They had no technical gear, no map or compass, and no climbing experience. While some reports state the pilot incorrectly estimated his position using dead reckoning, the pilot was relying on radio navigation. STRAUCH: Yeah. I gagged hard when I placed it in my mouth. Parrado was sure this was their way out of the mountains. The return was entirely downhill, and using an aircraft seat as a makeshift sleigh, he returned to the crash site in one hour. "If I had been told: 'I'm going to leave you in a mountain 4,000m high, 20C below zero (-4F) in shirtsleeves,' I would have said: I last 10 minutes.' Strauch was one of 45 people on a charter flight ferrying an amateur rugby team from Uruguay to Chile on . Tenemos que salir rpido de aqu y no sabemos cmo. This has to go down as one of the greatest tragedies in aviation history, not for the scale of death, but for the hardships some of the survivors came to endure. But at the same time, he found that he had grown spiritually during his ordeal in the mountains. And they continue living. Cataln threw bread to the men across the river. Nando Parrado had a skull fracture and remained in a coma for three days. Survivor, and rugby team member Nando Parrado has written a beautiful story of friendship, tragedy and perseverance. The survivors who had found the rear of the fuselage came up with an idea to use insulation from the rear of the fuselage, copper wire, and waterproof fabric that covered the air conditioning of the plane to fashion a sleeping bag.[18][17]. Condemned to die without any hope we transported the rugby feeling to the cold fuselage at 12,000ft.". One of the propellers sliced through the fuselage as the wing it was attached to was severed. Pilot Ferradas had flown across the Andes 29 times previously. Please, we cannot even walk. [19], The survivors had very little food: eight chocolate bars, a tin of mussels, three small jars of jam, a tin of almonds, a few dates, candies, dried plums, and several bottles of wine. At this time of year, we could expect daytime temperatures well above freezing, but the nights were still cold enough to kill us, and we knew now that we couldn't expect to find shelter on the open slopes. Inside the crowded aircraft there was silence. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. 'Why the hell is that good news?' The survivors were forced to resort to extreme measures to stay alive. He was in the ninth row of seats. Then we realized that by folding the quilt in half and stitching the seams together, we could create an insulated sleeping bag large enough for all three expeditionaries to sleep in. Four members of the search and rescue team volunteered to stay with the seven survivors remaining on the mountain. "[29] They followed the ridge towards the valley and descended a considerable distance. [26], It was now apparent that the only way out was to climb over the mountains to the west. [4], Thirty-three remained alive, although many were seriously or critically injured, with wounds including broken legs which had resulted from the aircraft's seats collapsing forward against the luggage partition and the pilot's cabin. And that first night was really impossible to describe. The ordeal "taught me that we set our own limits", he said. To prevent snow blindness, he improvised sunglasses using the sun visors in the pilot's cabin, wire, and a bra strap. Nando Parrado found a metal pole from the luggage racks and they were able to get one of the windows from the pilot's cabin open enough to poke a hole through the snow, providing ventilation. We have been walking for 10 days. [26], On the third morning of the trek, Canessa stayed at their camp. Parrado was determined to hike out or die trying. But none of it would have been possible without Nando Parrado. Survivors were forced to eat the bodies of their dead friends, a. The next day, the man returned. Canessa said it was the worst night of his life. We just heard on the radio. [2] Twelve men and a Chilean priest were transported to the crash site on 18 January 1973. It was never my intention to underestimate these qualities, but perhaps it would be beyond the skill of any writer to express their own appreciation of what they lived through. Keith Mano of The New York Times Book Review gave the book a "rave" review, stating that "Read's style is savage: unliterary, undecorated as a prosecutor's brief." An Uruguayan air force plane carrying a private college rugby team crashed in a rugged mountain pass while en route from Montevideo to Santiago, Chile, in October 1972. [27][28] seeking help. Four-wheel drive vehicles transport travelers from the village of El Sosneado to Puesto Araya, near the abandoned Hotel Termas del Sosneado. He was accompanied by co-pilot Lieutenant-Colonel Dante Hctor Lagurara. The team's. On the return trip, they were struck by a blizzard. His presentation of the story at London's Barbican last week was deeply affecting: a 90-minute monologue about staring death in the face, surviving against all odds and spending the next four decades re-evaluating the true meaning of life and love. Colonel Julio Csar Ferradas was an experienced Air Force pilot who had a total of 5,117 flying hours. [3] Two