A film about the disaster in the Andes 1972. Unknown facts about the most tragic plane crash in the history of the country: a plane crash on a kindergarten

Every year on December 22, a group of people meet in Uruguay. They remember 72 cold days when they had to survive in the mountains, eating exclusively human flesh.

This was in October 1972. The Uruguayan youth rugby team flew to Chile with friends and relatives, 45 people in total with the crew. In order to fly from Uruguay to Chile in a small plane, you first had to fly south for a long time over Argentina, go around southern part Andes, and then fly north, because it is not safe to fly directly over the mountains. However, the pilot turned north in the wrong place, the plane hit a mountain peak and fell to pieces. The fuselage with all the passengers rolled down the snow like a sleigh down onto the plateau. During the crash, 12 people died, five more were missing. The next day they will be found dead.

Of the 45 passengers and crew members, 12 died in the accident or shortly thereafter; then five more died the next morning. The surviving 28 people faced the problem of survival in the harsh climatic conditions. People did not have warm clothes and shoes, nor climbing equipment, no medicines. To somehow help the wounded comrades, two first-year students from the medical college made hammocks and medical splints from the wreckage of the aircraft.

The captain of the sports team, Nando Parrado, who had been laid with the corpses, had lain in the snow at a temperature of minus thirty for several tens of hours, woke up. The doctors who examined him later said that it was precisely the fact that they thought he was dead and put him in the cold that saved him. Such cryotherapy slowed down all processes in the body, and the hemorrhage in the brain that arose after a head injury and caused a coma stopped, and the brain managed to recover.

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On the plane with Nando were his mother and younger sister. The mother died, and the sister was seriously injured and did not regain consciousness. Nando crawled up to his sister, hugged her and held her until she died - four nights and three days.

There is a saying: Marry a poor man and the night is short. In other words, failures simply haunted the passengers of the ill-fated flight. Not only that, they, who had never seen snow, were left without food, shelter and warm clothes in an absolutely deserted winter area at an altitude of 3600 meters. Two weeks later, the survivors were covered by an avalanche, and there were no more eight passengers. For three days, the living, along with the corpses, were squeezed by snow in the cramped space of the remnants of the aircraft. To save everyone, Parrado, already mentioned above, knocked out a small window in the cockpit with his feet. Three people died from wounds and frostbite in the following days. In total, only 16 of the 45 passengers survived. 11 days after the crash, they heard on the radio that their search had been stopped and they were all declared dead. The fact is that the crashed plane was white and merged with the snow-covered mountain landscape.

The survivors had a meager supply of food: a few bars of chocolate, some crackers, and a few bottles of liquor. In order to save money, all this was divided equally and stretched over several days. Water was obtained by placing snow on metal plates and melting it in the sun.

They had plenty of water - people melted snow on sheets of aluminum cladding and poured water into bottles, and then kept them under their clothes, preventing the water from freezing. There was no food at all. Given the fact that there was nowhere to wait for salvation, the living decided to eat the dead. It didn't come easy for everyone. The survivors were Catholics, and the need to eat human flesh offended their religious beliefs. In addition, many of the dead were someone's relatives or close friends. Apparently, therefore, they decided to start the meal with a particularly unknown and guilty pilot in the accident.

Even before the avalanche, the survivors realized that help would not come and they had to save themselves.

But, even with all the corpses, this source of food was exhausted, so the passengers had to figure out how to save themselves. Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa, Numa Turcatti and Antonio Visintin decided to move west to reach the Green Valleys of Chile. According to the pilots, these valleys should have been several miles west of the crash site. 18-year-old Kanessa did not dare to go on a campaign for a long time, offering to wait for the end of winter. However, the rest decided to go no matter what. The beginning of the campaign was successful, the members of the expedition accidentally stumbled upon the tail of the aircraft, which had come off during the fall, along with the luggage. In the suitcases they found chocolate, cigarettes, clean clothes, in addition, there were charged batteries. On the second night, the weather deteriorated sharply, and the travelers almost died from the cold. It became clear that it was not so easy to pass through the mountains.
I had to go back to the fuselage, and all together sew a sleeping bag from pieces of cloth obtained in the tail.
Batteries were useless. At first they wanted to use them to transmit a distress signal, but nothing happened. Batteries gave out direct current, but an alternating current was needed.

