Girl Who Survived Air Crash Captures Hearts Of Colombia

BOGOTA, Colombia - Overnight, Erika became one of those rare personalities - the kind who is known simply by her first name. The sole survivor of the DC-9 jetliner crash became the object of focus for a people overwhelmed by guerrilla attacks, common crime and cocaine traffic.

Erika Delgado, 9, was in stable condition yesterday, being treated for a broken arm, abdominal injuries, bruises and shock.

Doctors said yesterday they still have not told her that her mother, father and brother were killed Wednesday night when the Intercontinental Aviation jet plunged 14,000 feet and exploded as it approached the Caribbean resort of Cartagena. Fifty-one people died.

Colombians are praying for Erika. Newspaper readers called to offer clothes and medicine. Reporters desperately tried to sneak into the emergency ward of the Universitario Hospital in Cartagena.

Voice recorder recovered

Army and volunteer rescue teams searched a lagoon and a field for other survivors. Investigators said they had recovered the airliner's cockpit voice recorder but continued to seek the flight data recorder.

The plane's owners, witnesses on the ground and flight controllers were unable to explain the crash. But investigators said they are not ruling out a bomb.

Rescue workers agree on one thing: Erika was thrown onto a cool, moist mound of vegetation in the middle of a swamp.

"She was on the ground yelling, `Help me, help me!' " said one volunteer, a bus driver interviewed on the radio yesterday. "She said her father threw her out of the plane, and she said, `Go get my daddy over there! Get my mommy and brother.' "

Callers to radio stations hopefully described Erika as the one "true firsthand witness," who could explain the crash. Some suggested that she be hypnotized to remember the details.

Angel Orarios, Erika's surgeon, dismissed such ideas, saying that Erika had suffered a mental block and couldn't remember anything that happened before she hit ground.

Not much is known

Only the bare facts of her background were known: Erika's father was a lawyer and diving instructor. The family was returning to the coast after vacationing with relatives in Bogota, the capital.

Erika's aunt, Lilia Pacheco, flew to Cartagena to stay at Erika's bedside. "She's a very sensitive girl" who wants to be a clothing designer, Pacheco said.

The notion that Erika could solve the mystery of the crash made some Colombians shake their heads in disbelief.

"She's just a kid and doesn't have the capacity to understand what went on," said Leonel Toro, chief of the press office at the Presidential Palace. A father of three, he followed the constant flow of "Erika news" on television, radio and the news services.

Erika has became a symbol of hope in a country that sorely needs one. One nationwide radio station, RCN, generated excitement yesterday with a report that a 9-year-old girl was the sole survivor in a similar plane crash near Cartagena 30 years ago. But the station quietly dropped the report by late afternoon.

"I think Erika was saved for a reason, and I think she's going to do something great with her life," said Ana Lufkin, a native of Grand Haven, Mich., who works with street children in Bogota.

Like many foreigners, Lufkin said she thought Colombians were hanging on to bulletins about Erika because they wanted good news - just as Americans focused on the minute-by-minute saga of "Baby Jessica," the child who spent 2 1/2 days in 1987 trapped in a well in Midland, Texas.

As Colombians followed Erika's progress, they received less inspirational news from TV reporters at the remote crash site yesterday: Thieves had stolen most of the rings, necklaces and wallets from the corpses of the crash victims.

Officials at Intercontinental Aviation said they did not know the reason for the crash. They said the plane had no mechanical problems.

Air-traffic controllers on Wednesday quoted the pilot of another aircraft as saying he witnessed a fiery explosion aboard the Intercontinental DC-9. But charter pilot Jose Luis Sarmiento said yesterday he saw the plane explode when it hit the ground, not in midair.

A team from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration flew in to investigate the wreckage with Colombia's civil aviation authority, which has been disrupted by charges of incompetence and corruption.