GARCIA-NAVARRO: Strauch finally decided to tell his story publicly after a mountaineer discovered his jacket and wallet at the crash site years later and returned it to him. Now let's go die together. But they did. And all that with only human flesh to sustain them. It had its wings ripped off on impact, leading to the immediate death of 12 passengers and crew. They had no technical gear, no map or compass, and no climbing experience. Not immediately rescued, the survivors turned to cannibalism to survive, and were saved after 72 days. pp. The steep terrain only permitted the pilot to touch down with a single skid. I was very young. [40] The father of one victim had received word from a survivor that his son wished to be buried at home. "Discipline, teamwork, endurance. They also realized that unless they found a way to survive the freezing temperature of the nights, a trek was impossible. Vierci, Paulo. We have just some chocolates and biscuits for 29 people, so we start getting very weak immediately. Before long, we would become too weak to recover from starvation. The plane slammed into a mountainside in rough weather when the pilot veered off-course. He was accompanied by co-pilot Lieutenant-Colonel Dante Hctor Lagurara. Parrado was one of 45 rugby players, family, friends and crew making a routine flight across the Andes from Uruguay to Chile. "[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. EFL: Boro, Birmingham, Rotherham lead LIVE! [4], The survivors slept a final night in the fuselage with the search and rescue party. Editorial ALreves, S.L., Bercelona, Spain, Read, Piers Paul. "I came back to life after having died," said Parrado, whose mother and sister died in the Andes. Along with the 40 on board, there were five crew on the chartered flight on October 13, 1972 Friday the 13th. I am Uruguayan. 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. It filled the fuselage and killed eight people: Enrique Platero, Liliana Methol, Gustavo Nicolich, Daniel Maspons, Juan Menendez, Diego Storm, Carlos Roque, and Marcelo Perez. Unable to obtain official permission to retrieve his son's body, Ricardo Echavarren mounted an expedition on his own with hired guides. It was hard to put in your mouth, recalled Sabella, a successful businessman. [38] The news of their survival and the actions required to live drew world-wide attention and grew into a media circus. [15], The authorities and the victims' families decided to bury the remains near the site of the crash in a common grave. The survivors were forced to resort to extreme measures to stay alive. Parrado gave a similar shoe to his friends at the crash site before he left for the cordillera and guided rescuers back. We had long since run out of the meagre pickings we'd found on the plane, and there was no vegetation or animal life to be found. We just heard on the radio. asked Parrado. Surrounded by corpses frozen in the snow the group made the decision to eat from the bodies to stay alive. 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]. Paez shouted angrily at Nicolich. By the time he was rescued, there were a mere 37 kilograms on his 5.9-foot frame. Had we turned into brute savages? Where are we? During the following 72 days, the survivors suffered extreme hardships, including exposure, starvation, and an avalanche, which led to the deaths of thirteen more passengers. Inside the crowded aircraft there was silence. 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 . [24][25] With considerable difficulty, on the morning of 31 October, they dug a tunnel from the cockpit to the surface, only to encounter a furious blizzard that left them no choice but to stay inside the fuselage. 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. The remaining portion of the fuselage slid down a glacier at an estimated 350km/h (220mph) and descended about 725 metres (2,379ft) before crashing into ice and snow. They were treated for a variety of conditions, including altitude sickness, dehydration, frostbite, broken bones, scurvy, and malnutrition. [17], It was still bitterly cold, but the sleeping bag allowed them to live through the nights. But physically, it was very difficult to get it in the first day. Enrique Platero had a piece of metal stuck in his abdomen that when removed brought a few inches of intestine with it, but he immediately began helping others. [33] A flood of international reporters began walking several kilometers along the route from Puente Negro to Termas del Flaco. [5][6] Once across the mountains in Chile, south of Curic, the aircraft was supposed to turn north and initiate a descent into Pudahuel Airport in Santiago. On that morning conditions over the Andes had not improved but changes were expected by the early afternoon. 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. All hope seemed lost when they located the broken off tail of the plane, found batteries to get the radio to work, only to hear via a crackly message over the airwaves on their 10th day on the mountain that the search had been called off. By complete luck, the plane's wingless descent down into the snowbowl had found the only narrow chute without giant rocks and boulders. Hace 10 das que estamos caminando. [15], They continued east the next morning. The Chilean military photographed the bodies and mapped the area. 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 news of the missing flight reached Uruguayan media about 6:00p.m. that evening. This decision was not taken lightly, as most of the dead were classmates, close friends, or relatives. With no choice, the survivors ate the bodies of their dead friends.[15][17]. It was very difficult because the weather was very cold. 