They called on the Andes Rescue Group of Chile (CSA). [35] On 23 December, news reports of cannibalism were published worldwide, except in Uruguay. By the time he was rescued, there were a mere 37 kilograms on his 5.9-foot frame. Canessa agreed to go west. Survivors made several brief expeditions in the immediate vicinity of the aircraft in the first few weeks after the crash, but they found that altitude sickness, dehydration, snow blindness, malnourishment, and the extreme cold during the nights made traveling any significant distance an impossible task.[7]. None of the passengers with compound fractures survived. [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. The aircraft carried 40 passengers and five crew members. Because of the co-pilot's dying statement that the aircraft had passed Curic, the group believed the Chilean countryside was just a few kilometres away to the west. Vierci, Paulo. 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. They were initially so revolted by the experience that they could eat only skin, muscle and fat. When he had boarded the ill-fated Uruguay Air Force plane for Chile, Harley weighed 84 kilograms. 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. [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. [17][26], They relayed news of the survivors to the Army command in San Fernando, Chile, who contacted the Army in Santiago. "With that, our suffering ended," Canessa said. In 1972, a charter jet carrying a Uruguayan rugby team across the Andes mountains crashed, eventually killing 29 of the 45 people on board. [49] Sergio Cataln died on 11 February 2020[50] at the age of 91. The plane, a twin-engine turboprop, was only four years old. Director Ren Cardona Writers Charles Blair Jr. (book) Ren Cardona Jr. Stars Pablo Ferrel Hugo Stiglitz Although there is a direct route from Mendoza to Santiago 200 kilometres (120mi) to the west, the high mountains require an altitude of 25,000 to 26,000 feet (7,600 to 7,900m), very close to the FH-227D's maximum operational ceiling of 28,000 feet (8,500m). The news of the missing flight reached Uruguayan media about 6:00p.m. that evening. Eduardo Strauch joins me now from Montevideo in Uruguay. "Out Of The Silence: After The Crash" is a story of endurance and the spiritual awakening that came after 72 days trapped in the Andes. Dnde estamos?English: I come from a plane that fell in the mountains. Rumors circulated in Montevideo immediately after the rescue that the survivors had killed some of the others for food. Valeta survived his fall, but stumbled down the snow-covered glacier, fell into deep snow, and was asphyxiated. 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). Vizintn and Parrado reached the base of a near-vertical wall more than one hundred meters (300 feet) tall encased in snow and ice. The survivors trapped inside soon realized they were running out of air. GARCIA-NAVARRO: At one point, you hear on the little radio that you have that the search for you all has been called off. We just heard on the radio. They also realized that unless they found a way to survive the freezing temperature of the nights, a trek was impossible. They also built a cross in the snow using luggage, but it was unseen by the search and rescue aircraft. The ight carried forty-ve passengers, including f-teen members of the Old Christians Rugby team. Lagurara failed to notice that instrument readings indicated he was still 6070km (3743mi) from Curic. Alive! The team's. The rescuers believed that no one could have survived the crash. Copyright 2019 NPR. Parrado finally persuaded Canessa to set out, and joined by Vizintn, the three men took to the mountain on 12 December. And that first night was really impossible to describe. 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. [26], It was now apparent that the only way out was to climb over the mountains to the west. And at the beginning, when I realized it was what I was going to do, my mind and my conscience was OK. But physically, it was very difficult to get it in the first day. [4], On the afternoon of 22 December 1972, the two helicopters carrying search and rescue personnel reached the survivors. "[16][17], With Perez dead, cousins Eduardo and Fito Strauch and Daniel Fernndez assumed leadership. "Since then I have enjoyed fully, carefully but without fear. They flew in heavy cloud cover under instrument conditions to Los Maitenes de Curic where the army interviewed Parrado and Canessa. He had prearranged with the priest who had buried his son to mark the bag containing his son's remains. Four planes searched that afternoon until dark. 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. STRAUCH: My body and my mind start expanding in the universe. Canessa agreed. "The only reason why we're here alive today is because we had the goal of returning home (Our loved ones) gave us life. Contact would have killed them all, but by a miracle they missed the obstacles and more than half of those onboard "barely had a scratch on them". Parrado lost more than seven stones (44kg) along the way, approaching half of his body weight. And the snow was all over the kerosene of the engines of the plane. In his memoir, Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home (2006), Nando Parrado wrote about this decision: At high altitude, the body's caloric needs are astronomical we were starving in earnest, with no hope of finding food, but our hunger soon grew so voracious that we searched anyway again and again, we scoured the fuselage in search of crumbs and morsels. The back half sheared off at cruising speed sending those at the rear of the plane tumbling to their deaths, and the front portion of the fuselage, minus any wings, shooting forwards like a torpedo over the ridge. For 72 days, the world thought they were dead. But could we do it? "[29] The next morning, the three men could see that the hike was going to take much longer than they had originally planned. Walter Clemons declared that it "will become a classic in the literature of survival."