On October 29, while the survivors were sleeping, an avalanche descended from the mountains to the valley where the fuselage was located. Eight more people died because of this natural disaster. For three days, the living, along with the corpses, were squeezed by snow in the cramped space of the remnants of the aircraft. Then Nando Parrado knocked out a small window in the cockpit with his feet, which saved people from suffocation.

And again, three brave ones set off in search of saving valleys. But on the third day, they realized that it would take a long time to go, so Parrado and Canessa sent Visintin back to the camp, and they themselves, having taken supplies of human meat from him, went on.
Soon this food thawed and rancid. Roberto fell ill with dysentery and Nando practically dragged him on himself. On the evening of the ninth day, Roberto saw a rancher on the bank of the river they had reached. The next morning, he saw them too, but could not believe that two guys had come from somewhere in this wilderness, disheveled, terribly thin, frostbitten. The mountain river made a terrible noise, and Nando and Roberto could not hear the rancheros, and he could not hear them. But the ranchero was very resourceful. He took out a piece of paper and a piece of coal and threw them to the other side. Nando scribbled their history and request for help on a piece of paper, and the ranchero galloped off, but before that he transferred Nando and Roberto some of his supplies - bread and cheese. It was the seventy-first day since the accident.
The next day, the ranchero returned with help. Roberto was sent to the hospital, and Nando escorted the rescuers by helicopter to their comrades in misfortune. Because of bad weather on that day - December 22 - only half of the passengers were picked up, the rest were left with food and water. They were all taken the next day.
The rescued had to be nursed for a long time: they were treated for altitude sickness and dehydration, scurvy and malnutrition. But already on December 28, the barely alive lucky ones gave a big press conference dedicated to their miraculous salvation.

34.765 , -70.286389  /  (G)(O)

Comodoro Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport
Santiago, Chile

Plane crash in the Andes on October 13, 1972, also known as Miracle in the Andes (El Milagro de los Andes) is a crash charter flight number 571 of the Uruguayan Air Force with 5 crew members and 40 Uruguayan passengers on board (members of the rugby team, their relatives, crew, sponsors). The disaster occurred over the Andes on October 13, 1972. More than a quarter of the passengers died in the fall and collision with a rock, several more died later from wounds and cold. Then, out of the remaining 27 survivors, another 8 died during an avalanche that covered their “home” from the fuselage of the aircraft, and later three more died of wounds.

The survivors had a minimal supply of food, in addition, they lacked the heat sources necessary to survive in the harsh cold climate at an altitude of 3600 meters. Desperate from hunger and radio reports that "all activities to search for the missing aircraft are stopped," people began to eat the frozen bodies of their dead comrades. Rescuers did not learn about the survivors until 72 days later, when two passengers, Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, after a ten-day hike through the mountains, found a Chilean farmer who gave them food and informed the authorities about the rest of the passengers on the flight.

crash

When the pilot reported the passage of Curico, the air traffic controller cleared the descent to Santiago. This was a fatal mistake. The plane flew into the cyclone and began to descend, focusing only on time. When the cyclone was passed, it became clear that they were flying straight to the rock and there was no way to avoid the collision. As a result, the plane caught the top of the peak with its tail. Due to impacts on the rocks and the ground, the car lost its tail and wings. The fuselage rolled at great speed down the slope until it crashed nose into blocks of snow. Place of fall Coordinates : 34°45′54″ S sh. 70°17′11″ W d. /  34.765°S sh. 70.286389° W d.(G)(O)-34.765 , -70.286389 34°45′54″ S sh. 70°17′11″ W d. /  34.765°S sh. 70.286389° W d.(G)(O)(province of Mendoza).

