Nine people were travelling on the Fairchild Aerospace Metro when it went missing near the city of Trinidad on Tuesday, but when rescuers only found eight bodies in the wreckage they kept searching deeper into the forest.
"From several kilometres (miles) away, we saw a man on the river bank signalling to us. When we got closer, he knelt down and thanked God," said Naval Captain David Bustos, who led the rescue operation.
"He said he'd been trapped in the plane for more than 15 hours and that when he finally escaped he began to walk and survived by drinking his own urine and water from a lagoon," Bustos added.
The man, named as Minor Vidal, a 35-year-old cosmetics salesman, had head and rib injuries but was out of danger, Bustos said.
"Thank God he's alive, it's a real miracle," his sister, Rosario Vidal, told reporters.
The plane took off from the eastern city of Santa Cruz for a 90-minute flight, flying into thick smoke caused by the burning of forests for grazing.
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