Hero dog missing after Colombian jungle plane crash

Source: Sky News

As four children who survived a plane crash in the Colombian jungle recover in hospital, the search is continuing - for the dog who helped save them.

Wilson, a Colombian army Belgian shepherd, disappeared during the search for the youngsters.

His footprints were found alongside a child's footprints, helping lead rescuers to their location.

But he "got lost from the troop" after completing his mission, a tweet from the Colombian army said.

The military has vowed to keep up the search for their "four-legged friend", saying: "No one is left behind."

Wilson features prominently in the crayon drawings the children have done in a hospital, which were released by the army.

The children were found on Friday wandering alone deep in the Amazon rainforest after the plane they were traveling in with their mother crashed 40 days earlier.

During their ordeal, the children, who are members of the Huitoto indigenous group, are thought to have eaten cassava flour, seeds, and fruit from the rainforest.

The three adults on board the plane died after it went down in the dense jungle due to engine failure.

The children told Astrid Cáceres, director of the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare, they had met a "dog" in the jungle, according to the BBC.

The children spoke "of the puppy that was lost, that they do not know where it was, and that it accompanied them for a while," Ms. Cáceres said.

Wilson was last seen a day or two before the children were rescued, but the searchers' efforts to get him to return to the group were unsuccessful.

Army colonel Fausto Avellaneda told Spanish-language news service Infobae that it could be difficult to find Wilson because he was trained as a search and attack dog, rather than for rescue work.

The four children, aged 13, nine, four, and one, were flown by helicopter to the hospital in the capital Bogota.

They remain in hospital while a custody battle rages among relatives of the children. Their maternal grandparents are vying for custody with the father of the two youngest.