First days

Of the 45 passengers and crew members, 12 died in the accident or shortly thereafter; then five more died the next morning. The surviving 28 people faced the problem of survival in harsh climatic conditions. People had neither warm clothes and shoes, nor climbing equipment, nor medicines. To somehow help the wounded comrades, two first-year students from the medical college made hammocks and medical splints from the wreckage of the aircraft.

search operations

Authorities three countries immediately began operations to search for the missing plane from the radar. But, since it was white and practically merged with the mountain landscape, it was never found. On the eighth day, all search operations were stopped. The passengers on the flight found a small radio and Roy Harley was the first to hear the news on the eleventh day after the crash.

Cannibalism

The survivors had a meager supply of food: a few bars of chocolate, some crackers, and a few bottles of liquor. In order to save money, all this was divided equally and stretched over several days. Water was obtained by placing snow on metal plates and melting it in the sun.

Even with austerity, food supplies quickly ran out. In addition, there were no plants or animals around. In order not to die of hunger, it was decided to eat meat from the bodies of dead comrades. This decision was not easy, since each of the dead was someone else's friend, classmate or relative.

All the passengers on the plane were Catholics and at first perceived this proposal as offensive and inappropriate. But after a few days, exhausted by hunger, they changed their minds on this matter.

Avalanche

12 December

Chronology of events

October 1972

November 1972

December 1972

List of passengers

Crew

• Colonel Julio Ferradas, pilot
• Lieutenant Colonel Dante Laguara, co-pilot
• Lieutenant Ramon Martinez
• Corporal Carlos Roque
• Corporal Ovidio Joaquin Ramirez

Passengers

(survivors are marked in bold)

Subsequent events

Memorial dead passengers flight 571

A participant in these events, Fernando Parrado, published his feelings at that time in the form of a book, excerpts from which we present.

"Old Christians" in full force

Throughout the summer of 1972, Nando Parrado, a 22-year-old student at the prestigious Stella Marie Catholic College in Montevideo, was a happy beach bum. He drove friends in his Renault along the ocean coast, swam in deserted lagoons, took pictures of girls and, after eating his mother's dinner at home, went to the training of the university rugby team. In autumn, the Old Christians, one of the best rugby teams in Uruguay, were supposed to fly to Chile to play a friendly there.

Their relatives and friends also went to cheer for the athletes and look at another country. The merry company bought a twin-engine Fairchild, which accommodated 45 people, including the crew. On October 12, Nando, along with his mother, his beloved sister Susie and friends, climbed into the plane, looking forward to new experiences.

On Friday, October 13, a Fairchild with passengers on board touched a nameless rock in the Andes at an altitude of 4000 meters.

Why is it so cold? What happened to the head? It seems that blood clots have dried up in my hair ... I almost threw up when I realized that I was pressing pieces of a crushed skull right into my brain. I lay in a coma for more than two days and woke up to see a nightmare in reality.

When Nando came to his senses, several teammates were sitting nearby, who explained to him what had happened. After a collision with a rock, both wings and tail were torn off from their plane. The mangled fuselage was buried in the snow, which somewhat softened the blow. Thanks to this, 28 out of 45 people survived. Nando's mother died, 19-year-old Susie was seriously injured and did not come to her senses.

At night it was so cold on the snow that one could only sleep inside the fuselage. During the day, the survivors went outside and tried to signal to the rescuers. They were obviously looking for: two planes flew by, but they did not notice the people waving their hands. All that was left was to gather all the strength and wait.

There was a camera in one of the suitcases. In the first weeks of waiting, the guys took a lot of pictures

With a frozen look, I looked at her and realized that the smell of blood made my hunger completely unbearable.

Nando spent the next few days next to his sister. He warmed her legs and arms, drowned water in his palms to drink her, and all the time whispered that the worst thing would soon end - they would be found and taken home. On the eighth night, Nando felt that Susie's body in his arms was different. She somehow relaxed, and then stopped breathing. The next morning he buried his sister next to his mother.