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. Three crew members and nine passengers died immediately; several more died soon afterward due to the frigid temperatures and the severity of their injuries. STRAUCH: My body and my mind start expanding in the universe. And at last, I was convinced that it was the only way to live. Parrado took the lead and the other two often had to remind him to slow down, although the thin oxygen-poor air made it difficult for all of them. How so? On the third day, they reach Las Lgrimas glacier, where the remains of the accident are found. They followed the river and reached the snowline. Survivors were forced to eat the bodies of their dead friends, a. Instead, I lasted 72 days. Piers Paul Read's book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors described the moments after this discovery: The others who had clustered around Roy, upon hearing the news, began to sob and pray, all except [Nando] Parrado, who looked calmly up at the mountains which rose to the west. [3] Two more passengers fell out of the open rear of the fuselage. Parrado ate a single chocolate-covered peanut over three days. They couldn't help everyone. The inexperienced co-pilot, Lieutenant-Colonel Dante Hctor Lagurara, was at the controls when the accident occurred. [English: The world to its Uruguayan brothersClose, oh God, to you], They doused the remains of the fuselage in gasoline and set it alight. But it didn't. "[17] Parrado saw two smaller peaks on the western horizon that were not covered in snow. [1], The book was a critical success. They trekked for over ten days, traveling 61 km (38 miles). We were absolutely angry. Eventually spotted by a peasant farmer in the Chilean foothills they reached help and returned via helicopter to rescue the rest of those waiting to die in the mountains. The 28 people crammed themselves into the broken fuselage in a space about 2.5 by 3 metres (8ft 2in 9ft 10in). Fell from aircraft, missing: The survivors' courage under extremely adverse conditions has been described as "a beacon of hope to [their] generation, showing what can be accomplished with persistence and determination in the presence of unsurpassable odds, and set our minds to attain a common aim". The passengers removed the broken seats and other debris from the aircraft and fashioned a crude shelter. Nando Parrado described in his book, Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home, how they came up with the idea of making a sleeping bag: The second challenge would be to protect ourselves from exposure, especially after sundown. The book inspired the song "The Plot Sickens" on the album Every Trick in the Book by the American metalcore band Ice Nine Kills. 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. But this story has endured, and at the time, in the early 70s, became controversial, because of what happened next. Alive! At times I was tempted to fictionalize certain parts of the story because this might have added to their dramatic impact but in the end I decided that the bare facts were sufficient to sustain the narrativewhen I returned in October 1973 to show them the manuscript of this book, some of them were disappointed by my presentation of their story. Por favor, no podemos ni caminar. F1 qualifying: Leclerc leads Verstappen, Mercedes into epic pole shootout LIVE! As the hopelessness of their predicament enveloped them, they wept. Instead of climbing the ridge to the west which was somewhat lower than the peak, they climbed straight up the steep mountain. A half century after their plane crashed into the Andes, the survivors who resorted to cannibalism to stay alive came together this week in Uruguay to remember their grisly ordeal. Catalan, who rode to the nearest town to alert rescuers, returned to meet the survivors on Saturday in a hat and poncho. The ordeal "taught me that we set our own limits", he said. Tenemos que salir rpido de aqu y no sabemos cmo. On this flight he was training co-pilot Lagurara, who was at the controls. The harsh conditions gave searchers little hope that they would find anyone alive. It is south of the 4,650 metres (15,260ft) high Mount Seler, the mountain they later climbed and which Nando Parrado named after his father. At Canessa's urging, they waited nearly seven days to allow for higher temperatures. Javier Methol and his wife Liliana, the only surviving female passenger, were the last survivors to eat human flesh. He used a stick from his pack to carve steps in the wall. We are weak. The snow that had buried the fuselage gradually melted as summer arrived. Upon returning to the tail, the trio found that the 24-kilogram (53lb) batteries were too heavy to take back to the fuselage, which lay uphill from the tail section. View history Miracle in the Andes (in Spanish "Milagro en los Andes") is a 2006 non-fiction account of a rugby team's survival on a glacier in the Andes for 72 days by survivor Nando Parrado and co-author Vince Rause. Another survivor Daniel Fernandez, 66, held the trophy that would have been the reward for the game to be played the day of the crash. We have to melt snow. The plane, a twin-engine turboprop, was only four years old. [15][16], At least four died from the impact of the fuselage hitting the snow bank, which ripped the remaining seats from their anchors and hurled them to the front of the plane: team physician Dr. Francisco Nicola and his wife Esther Nicola; Eugenia Parrado and Fernando Vazquez (medical student). Thinking of the suffering that must have caused our families at home made us even more determined to survive, said Sabella. The last eight survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force plane crash in the Andes in South America, huddle together in the craft's fuselage on their final night before rescue on Dec. 22, 1972.. Uruguayan Air Force flight 571 was flying members of a college rugby team and their relatives from Uruguay's capital Montevideo to Santiago, Chile, for a rugby game. 