more passengers fell out of the open rear of the fuselage. "I would ask myself: is it worth doing this? "It's something that very few people experience." He attempted to keep her alive without success, as during the eighth day she succumbed to her injuries. He used a stick from his pack to carve steps in the wall. But they did. We tried to eat strips of leather torn from pieces of luggage, though we knew that the chemicals they'd been treated with would do us more harm than good. And nearly four and a half decades on, 16 of their number have lived to see Uruguay carry the spirit of the Andes survivors onto the world rugby stage. [15], The authorities and the victims' families decided to bury the remains near the site of the crash in a common grave. This was possible because the bodies had been preserved with the freezing temperatures and the snow. [English: The world to its Uruguayan brothersClose, oh God, to you], They doused the remains of the fuselage in gasoline and set it alight. The film explores the true story of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972. Truly, we were pushing the limits of our fear. Fito Strauch devised a way to obtain water in freezing conditions by using sheet metal from under the seats and placing snow on it. Not immediately rescued, the survivors turned to cannibalism to survive, and were saved after 72 days. The plane was so far off course that the searchers were looking in the wrong place. Our minds are amazing. 1972. Without His consent, I felt I would be violating the memory of my friends; that I would be stealing their souls. [42], The story of the crash is described in the Andes Museum 1972, dedicated in 2013 in Ciudad Vieja, Montevideo. [4], On the afternoon of 22 December 1972, the two helicopters carrying search and rescue personnel reached the survivors. And it was because it was in order to live and preserve life, which is exactly what I would have liked for myself if it had been my body that lay on the floor," he said. Parrado disagreed and they argued without reaching a decision. Some evidence indicates it was thrown back with such force that it tore off the vertical stabilizer and the tail-cone. "[29] The next morning, the three men could see that the hike was going to take much longer than they had originally planned. The surviving members of a Uruguayan rugby team have played a match postponed four decades ago when their plane crashed in the Andes, stranding them for 72 days and forcing them to eat human flesh to stay alive. Among those who Parrado helped rescue was Gustavo Zerbino, 72 days trapped on the mountain, and who 43 years later is now watching his nephew Jorge turn out for Uruguay at this World Cup. But it didn't. As you can imagine, it has been the most awful, terrible days of my life. We have to melt snow. Regardless, at 3:21p.m., shortly after transiting the pass, Lagurara contacted Santiago and notified air traffic controllers that he expected to reach Curic a minute later. He wore four pairs of socks wrapped in a plastic shopping bag. When the tail-cone was detached, it took with it the rear portion of the fuselage, including two rows of seats in the rear section of the passenger cabin, the galley, baggage hold, vertical stabilizer, and horizontal stabilizers, leaving a gaping hole in the rear of the fuselage. They had no food, no water, no clothes bar those scattered about the wrecked fuselage, and even less hope. It was Friday, October 13, 1972, and the Uruguayan Air Force Fairchild F-227 had crashed into a glacial valley high in the Andes. The Old Christians squared off on Saturday in Santiago against the Old Grangonian, the former Chilean rugby team they were supposed to play back in 1972 when their flight went down. By chance, it hit the downward slope on the other side at the exact angle that allowed it to become a tube-like sledge, hurtling down into a bowl before hitting a snowdrift and coming to rest. [15] They saw three aircraft fly overhead, but were unable to attract their attention, and none of the aircraft crews spotted the white fuselage against the snow. [17], Knowing that rescue efforts had been called off and faced with starvation and death, those still alive agreed that, should they die, the others might consume their bodies to live. But we got used to it. Last photo of . And we can change the direction of our life if we propose to do it. Parrado was one of 45 rugby players, family, friends and crew making a routine flight across the Andes from Uruguay to Chile. Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 was a chartered flight carrying 45 people, including a rugby union team, their friends, family and associates. A few seconds later, Daniel Shaw and Carlos Valeta fell out of the rear fuselage. Canessa, Parrado, and Vizintn were among the strongest boys and were allocated larger rations of food and the warmest clothes. It came to be known as The Miracle in The Andes. [45][46], The crash location attracts hundreds of people from all over the world who pay tribute to the victims and survivors and learn about how they survived. The controller in Santiago, unaware the flight was still over the Andes, authorized him to descend to 11,500 feet (3,500m) (FL115). Inside and nearby, they found luggage containing a box of chocolates, three meat patties, a bottle of rum, cigarettes, extra clothes, comic books, and a little medicine. The steep terrain only permitted the pilot to touch down with a single skid. The pilot was able to bring the aircraft nose over the ridge, but at 3:34p.m., the lower part of the tail-cone may have clipped the ridge at 4,200 metres (13,800ft). Given that the FH-227 aircraft was fully loaded, this route would have required the pilot to very carefully calculate fuel consumption and to avoid the mountains. As the weather improved with the arrival of late spring, two survivors, Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, climbed a 4,650-metre (15,260ft) mountain peak without gear and hiked for 10 days into Chile to seek help, traveling 61 km (38 miles). Three passengers, the navigator, and the steward were lost with the tail section. [3], As the aircraft descended, severe turbulence tossed the aircraft up and down. To live at 4,000m without any food," said another survivor, Eduardo Strauch, 65. Of the 45 passengers aboard, 16 survived by feeding on dead family members and friends preserved in the snow. [10] The aircraft's VOR/DME instrument displayed to the pilot a digital reading of the distance to the next radio beacon in Curic. In the documentary film Stranded, Canessa described how on the first night during the ascent, they had difficulty finding a place to put down the sleeping bag. pp. We worked as a team, a rugby team, there was never a fight. Rumors circulated in Montevideo immediately after the rescue that the survivors had killed some of the others for food. "The conditions were more horrifying than you can ever imagine. [8] The aircraft was regarded by some pilots as underpowered, and had been nicknamed by them as the "lead-sled".[9][10]. Walter Clemons declared that it "will become a classic in the literature of survival."[2]. The unnamed glacier (later named Glaciar de las Lgrimas or Glacier of Tears) is between Mount Sosneado and 4,280 metres (14,040ft) high Volcn Tinguiririca, straddling the remote mountainous border between Chile and Argentina. Then, he followed the river to its junction with Ro Tinguiririca, where after crossing a bridge, he was able to reach the narrow route that linked the village of Puente Negro to the holiday resort of Termas del Flaco. After several days of trying to make the radio work, they gave up and returned to the fuselage with the knowledge that they would have to climb out of the mountains if they were to have any hope of being rescued. Valeta survived his fall, but stumbled down the snow-covered glacier, fell into deep snow, and was asphyxiated. Desperate after more than two months in the mountains, Canessa and Fernando Parrado left the crash site to seek help. The author interviewed many of the survivors as well as the family members of the passengers before writing this book to obtain facts about the crash. [16], Canessa and Gustavo Zerbino, both medical students, acted quickly to assess the severity of people's wounds and treat those they could help most. During part of the climb, they sank up to their hips in the snow, which had been softened by the summer sun. They carried the remaining survivors to hospitals in Santiago for evaluation. Parrado and Canessa hiked for several more days. Members of a college rugby team and their relatives on Uruguayan Air Force flight 571 were travelling from Uruguay's capital Montevideo to Santiago, Chile, for a rugby game. Authorities flew over the crash site several times during the following days, searching for the aircraft, but could not see the white fuselage against the snow. The 10th, and everything behind him had disappeared into oblivion on the other side of the mountain. [15], They continued east the next morning. On October 13, 1972, a charter jet carrying the Old Christians Club rugby union team across the Andes mountains crashed, killing 29 of the 45 people on board. I realized the power of our minds. The death of Perez, the team captain and leader of the survivors, along with the loss of Liliana Methol, who had nursed the survivors "like a mother and a saint", were extremely discouraging to those remaining alive.[16][22]. [21], All of the passengers were Roman Catholic. Director Ren Cardona Writers Charles Blair Jr. (book) Ren Cardona Jr. Stars Pablo Ferrel Hugo Stiglitz Even just moments after the crash, they had to make difficult decisions. For 72 days, the world thought they were dead. asked Parrado. According to Read, some rationalized the act of cannibalism as equivalent to the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ under the appearances of bread and wine. One helicopter remained behind in reserve. Due to the altitude and weight limits, the two helicopters were able to take only half of the survivors. In those intervening months 13 more of the 29 who made that pact died on the mountain, five from their injuries and eight more in a catastrophic avalanche that buried the stricken fuselage that had become their refuge. Surrounded by corpses frozen in the snow the group made the decision to eat from the bodies to stay alive. In a