Now he fully realized the full horror of the situation. Mountains and snow stretched all around to the horizon. No vegetation, no animals. A few days ago, the pitiful supply of nuts, cheese and wine that they were supposed to be given on the flight had run out. Only in order to keep warm, the young organisms of the guys burned a huge amount of energy, so that food soon turned into an obsession.

Nando furiously joined his comrades, who spent days methodically inspecting the luggage and pockets of the dead in search of something edible. They turned over all the stones around the crash site, thinking to find sprouts or worms, but at such a height there was only frozen earth under the stones. They tried to eat the leather straps of bags, although they understood that chemically treated leather was unlikely to benefit their unfortunate stomachs. They eventually opened up the plane's seats because someone suggested there might be straw in there. But they only found artificial foam.

It was evening, we climbed into the fuselage and got ready for bed. My eyes fell on the wounded leg of a young guy who was lying not far from me. The center of the wound was wet, and the edges were caked with blood. With a frozen look, I looked at her and realized that the smell of blood made my hunger completely unbearable. Suddenly I realized that all my comrades were looking at the wound. We looked away and went about our business. At that moment, something changed in me: I became aware of human flesh as a potential food.

In the morning, the survivors languidly continued to search for food, at the same time everyone felt that their only way out of the situation had already become obvious to the whole group.

On the ninth day after the crash, medical student Roberto Canessa, who also played in the Old Christians, gathered everyone near the remains of the plane. He said that the guys have two options. The first is to lie down in the fuselage, save energy and wait for them to be rescued. The second is to start eating the frozen bodies of the dead: the flesh is no longer needed by the dead. Then the rest will have the strength to try to get out of the trap themselves. You need to explore the surroundings, find the tail of the plane, which should have batteries - with their help you can revive the transmitter in the cockpit and give people a signal for help. The mechanic told him about this before his death.

There was a heavy pause. “Will God forgive us this?” whispered one of the Old Christians. “God will not forgive if you refuse to live,” Roberto replied. In the end, they all ate the "body of Christ" and drank its "blood" during communion. The discussion about the ethical side of the issue continued until the evening, but none of the guys spoke out categorically against it.

With the onset of darkness, the debaters fell silent: everyone realized that they had reached an agreement. It remained to decide who would deal with the practical side of the decision. Who is brave enough to cut meat off a dead friend? "I will do it," said Roberto. Another medical student volunteered to go with him.

After that, all the survivors joined hands and agreed that in the event of the death of any of them, the rest have the right to eat his body.

They went to the graves. You could hear the guys talking quietly during their terrible work. Pretty soon Roberto and Gustavo returned. They brought small pieces of grey-white frozen meat, hard as wood. I looked at my piece for a long time before putting it in my mouth. Once or twice I chewed it without feeling the taste. Then he made an effort and swallowed. I was promised that the bodies of my mother and sister would not be touched. Even without them, the meat would last for many weeks. Reassured by this thought, we fell asleep.

The next day, for the first time, people woke up with a desire to do something. An expedition was organized, which planned to climb up the trail of the slid down fuselage. Closer to the top, where the collision occurred, there could be a tail with batteries. The members of the expedition were tied pillows from the plane to their feet - so they did not fall into the snow. However, the researchers returned with nothing. They found only a fragment of a wing and a few dead bodies, which, however, everyone regarded as a useful find.

Fried Facts

Vitamins and minerals
Dr. Leslie Hensel claims that human meat contains an increased amount of vitamin A and amino acids. When the level of these substances in the blood increases, it can provoke a state of increased arousal and euphoria.

Who would you eat?
In 2002, psychologist Steven Scher of the University of Illinois conducted a study in which he tried to find out, using a series of tests, in which cases modern man could break the taboo on cannibalism. In particular, Stephen came to the conclusion that sexually attractive people seem to be the most appetizing to us.

For the cannibals who try to quit
Recently developed a special variety of tofu cheese - kyufu. Its taste is the most consistent with the taste of human flesh. The site bills it as "the perfect snack for cannibals trying to quit" and "an educational snack for anthropology students studying cannibalism."