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). The group survived for two and a half months in the Andes In bad. The accident and subsequent survival became known as the Andes flight disaster (Tragedia de los Andes) and the Miracle of the Andes (Milagro de los Andes). Then, "he began to climb, until the plane was nearly vertical and it began to stall and shake. The boys, from Uruguay's coast had never seen snow before. And that first night was really impossible to describe. The front portion of the fuselage flew straight through the air before sliding down the steep glacier at 350km/h (220mph) like a high-speed toboggan and descended about 725 metres (2,379ft). The film explores the true story of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972. Vizintn and Parrado reached the base of a near-vertical wall more than one hundred meters (300 feet) tall encased in snow and ice. When he had boarded the ill-fated Uruguay Air Force plane for Chile, Harley weighed 84 kilograms. 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 . It was one of the greatest survival stories in human history, perhaps THE greatest. Available for both RF and RM licensing. When the fuselage collided with a snow bank, the seats were torn from their base and thrown against the forward bulkhead and each other. NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with him about his story of hope in his book, Out of the Silence: After. After 10 days of trekking, they spotted Sergio Catalan, a livestock herder in the foothills of the Chilean Andes. - those first few days. In 1972, Canessa was a 19-year-old medical student accompanying his rugby team on a trip from Uruguay to attend a match in nearby Chile. Canessa used broken glass from the aircraft windshield as a cutting tool. Uruguayan Flight 571 was set to take a team of amateur rugby players and. This was possible because the bodies had been preserved with the freezing temperatures and the snow. [4], The Chilean Air Force provided three Bell UH-1 helicopters to assist with the rescue. Today, we're here to win a game," crash survivor Pedro Algorta, 61, said as he prepared to walk on to the playing field surrounded by the cordillera the jagged mountains that trapped the group. 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]. [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. As some of the people die, the survivors are forced to make a terrible decision between starvation and cannibalism. On the second day, 11 aircraft from Argentina, Chile and Uruguay searched for the downed flight. The courage of this one boy prevented a flood of total despair. Meanwhile, Parrado and Canessa were brought on horseback to Los Maitenes de Curic, where they were fed and allowed to rest. In a sense, our friends were some of the first organ donors in the world they helped to nourish us and kept us alive., The group made their decision after consuming the food they had on the plane, which included eight chocolate bars, a tin of mussels, three small jars of jam, some almonds and dates and several bottles of wine. [47] The trip to the location takes three days. On the return trip, they were struck by a blizzard. He compared their actions to that of Jesus Christ at the Last Supper, during which he gave his disciples the Eucharist. Last photo of . During the first night, five more people died: co-pilot Lagurara, Francisco Abal, Graziela Mariani, Felipe Maquirriain, and Julio Martinez-Lamas. From there, aircraft flew west via the G-17 (UB684) airway, crossing Planchn to the Curic radiobeacon in Chile, and from there north to Santiago.[3][4]. Some feared eternal damnation. But we got used to it. [17][2], Even with this strict rationing, their food stock dwindled quickly. When someone cancelled at the last minute, Graziela Mariani bought the seat so she could attend her oldest daughter's wedding. Due to the altitude and weight limits, the two helicopters were able to take only half of the survivors. [5][14], The plane fuselage came to rest on a glacier at 344554S 701711W / 34.76500S 70.28639W / -34.76500; -70.28639 at an elevation of 3,570 metres (11,710ft) in the Malarge Department, Mendoza Province. [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. [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 built a fire and stayed up late reading comic books. STRAUCH: Yeah. I tried to enjoy my friend, my dog, my passions, a second at a time," said Parrado, who has since worked as a TV host, race car driver and motivational speaker. 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. Photograph. He walked slowly with the aid of a cane and pointed at the sky when helicopters hovered over the field just as they did 40 years ago. Plane crash victim recounts the desperation that led him to eat friends for survival . 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. Carlos Pez, 58, waved a small red shoe at a helicopter carrying Parrado, as he did when the Chilean air force rescued him and the others. [12][37] The survivors received public backlash initially, but after they explained the pact the survivors had made to sacrifice their flesh if they died to help the others survive, the outcry diminished and the families were more understanding. Later on, several others did the same. 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. [2], Upon being rescued, the survivors initially explained that they had eaten some cheese and other food they had carried with them, and then local plants and herbs. And we can change the direction of our life if we propose to do it. "That was probably the moment when the pilots saw the black ridge rising dead ahead. 