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Panama plane crash survivor rescued in long mountain trek

A 12-year-old US girl who was the sole survivor of a weekend plane crash was reunited with her family on Wednesday after rescuers trekking for five hours carried her down from the wreckage in a remote mountain area and airlifted her to a hospital.

Francesca Lewis, wearing a neck brace and with one arm bandaged, met with anxious family members at a hospital in the town of David, capital of the province of Chiriqui, 50km east of the crash site.

Francesca was in stable condition at a private hospital with hypothermia, contusions and muscle injuries, and does not remember much about the crash, her doctor, Samuel Cattan, said.

"She lost consciousness and she only remembers [the plane] falling into a cloud and then she saw trees," Cattan said.

Cattan said the girl will probably remain hospitalized for at least a week.

Francesca's mother, father, uncle and sister came down from the US to care for her. Kim Klein, whose ex-husband and daughter died in the crash, also was in Panama as her search for the missing plane became an effort to recover their bodies.

Heavy rains have delayed efforts to get the bodies down from the peak at least until yesterday, authorities said.

Earlier on Wednesday, her mother, Valerie Lewis said her daughter could walk and was talking.

"My husband spoke to her by phone this morning," Lewis said. "She sounded good. She just said `Hi, daddy. See you soon.'"

Rescue workers struggled for five hours against heavy rains and high-altitude winds to carry Francesca by stretcher from the site of the plane crash, high on the 1,067m jungle-laden Baru volcano, down to a spot where a helicopter could land, Chiriqui Civil Protection Director Armando Palacios said.

The crash of the Cessna 172, which happened on Sunday about 430km west of the capital, Panama City, killed Francesca's friend Talia Klein, 13, Klein's father, Michael Klein, 37, of Santa Barbara, California, and Panamanian pilot Edwin Lasso, 23.

A preliminary investigation showed the plane struck a tree and split in two, National Civil Protection Director Roberto Velasquez said.

"It is miraculous that the girl could survive that impact," he said.

Michael Klein was the chief executive of Pacificor LLC, a Santa Barbara-based company that manages several hedge funds. He founded two companies in the 1990s before becoming president and chief executive of eGroups Inc, which was the world's largest group e-mail communication service. Yahoo Inc purchased eGroups for US$450 million in August 2000 and it is now known as Yahoo Groups.

Aviation authorities said the cause of the crash was not yet known, but Panama's RPC radio reported that witnesses saw the plane flying at a very low altitude around midday on Sunday amid buffeting winds.
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