How to spot a cannibal
Anthropologists name several signs by which it can be determined that cannibals once lived in this place. Firstly, these are split human bones, from which they obviously tried to extract the bone marrow. Secondly, burnt skeletons. And finally, the craniums opened with a sharp object.

I was promised that the bodies of my mother and sister would not be touched. Even without them, the meat would be enough for a long time

On the evening of October 29, the victims of the crash once again settled down for the night in the fuselage of the aircraft. After a short restless sleep, Nando woke up from the fact that he felt the touch of something wet on his face. In the next second, a cold weight hit him. When Nando tried to inhale, snow filled his mouth, snow porridge filled his ears and nose. He realized that he was about to suffocate, and even thought with some interest that he would soon find out what was there, on the other side of life.

At that moment, a hand tore the snow in front of his face, and Nando was able to breathe. He guessed that his friends were digging him up. An avalanche covered the fuselage at night. Some of the sleeping people were crushed by snow that fell into the plane. Eight of them were never dug up before they suffocated.

For the next three days, the survivors sat inside their shelter, buried under the avalanche. From the snowy floor to the ceiling there was no more than a meter, so I had to either lie down or sit with my legs pulled up to my chin. A long pin managed to dig a hole for air access. By some diabolical coincidence, two captives had birthdays at this time.

Outside, a heavy snowstorm continued, so it was impossible to start digging. The worst thing was that the captives were deprived of access to food: the bodies of those killed in the disaster remained forever under a dense layer of snow. Of course, the still quite fresh corpses of their friends lay right in front of their eyes, but even the most hungry were stopped by the prospect of witnessing the terrible work of doctors slicing meat, to see with their own eyes who they would have to eat.

On the third day of the snow captivity, one of the survivors could not stand it - he found a piece of glass and went up to one of the dead.

I watched him cut our mutual friend, heard the sound of bursting skin when the glass entered the body, and experienced uterine horror. The bloodied piece that was handed to me almost made me vomit. But I still tried it. The meat was soft and fatty in taste, sometimes cartilage came across in it. I choked and ate...

On the fourth day the sun came out and people were able to dig out from under the snow. It took them a week to clear the fuselage of the ice crust with sharp pieces of plastic. A huge cross made of suitcases was laid out next to their parking lot. Now they were sure that if they continued to search for them, the rescuers would see the camp from the air.

In parallel, the group did not abandon attempts to find the tail of the aircraft. By mid-November, the search was successful. In the tail were found not only the treasured batteries, but also a supply of cigarettes. Another week was spent trying to connect the batteries to the transmitter, however, despite all efforts, nothing worked. In the end, the rugby players realized that the mechanic was mistaken: the transmitter worked from the general network of the aircraft. Thus, the last hope left them in early December.

More than a month and a half has passed since the disaster. If the rescuers were looking for them, they must have stopped looking by now. Even more frightening of the survivors was the fact that the supply of food was coming to an end. Now they have reached what they could not even think of before: the brain, the liver, the lungs ...

It was decided to go for help. To survive the chill of the night, the guys sewed a sleeping bag using the insulation in the sides of the plane and material from the seats. One of the rugby players found a set of needles in his dead mother's purse. With fingers naughty in the cold, day after day, they sewed a bag for three people. Huddled together, the people inside had to survive the night even on bare snow.

On December 12, Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa, and another of their comrades, who felt able to make the long march, got up in the early sunny morning and set out west. Where they thought civilization was. They decided to go as long as they had the strength.

I had dressed since the evening: a cotton shirt, two women's trousers, three jeans and three sweaters. I put plastic bags over four pairs of socks to keep my feet from getting wet. I tied pieces of cloth around my hands. In addition, I have a long aluminum rod with me to lean on, and a lady's lipstick to protect my lips from the wind.

On the ninth day, Nando and Roberto (their third companion could not go further and was left to die in the mountains) went to the camp of the shepherds. On December 22, helicopters with rescuers flew to the mountain camp of the survivors of the disaster.

