'Super hero' teen talks about surviving plane crash

The 16-year-old Bellingham girl who survived a plane crash and two nights alone in the woods before walking to safety spoke publicly for the first time Thursday.

Autumn Veatch was flying home Saturday with her step-grandparents, Sharon and Leland Bowman, when their small plane crashed into some trees in central Washington.

Autumn remembers the moment their plane went down.

"It wasn't obvious that we were gonna go down, honestly, because it was just completely white and then it was just trees. And then it was just screaming beyond that," she recalled. "All of a sudden it was just all trees, and then it was fire. They were both screaming."

Her grandparents were trapped inside the plane. Amber tried to pull them out.

"I was trying to help them. I couldn't get to grandma at all. There was nothing I could have done to get to her, but grandpa, he pulled himself halfway out. And that's when I was going and I was reaching and was trying to pull him out."

She burned her hand trying get him out, but she couldn't save him.

"I just got burned really bad and I couldn't do anything," she said. "I just told them that I loved them and that it would be ok."

Autumn said she ran. She followed a river downstream and hiked for days.

"I was really shocked. My instinct was to just go straight downhill," she said.

She spent two nights in the forest.

"After a few hours it started feeling really hopeless, like no idea at all where I was. So I just kind of... I ended up stripping down again. I laid next to a few trees and was just sitting there and was thinking I'm freezing... and it was starting to rain too," she recalled. "So I was cold and I was thinking, so on those survivor shows that I used to watch all the time, what always gets people? It's always dehydration or hypothermia or something. I was like I'm definitely going to die of hypothermia, definitely. It was so cold. I've never been that cold in my life."

She fell down a cliff and scaled waterfalls, but she pushed on.

"And I just got this surge of willpower and was like there's no way I can die without hugging somebody again," she said.

On day three she found a trail that led to Highway 20. Motorists spotted her and drove her to the nearest store, where workers called 911. Medics took her to a hospital, where she was reunited with loved ones.

"I have such a new found respect for life now. Every little thing makes me so grateful," she said.

From her father to rescue crews, many people call her survival story miraculous.

"I'll tell you this, from all of us here, we're just impressed with her," said Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers. "She's kinda like a super hero. Just amazing us what she went through, especially at 16. Enough for an adult, but at 16, it's pretty impressive."

Watch the full interview with Autumn Veatch on NBC News.