Survival shows ‘save’ US teen after plane crash

This May 9, 2015 photo provided by Sierra Lundy shows Autumn Veatch in Bellingham, Washington. The 16 year old survived a small plane crash on Saturday, July 11, 2015 wandering in a mountainous area for several days before being picked up by a motorist and taken to a local hospital on Monday, July 13, 2015. Her step-grandfather, who was piloting the plane, and his wife did not survive the crash. AP

LOS ANGELES, United States – A teenage girl survived a plane crash and then used knowledge picked up from watching survival shows on television to hike for two days out of the wilderness, US media and her parents said.

Autumn Veatch, 16, was in hospital after the small plane she was traveling in with her step-grandparents Saturday plunged into the Cascade Mountain range in Washington state, The Seattle Times reported.

Reported missing and feared dead, Veatch tried to pull her step-grandparents from the plane and when that failed followed a river to a road, before making her way to a nearby store, the paper said.

“We crashed and I was the only one that made it out… the only one that survived,” she told a 911 emergency dispatcher, adding: “I have a lot of burns on my hands and I’m… covered in bruises and scratches and stuff.”

Her father David Veatch told reporters: “She watches a lot of survival shows with me… I think she did good.”

Veatch had had nothing to eat or drink for several days, a first responder told the newspaper.

She was hospitalized on Monday in the Washington town of Brewster, but has no serious injuries.

Crews are still searching for the plane, The Seattle Times reported, and authorities have not confirmed the fate of the step-grandparents or said what may have caused the crash as they flew to Montana.

Rick LeDuc, the owner of the store, said Veatch told them she only remembered flying through clouds and then there was an impact.

“She related that she had been in an accident and had spent the last two days walking basically down a creek that turned into a larger creek… and came across a trailhead, found Highway 20 and then waited for somebody to pick her up,” he told Komo 4 News.

He said the teenager was “clearly rattled and shaken by the experience.

“She hadn’t eaten for two days. There have been some pretty incredible stories in the Cascades, but this one would definitely rank right up there.”