The resurrected rugby players have become national heroes in Uruguay. At first, they decided not to tell anyone about the cost of their survival. However, photographs from the scene got into the press, journalists began to guess what people ate during the two-month wait. The sensation spread to headlines all over the world. Very soon, the surviving heroes realized that cannibalism attracted much more people than they could imagine when they broke this sacred taboo at death's door.

One day in October, as usual, they got together and decided that they would still get to Chile to play their rematch there. On October 12, 1975, the Stella Marie rugby players boarded the plane again, looking at each other defiantly. The next day in Santiago, with a delay of exactly three years, the same demonstration game with the Chileans took place. Since then, the Friendship Cup has been held annually, and every time, going up the stairs of the plane, gray-haired rugby players understand that they are stronger than their fate.

The text uses excerpts from F. Parrado's book "Miracle in the Andes" (2006).

True experts in this field distinguish four types of K.

1. Ritual

It took place in prehistoric times: one or another part of the deceased could be eaten out of respect by members of his family. Rarely seen at present. For example, the inhabitants of Papua - New Guinea eat their enemies to take their strength. A single case of ritual K. was observed in Ukraine: in 1999, Satanists, under the leadership of a certain Dmitry Demin, killed a 15-year-old woman from Kiev, and her tongue was eaten by the leader himself.



2. Hungry

It is to this species that the story of the crash in the Andes relates. Also noted:

• in Jerusalem 70 AD. during a Roman siege;
• in 1072 in Egypt, after the Nile had not flooded for eight consecutive years;
• in 1315-1317 in Europe during the Great Famine (Dante was just finishing the description of hell);
• during the blockade of Leningrad;
• during the 1990s famine in North Korea;
• in the same Ukraine during the famous Holodomor of 1933.

Most often accompanied by the murder of the future object of food (by the way, in most countries, the consumption of human meat itself is not punishable by law). A special surge of criminal cinema was observed in the 20th century, when it became the object of inspiration for many writers and directors. The following authorities are widely known in this field:

• American Edward Gein, who became famous for his weakness for outfits made from the skin of the victims;
• the German Armin Meiwes, who posted on an Internet forum an offer to eat any boy who wanted to - and ate it (after that, you still don't believe in online dating?);
• well, and our famous compatriot Andrei Chikatilo, who amazes not so much with imagination as with quantity.

The rarest species: the one who eats human flesh enjoys its taste. The French became famous here, in particular Nicolas Clos. He stole meat from the morgue where he worked and cooked it at home, trying different recipes. Finally, Nicolas concluded that the best human meat is raw: it resembles beef in tartar sauce (but the taste, of course, is much thinner).

Sent by vager, for which I thank him

Plane crash in the Andes on October 13, 1972, also known as Miracle in the Andes (El Milagro de los Andes) is the crash of the Uruguayan Air Force charter flight number 571 with 5 crew members and 40 Uruguayan passengers on board (members of the rugby team, their relatives, crew, sponsors). The disaster occurred over the Andes on October 13, 1972. More than a quarter of the passengers died in the fall and collision with a rock, several more died later from wounds and cold. Then, out of the remaining 27 survivors, another 8 died during an avalanche that covered their “home” from the fuselage of the aircraft, and later three more died of wounds.

The survivors had a minimal supply of food, in addition, they lacked the heat sources necessary to survive in the harsh cold climate at an altitude of 3600 meters. Desperate from hunger and radio reports that "all activities to search for the missing aircraft are stopped," people began to eat the frozen bodies of their dead comrades. Rescuers did not learn about the survivors until 72 days later, when two passengers, Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, after a ten-day hike through the mountains, found a Chilean farmer who gave them food and informed the authorities about the rest of the passengers on the flight.

On Friday, October 13, 1972, an FH-227 turboprop aircraft of the Uruguayan Air Force carried the Old Christians rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, through the Andes, to a match in the Chilean capital of Santiago.

The flight began the day before, on October 12, when the flight took off from Carrasco airport, but due to bad weather, the plane landed at the airport in Mendoza, Argentina and stayed there overnight. The plane was unable to fly directly to Santiago due to the weather, so the pilots had to fly south parallel to the Mendoza mountains, then turn west, then head north and begin their descent towards Santiago after passing Curico.