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. It had its wings ripped off on impact, leading to the immediate death of 12 passengers and crew. They had hiked about 38km (24mi) over 10 days. We ripped open seat cushions hoping to find straw, but found only inedible upholstery foam Again and again, I came to the same conclusion: unless we wanted to eat the clothes we were wearing, there was nothing here but aluminum, plastic, ice, and rock. Please, we cannot even walk. Lagurara radioed the Malarge airport with their position and told them they would reach 2,515 metres (8,251ft) high Planchn Pass at 3:21p.m. Planchn Pass is the air traffic control hand-off point from one side of the Andes to the other, with controllers in Mendoza transferring flight tracking duties over to Pudahuel air traffic control in Santiago, Chile. Parrado called them, but the noise of the river made it impossible to communicate. The story of the 16 survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which was chartered to take an amateur rugby team from Montevideo to Santiago, Chile, in 1972 was immortalized in the best-selling book, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read. Eduardo Strauch survived the 1972 Andes plane crash of the Uruguayan rugby team. They dried the meat in the sun, which made it more palatable. [2] He asked one of the passengers to find his pistol and shoot him, but the passenger declined. After just a few days, we were feeling the sensation of our own bodies consuming themselves just to remain alive. [26], Parrado wore three pairs of jeans and three sweaters over a polo shirt. [17][26], Gradually, there appeared more and more signs of human presence; first some evidence of camping, and finally on the ninth day, some cows. And there were already signs that the flight wouldn't be easy. We helped many, many cases, and it's really amazing that so much suffering, 47 years later, became something so positive for me and for so many people. But it was impossible to get the proteins from there, so we start a mental process to convince our minds that was the only way. The plane slammed into a mountainside in rough weather when the pilot veered off-course. On 15 November, after several hours of walking east, the trio found the largely intact tail section of the aircraft containing the galley about 1.6km (1mi) east and downhill of the fuselage. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. They became sicker from eating these. Witness accounts and evidence at the scene indicated the plane struck the mountain either two or three times. I get used to. Officers of the Chilean SARS listened to the radio transmissions and concluded the aircraft had come down in one of the most remote and inaccessible areas of the Andes. [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. They were actually more than 89km (55mi) to the east, deep in the Andes. Truly, we were pushing the limits of our fear. [3][2], The aircraft continued forward and upward another 200 meters (660ft) for a few more seconds when the left wing struck an outcropping at 4,400 meters (14,400ft), tearing off the wing. NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with him about his story of hope in his book, Out of the Silence: After the Crash. In 2007, Chilean arriero Sergio Cataln was interviewed on Chilean television during which he revealed that he had leg (hip) arthrosis. GARCIA-NAVARRO: At one point, you hear on the little radio that you have that the search for you all has been called off. In a corner, survivors wept when officials unveiled a commemorative frame with pictures of those who died. He had prearranged with the priest who had buried his son to mark the bag containing his son's remains. They were initially so revolted by the experience that they could eat only skin, muscle and fat. The survivors found a small transistor radio jammed between seats on the aircraft, and Roy Harley improvised a very long antenna using electrical cable from the plane. It was later made into a Hollywood movie in 1993. [17][26], They relayed news of the survivors to the Army command in San Fernando, Chile, who contacted the Army in Santiago. Canessa agreed to go west. We have a very small space. The book was published two years after the survivors of the crash were rescued. Unknown to the people on board, or the rescuers, the flight had crashed about 21km (13mi) from the former Hotel Termas el Sosneado, an abandoned resort and hot springs that might have provided limited shelter.[2]. Parrado disagreed and they argued without reaching a decision. 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. Rescue they felt would come. We wondered whether we were going mad even to contemplate such a thing. That must have been devastating. Numa Turcatti, whose extreme revulsion for eating the meat dramatically accelerated his physical decline, died on day 60 (11 December) weighing only 25 kg (55 pounds). Can you talk a little bit about that? There was no natural vegetation and there were no animals on either the glacier or nearby snow-covered mountain. [22][23], Seventeen days after the crash, near midnight on 29 October, an avalanche struck the aircraft containing the survivors as they slept. Search efforts were cancelled after eight days. Transfer Centre LIVE! Four members of the search and rescue team volunteered to stay with the seven survivors remaining on the mountain. Given the pilot's dying statement that they were near Curic, they believed that they were near the western edge of the Andes, and that the closest help lay in that direction. [32][26], When the news broke out that people had survived the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, the story of the passengers' survival after 72 days drew international attention. None of the passengers with compound fractures survived. Search efforts were canceled after eight days.[1]. I gagged hard when I placed it in my mouth. La sociedad de la nieve, 2nd ed. Upon his return to the abandoned Hotel Termas with his son's remains, he was arrested for grave robbing. 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. [42], The story of the crash is described in the Andes Museum 1972, dedicated in 2013 in Ciudad Vieja, Montevideo. He has made them human. On the second day, Canessa thought he saw a road to the east, and tried to persuade Parrado to head in that direction. 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. Three passengers, the navigator, and the steward were lost with the tail section. He also described the book as an important one: Cowardice, selfishness, whatever: their essential heroism can weather Read's objectivity.
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