corner, survivors wept when officials unveiled a commemorative frame with pictures of those who died. At sunset, while sipping cognac that they had found in the tail section, Parrado said, "Roberto, can you imagine how beautiful this would be if we were not dead men? As a result, they brought only a three-day supply of meat. Hace 10 das que estamos caminando. The second flight of helicopters arrived the following morning at daybreak. I was very young. No tenemos comida. Updated on 13/10/2022 14:00A day like today, 50 years ago, happened [citation needed], As the men gathered wood to build a fire, one of them saw three men on horseback at the other side of the river. Instead, it was customary for this type of aircraft to fly a longer 600-kilometre (370mi), 90-minute U-shaped route[2] from Mendoza south to Malarge using the A7 airway (known today as UW44). They were actually more than 89km (55mi) to the east, deep in the Andes. They took over harvesting flesh from their deceased friends and distributing it to the others. It was Friday the 13th of October in 1972 when an Uruguayan aircraft carrying the Old Christians rugby team and their friends and family went down in the mountains in Argentina, near the border . We have many cases of people who - they decided to commit suicide. As some of the people die, the survivors are forced to make a terrible decision between starvation and cannibalism. We have to get out from here quickly and we don't know how. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. [2] Club president Daniel Juan chartered a Uruguayan Air Force twin turboprop Fairchild FH-227D to fly the team over the Andes to Santiago. They flew in heavy cloud cover under instrument conditions to Los Maitenes de Curic where the army interviewed Parrado and Canessa. [17][2], Even with this strict rationing, their food stock dwindled quickly. Sun 14 Oct 2012 09.29 EDT The surviving members of a Uruguayan rugby team have played a match postponed four decades ago when their plane crashed in the Andes, stranding them for 72 days. : the story of the Andes survivors, Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, I Am Alive: Surviving the Andes Plane Crash, Robindronath Ekhane Kawkhono Khete Aashenni, 1947 BSAA Avro Lancastrian Star Dust accident, Emergency position-indicating radiobeacon station, "A 40 aos del Milagro de los Andes (Accidente del FAU-571)", "The gravel road to Planchn Pass in the Andes", "When dead reckoning became deadly: remembering the Andes air disaster | Flight Safety Australia", "One Airline Career: I'm Alive: by AMS Pictures", "40 aos de la tragedia de los andes Militares en Taringa +11.200 Taringa", "Nando Parrado on his survival of the 1972 Andes air crash", "After the Plane Crash and the Cannibalism a Life of Hope", "ASN Aircraft accident Fairchild FH-227D T-571 El Tiburcio", "Uruguayan Air Force flight 571 | Crash, Rescue, & Facts", "True Survival Stories: Miracle In The Andes Survival Life", "Plane crash survivor describes the moment he resorted to cannibalism", "An iron cross in the mountains: The lonely site of the 1972 Andes flight disaster", "I Am Alive: The Crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571", "Survivor of 1972 Andes plane crash trusts Dallas firm to tell his tale in film | Cheryl Hall Columns Business News for Dallas, Texas The Dallas Morning News", "Survivor of 1972 Andes plane crash who resorted to cannibalism reveals struggle in new book, 'I Had to Survive' NY Daily News", "Alive: Rugby Team's Fabled Survival In Andes", "Sitio Oficial del accidente de los Andes Historia", "A Plane Carrying 45 People Crashed In The Andes 16 Of Them Survived By Eating The Others", "Alive: The Andes Accident 1972 | Official Site |", "Javier Methol: Businessman who survived for 72 days in the Andes after his plane crashed in 1972", "The Ghost of Uruguayan Air Force 571 Airpressman", "Fundadoras de la Biblioteca Nuestros hijos", "Tragedia de los Andes: sus protagonistas celebran la vida 40 aos despus", "Page in homage to victims by the survivors of the Andes", "*** Bruni Aventura *** San Rafael Mendoza Argentina", "December 23: On This Day in World History briefly", "Sergio Cataln who helped save Uruguayans in Andes in 1972 Passes Away", "Survivor of 1972 Andes Plane Crash Recalls How Victims Were Forced to Eat Friends' Bodies in New Book I Had to Survive", "Story Of The 1972 Andes Plane Crash In 'Out Of The Silence', "The director of 'Stranded' has lived with this story", "Stranded: The Andes Plane Crash Survivors", "2016 What Next Festival of Music brings opera back to Hamilton Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra", "The stories behind Ice Nine Kills' Every Trick In The Book album", Alive: Sixteen Men, Seventy-two Days, and Insurmountable Odds The Classic Adventure of Survival in the Andes, "Back to the Andes Expedition 2006 with one of the survivors", Expedition with live streaming of biometrics and geo-location, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571&oldid=1142432525, Parrado, Canessa and Vizintin set off to find help, Parrado and Canessa encounter Sergio Cataln, Esther Horta Prez de Nicola (wife of team physician), Eugenia Dolgay Diedug de Parrado (Fernando