When the pilot reported the passage of Curico, the air traffic controller cleared the descent to Santiago. This was a fatal mistake. The plane flew into the cyclone and began to descend, focusing only on time. When the cyclone was passed, it became clear that they were flying straight to the rock and there was no way to avoid the collision. As a result, the plane caught the top of the peak with its tail. Due to impacts on the rocks and the ground, the car lost its tail and wings. The fuselage rolled at great speed down the slope until it crashed nose into blocks of snow. Place of fall Coordinates: / (G)(O)-34.765 , -70.286389 34°45′54″ S sh. 70°17′11″ W d. / 34.765°S sh. 70.286389° W d.(G)(O)(province of Mendoza).

First days

Of the 45 passengers and crew members, 12 died in the accident or shortly thereafter; then five more died the next morning. The surviving 28 people faced the problem of survival in harsh climatic conditions. People had neither warm clothes and shoes, nor climbing equipment, nor medicines. To somehow help the wounded comrades, two first-year students from the medical college made hammocks and medical splints from the wreckage of the aircraft.

search operations

The authorities of the three countries immediately began operations to search for the missing plane from the radar. But, since it was white and practically merged with the mountain landscape, it was never found. On the eighth day, all search operations were stopped. The passengers on the flight found a small radio and Roy Harley was the first to hear the news on the eleventh day after the crash.

Cannibalism

The survivors had a meager supply of food: a few bars of chocolate, some crackers, and a few bottles of liquor. In order to save money, all this was divided equally and stretched over several days. Water was obtained by placing snow on metal plates and melting it in the sun.

Even with austerity, food supplies quickly ran out. In addition, there were no plants or animals around. In order not to die of hunger, it was decided to eat meat from the bodies of dead comrades. This decision was not easy, since each of the dead was someone else's friend, classmate or relative.

All the passengers on the plane were Catholics and at first perceived this proposal as offensive and inappropriate. But after a few days, exhausted by hunger, they changed their minds on this matter.

Avalanche

On October 29, while the survivors were sleeping, an avalanche descended from the mountains to the valley where the fuselage was located. Eight more people died because of this natural disaster. For three days, the living, along with the corpses, were squeezed by snow in the cramped space of the remnants of the aircraft. Then Nando Parrado knocked out a small window in the cockpit with his feet, which saved people from suffocation.

Even before the avalanche, the survivors realized that help would not come and they had to save themselves. According to the pilots, they flew over Curico, which meant that green valleys Chile is only a few miles west of the crash site. Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa, Numa Turcatti and Antonio Vizintin volunteered for the campaign, but Turcatti died of blood poisoning shortly before the expedition.

Canessa hesitated for a long time to go camping, waiting for the end of winter and rising temperatures. Then the travelers set off. The passengers of the crashed plane gave them a lot of warm clothes and human meat to be sure of the success of the upcoming operation. Suddenly, a trio of people found tail section aircraft with baggage. In the suitcases they found chocolate, cigarettes, clean clothes and more. After spending the night there, the expedition moved on to Chile, but on the second day they almost died from sharp decline temperature and deterioration weather conditions. Then it was decided to return to the tail, pick up the batteries and return to the site of the fuselage crash in order to send an SOS signal from there using the radio.

Difficult decisions

Returning to the tail compartment, the participants of the campaign realized that the batteries were very heavy and it was not possible to drag them to the fuselage. Then they returned to the others, took the radio from the cockpit and decided to return to the tail to send a signal from there. With them on their next trip, they took Roy Harley, who understood electronics better than anyone else. However, nothing came of this idea (because the aircraft's electrical systems use alternating current, and the batteries in the tail give out direct current). The members of the expedition came back and realized that crossing the mountains to Chile is the only way to salvation.

Sleeping bag

It has now become clear that the only way to salvation is to cross the mountains. However, it also became clear that without the possibility of spending the night in the mountains, this transition became impossible. Then the idea of ​​a sleeping bag was put forward.

