On the evening of October 13, 1972, a Uruguayan Air Force plane disappears in the Andes. On board Flight 571 were 45 people - members of the Old Christians rugby club from Montevideo, their relatives and five crew members. The plane was supposed to reach Santiago, Chile, but due to bad weather it stopped in Mendoza, Argentina.
The flight was resumed the next day. On the approach to Santiago, the crew began to descend without the plane having passed the mountain ridge. The Fairchild FH-227D crashes into a slope at about 12,000 feet (3,600 m), loses parts of its wings, and skids through the snow before coming to rest in a remote valley. Twelve people die on impact or shortly after. The survivors build a shelter from the fuselage and wait for rescue teams, who do not know the exact location of the crash.
The Avalanche Changes Everything
Initially, 28 people remain alive after the crash. They have little food, their clothing is not suitable for the high mountain cold, and night temperatures drop below freezing. Some of the supplies run out in about a week. When they hear over the radio that the search has been called off, the group is faced with a choice between starving to death or using the bodies of those who have already died. The survivors later explained that they made the decision as a last resort to save their lives.
On October 29, an avalanche buried the hull, which had become their only shelter. Eight more people died, and the rest spent days under the snow before they were able to escape. The group then began to prepare an attempt to leave the mountain.
The Ten-Day Trek through the Andes
On December 12, Fernando Parrado, Roberto Cañesa, and Antonio Visintin set off on foot to seek help. Visintin returned to the others, while Parrado and Cañesa continued west. After ten days and dozens of kilometers, they met Chilean shepherd Sergio Catalan by a river in the foothills of the Andes.
Catalan realized that the two had survived a plane crash, and reported it to the authorities. The Chilean Air Force sent helicopters to the scene. On December 22, 14 people were found, and the last two were evacuated on December 23. Thus, after 72 days on the mountain, 16 of the 45 passengers and crew members returned alive.
Years later, Canessa described the cost of survival in the following words:
„The greatest sadness of my life was when I had to eat a dead body.“The story of Flight 571 has been told in books, documentaries, and feature films, but for the survivors it remains above all a memory of the people who did not leave the mountain alive.
Sources: theguardian.com, history.com