Parrado's mother), Lt. Col. Dante Hctor Lagurara (co-pilot), Graziela Augusto Gumila de Mariani (wedding guest), Susana Parrado (Fernando Parrado's sister), Liliana Navarro Petraglia de Methol (wife of Javier Methol), Gustavo "Coco" Nicolich* (veterinary student), Rafael Echavarren (dairy farming student), The incident is mentioned in the 1978 survival film, The incident is mentioned in a 2011 horror film, "The Plot Sickens", by the American metalcore band, The song "Snowcapped Andes Crash" appears on, This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 10:00. The ight carried forty-ve passengers, including f-teen members of the Old Christians Rugby team. Pic: Paramount / Touchstone Pictures, The group survived for two and a half months in the Andes, The players were part of the Old Christians rugby team, A 2002 image of Roberto Canessa (R) with Sergio Catalan - who found the men. We are weak. The flight time from the pass to Curic is normally 11 minutes, but only three minutes later the pilot told Santiago that they were passing Curic and turning north. After the initial shock of their plane crashing into the Andes mountains on that fateful Friday the 13th of October 1972, Harley and 31 other survivors found themselves in the pitch dark in minus . [17] On 21 October, after searching a total of 142 hours and 30 minutes, the searchers concluded that there was no hope and terminated the search. None of the passengers with compound fractures survived. It was awful and long nights. A new softcover edition, with a revised introduction and additional interviews with Piers Paul Read, Coche Inciarte, and Alvaro Mangino, was released by HarperCollins in 2005. Parrado ate a single chocolate-covered peanut over three days. But physically, it was very difficult to get it in the first day. "[11], Roberto Canessa later said that he thought the pilot turned north too soon, and began the descent to Santiago while the aircraft was still high in the Andes. Harley lay down to die, but Parrado would not let him stop and took him back to the fuselage. After the initial shock of their plane crashing into the Andes mountains on that fateful Friday the 13th of October 1972, Harley and 31 other survivors found themselves in the pitch dark in. We are surrounded with our friends, who died. News. His mother had taught him to sew when he was a boy, and with the needles and thread from the sewing kit found in his mother's cosmetic case, he began to work to speed the progress, Carlitos taught others to sew, and we all took our turns Coche [Inciarte], Gustavo [Zerbino], and Fito [Strauch] turned out to be our best and fastest tailors. If I die please use my body so at least one of us can get out of here and tell our families how much we love them.". In 1972, a charter jet carrying a Uruguayan rugby team across the Andes mountains crashed, eventually killing 29 of the 45 people on board. After numerous days spent searching for survivors, the rescue team was forced to end the search. After numerous days spent searching for survivors, the rescue team was forced to end the search. After some debate the next morning, they decided that it would be wiser to return to the tail, remove the aircraft's batteries, and take them back to the fuselage so they might power up the radio and make an SOS call to Santiago for help.[17]. 'Hey boys,' he shouted, 'there's some good news! "[12] The aircraft ground collision alarm sounded, alarming all of the passengers. [20], The group survived by collectively deciding to eat flesh from the bodies of their dead comrades. By the time he was rescued, there were a mere 37 kilograms on his 5.9-foot frame. Survivor Roberto Canessa described the decision to eat the pilots and their dead friends and family members: Our common goal was to survive but what we lacked was food. Por favor, no podemos ni caminar. By complete luck, the plane's wingless descent down into the snowbowl had found the only narrow chute without giant rocks and boulders. We were absolutely angry. England take on Uruguay in their final Rugby World Cup match this evening. STRAUCH: Even now, 47 years later, people - when they connect with our story, they get so many positive things for their lives. Eating human flesh doesnt taste like anything, really, said fellow survivor Carlitos Paez, the son of an Uruguayan artist. "The only reason why we're here alive today is because we had the goal of returning home (Our loved ones) gave us life. They followed the river and reached the snowline. They decided instead that it would be more effective to return to the fuselage and disconnect the radio system from the aircraft's frame, take it back to the tail, and connect it to the batteries. The book was published two years after the survivors of the crash were rescued. The snow had not melted at this time in the southern hemisphere spring; they hoped to find the bodies in December, when the snow melted in the summer. The plane crashed into the Andes mountains on Friday 13 October 1972. The Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 was the chartered flight of a Fairchild FH-227D from Montevideo, Uruguay to Santiago, Chile, that crashed in the Andes mountains on October 13, 1972.