[2]. The next day, the man returned. Twenty-nine guys, we donated our bodies, hand in hand we made a pact. Parrado and Canessa hiked for several more days. Find the perfect 72 days stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. When the supply of flesh was diminished, they also ate hearts, lungs and even brains. The first edition was released in 1974. Parrado gave a similar shoe to his friends at the crash site before he left for the cordillera and guided rescuers back. For a long time, we agonized. Carlitos [Pez] took on the challenge. [34], Under normal circumstances, the search and rescue team would have brought back the remains of the dead for burial. It had its wings ripped off on impact, leading to the immediate death of 12 passengers and crew. 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. 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). They became sicker from eating these. To get there, the plane would have to fly over the snow-capped peaks of the Andes Mountains. Eating human flesh doesnt taste like anything, really, said fellow survivor Carlitos Paez, the son of an Uruguayan artist. Canessa used broken glass from the aircraft windshield as a cutting tool. Hace 10 das que estamos caminando. He was in the ninth row of seats. They felt that the faith and friendship which inspired them in the cordillera do not emerge from these pages. To try to keep out some of the cold, they used luggage, seats, and snow to close off the open end of the fuselage. The second flight of helicopters arrived the following morning at daybreak. This decision was not taken lightly, as most of the dead were classmates, close friends, or relatives. 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. STRAUCH: Yeah. Inside the crowded aircraft there was silence. [17], It was still bitterly cold, but the sleeping bag allowed them to live through the nights. They followed the river and reached the snowline. We have just some chocolates and biscuits for 29 people, so we start getting very weak immediately. Of the 45 passengers aboard, 16 survived by feeding on dead family members and friends preserved in the snow. One helicopter remained behind in reserve. They hoped to get to Chile to the west, but a large mountain lay west of the crash site, persuading them to try heading east first. But at the same time, he found that he had grown spiritually during his ordeal in the mountains. Fairly early on, you say that hearing your cousin Adolfo say out loud what many were thinking - that you were going to have to eat the bodies - gave you a kind of relief. And at the end - absolutely disconnected with the origin of that food. Surrounded by corpses frozen in the snow the group made the decision to eat from the bodies to stay alive. They couldn't help everyone. Parrado called them, but the noise of the river made it impossible to communicate. 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 they flew through the Andes, clouds obscured the mountains. Twenty-nine people initially survived that crash, and their story of struggle in the mountains became the subject of books and movies, most famously "Alive." EFL: Boro, Birmingham, Rotherham lead LIVE! 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. Editorial ALreves, S.L., Bercelona, Spain, Read, Piers Paul. When they rested that evening they were very tired, and Canessa seemed unable to proceed further. "You and I are friends, Nando. On Friday, the 13th of October, 1972, a charter plane carrying 45 passengers, including a college rugby team, vanished over the desolate, snow-covered Andes Mountains. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. [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. The news of their miraculous survival drew world-wide headlines that grew into a media circus. Unknown to any of the team members, the aircraft's electrical system used 115 volts AC, while the battery they had located produced 24 volts DC,[4] making the plan futile from the beginning. A few seconds later, Daniel Shaw and Carlos Valeta fell out of the rear fuselage. 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. After just a few days, we were feeling the sensation of our own bodies consuming themselves just to remain alive. And there were already signs that the flight wouldn't be easy. STRAUCH: Even now, 47 years later, people - when they connect with our story, they get so many positive things for their lives. On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 left the city of Mendoza, Argentina carrying the Old Christians Rugby Club of Montevideo, Uruguay to a scheduled game in Santiago, Chile. 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.