William Donato Gmez (March 8, 1998)

Robinson Salcedo Guarn (March 8, 1998)

Luis Alfredo Moreno (March 8, 1998)

Arbey Delgado Argote (March 8, 1998)

Luis Herlindo Mendieta (January 11, 1998)

Enrique Murillo Snchez (January 11, 1998)

Csar Augusto Lasso Monsalve (January 11, 1998)

Jorge Humberto Romero (June 10, 1999)

Jos Libardo Forero (June 10, 1999)

Jorge Trujillo Solarte (June 10, 1999)

Carlos Jos Duarte (June 10, 1999)

Wilson Rojas Medina (June 10, 1999)

lvaro Moreno (December 9, 1999)

Elkin Hernndez Rivas (October 14, 1998)

Edgar Yezid Duarte Valero (October 14, 1998)

Guillermo Javier Solzano (June 4, 2007)

William Yovani Domnguez Castro (January 20, 2007)

Salin Antonio San Miguel Valderrama (May 23, 2008)

Juan Fernando Galicio Uribe (June 9, 2007)

Jos Walter Lozano (June 9, 2007)

Alexis Torres Zapata (June 9, 2007)

Luis Alberto Erazo Maya (December 9, 1999)

Tefilo Forero Mobile Column

Sonia

Farid

Uriel

Johnny

27th Front

Milton

Ferney (The Frenchman)

Rojelio

Mono

The Plumber

Elicer

Cereal Boy

2.5

Smiley

Vanessa

Songster

Tatiana

Mona

Alfonso

Costeo

Pidinolo

1st Front

Enrique

Jair

Moster

Asprilla

LJ

Mario

Tula the dog

FARC Leaders 20032008

Manuel Marulanda

Raul Reyes

Mono Jojoy

Fabian Ramirez

Burujo

Ivn Rios

Sombra (Fat Man)

Ernesto

Alfredo

Cesr

Alfonso Cano

Joaquin Gomez

KEITH

That, sir, is an engine failure.

From our pilot Tommy Janiss tone, you wouldnt have known that anything serious was wrong. He had flown all kinds of aircraft all around the world. Tommy J. was a real larger-than-life guy with more stories to tell than I have hairs on my headand Ive as full and thick a mane as anybody. His response wasnt borderline sarcastic; it came from a place about as deep into irony country as we were into Colombia.

The that he was referring to wasnt so much a thing as it was an absence of a thingthe steady throbbing pulse of the single 675-horsepower Pratt and Whitney turboprop engine that until a few seconds before had been powering our Cessna Grand Caravan. It didnt take someone like me, a guy whod been in avionics and aircraft maintenance for all his adult life, to recognize that the relative silence in the cabin was not a good thing.

I closed the biography of Che Guevara Id been reading and looked over at my buddy and coworker Marc Gonsalves. Hed been busy at his station, practicing with the camera gear and the computer. I wasnt sure if hed been so involved in what he was doing that he noticed anything at all. The poor guy had only been flying with us for just a few missions and now we had a damn engine failure to deal with. I knew that Tommy Janis and our copilot Tom Howes would instantly flip the switch to figure out if we were going to be able to get this bird over the mountains and to the airport at Larandia, where we were scheduled to refuel.

In my twenty-plus years of flying, Id had all kinds of training in a variety of different military and civilian aircraft. Id been in tight spots before and now I slipped easily into a dont-panic-just-focus mindset.

Marc, I told him, make the mayday call.

Im too new to make a call this important, Marc said. I think you better do it.

I couldnt blame the guy for not wanting to make that initial call. I immediately got on the SATCOM radio to relay our location to the guys back at the base. The first thing I needed to do to was to let our command posts know our location coordinates.

Magic Worker, this is Mutt 01, do you read me?

I waited but got no response. I tried them again. Silence.

This was not good. Magic Worker was responsible for our command and control. Normally, they responded almost instantly every time we called in at our appointed half-hour intervals. The thought of possibly going in on an emergency landing without anyone knowing we had a mayday was not something any of us wanted to do. I made another call to a Department of Defense group based in Florida called JIATF East.

Mutt 01. This is JIATF East. How many souls on board?

JIATF East, there are five. I listed them and spelled each of the names: Tom Janis, Tom Howes, Marc Gonsalves, Sergeant Luis Alcedes Cruz, and myselfKeith Stansell.

I kept calling out the coordinates to them as we descended from twelve thousand feet over the rugged Cordilleria Oriental Mountains, south of Bogot. A few minutes later we reached Ed Trinidad, who was a part of our Tactical Analysis Team back at the embassy in Bogot. He was trying to stay cool and calm, but I could hear the stress in his voice.

Breaking with usual radio transmission protocol, I said, Ed, bro, were just looking for a place to crash. Make sure you tell all our families that we love them.

Just saying those words made it hard for me to look at Marc, so I glanced toward the cockpit, where Tommy J and Tom Howes were busy figuring out how to save our assesor at least keep them from being scattered over a half mile of godforsaken mountain jungle.

Through the cockpit window I could see we were lined up for our landing. I then focused on the two Tommys sitting there. Tommy J was spot on, man. He showed no panic, just a precision to his every move. The ground was coming at us quick. Marc and I checked our straps one more time. I took a quick look over Toms shoulder, then linked my arm with Marcs. Id been in communication with Ed pretty much throughout our roughly four-minute descent, and I said to him, Hey, Ed, Im going to have to get off. Were about to crash.

At that point, I flashed back to a conversation Id had with one of my supervisors in the company. Id been in the military and had had some basic survival training, but flying with Northrop Grumman, I was supposed to take the next level up. I told this company guy that I wouldnt do it. When he asked why, all I said was, With this piece-of-shit aircraft weve being asked to fly in, theres no way Im going to survive a crash. A dead man doesnt need to know how to survive.