It was decided to sew together large pieces of cloth that had been brought from the tail. This was done by Carlitos Paez, who was taught to sew by his mother. To make things go faster, he taught the others and they helped him in his work.

After the sleeping bag was completed, on December 12, the travelers decided to cross the Andes to Chile.

12 December

On December 12, 1972, Parrado, Canessa and Vizintin set out on a campaign. The initiative was taken by Parrado, who urged on his tired comrades. The sleeping bag helped them not to die from the cold at night.

The expedition took longer than the travelers expected, so on the third day Parrado and Canessa, taking some of the meat from Vizintin, sent it back to the fuselage. Vizintin made it back safely on a makeshift sled made from aircraft wreckage.

Looking for salvation

Parrado and Canessa next to the Chilean shepherd Sergio Catalan

Parrado and Canessa continued on their way. Roberto falls ill with dysentery. Gradually, the snowy landscape disappeared, traces of human activity began to come across. On the ninth day of the journey in the town of Los Maitenes ( Coordinates: / (G)(O)-34.812222 , -70.588889 34°48′44″ S sh. 70°35′20″ W d. / 34.812222°S sh. 70.588889° W d.(G)(O)) they met the Chilean shepherd Sergio Catalan. Shepherd told the authorities about the survivors of Flight 571. Two travelers were rescued.

Soon Parrado was hired by the authorities to participate in the rescue operation.

The rescue

On December 22, two helicopters reached the crash site, but due to bad weather and the inability to return here again on the same day, the rescue expedition took only half of the passengers. The second expedition reached this place in the morning of the next day. All 16 surviving passengers were rescued. Soon they were taken to hospitals in Santiago. They were treated for altitude sickness, dehydration, frostbite, scurvy, broken bones, and malnutrition.

Chronology of events

October 1972

November 1972

December 1972

List of passengers

Crew

• Colonel Julio Ferradas, pilot
• Lieutenant Colonel Dante Laguara, co-pilot
• Lieutenant Ramon Martinez
• Corporal Carlos Roque
• Corporal Ovidio Joaquin Ramirez

Passengers

(survivors are marked in bold)

On October 13, 1972, a Uruguayan plane crashed in the Andes, carrying 45 people - a rugby team, their relatives and fans flying to a match in Chile. The plane crashed into a mountain peak and fell on a snow-covered slope. This story will surely be remembered as the greatest tragedy in the history of aviation. And not at all because of the number of deaths, but because of what the survivors of that catastrophe had to endure. The most difficult problem faced by the "lucky ones" was the lack of food. In the struggle for life, people decided to eat the bodies of dead comrades.

Board number 571

On that day, board number 571 was carrying a rugby team from the Old Christians club (Montevideo, Uruguay). Twenty-year-old guys flew to the match in Santiago (Chile).

Rugby players shortly before a fatal departure.

Flying over the Alps, the Fairchild FH-227D turboprop fell into the cyclone zone. At an altitude of 4200 meters, the plane crashed into one of the mountain peaks with its wing and fell. After the fall, 32 people survived.

At an altitude of almost 4000 meters above sea level, without proper clothing or food, people were actually doomed to death from cold and hunger.

The food supply consisted of a few sweets, some canned food, and a few bottles of alcohol. The food ran out quickly. Passengers who were seriously injured began to die.

Within ten long days the survivors huddled in the wreckage of the fuselage and held the hope that they would be rescued. The guys found a small transistor in their luggage and listened attentively to the radio. And after 11 days, they heard a message that their search had been terminated… People started crying. Only one of the guys did not lose his temper - Nando Parrado. He looked at the mournful faces of his comrades and said: “Hey guys, this is good news! This means that we ourselves will leave here.” The boy's courage averted despair.

Fight for life

The survivors continued to fight for their lives. Despite the extremely low temperatures, they developed a system for producing water from snow. Phyto Strauch, 24, made a pair of sunglasses to prevent snow blindness. To do this, he used sun visors from the cockpit.

Despite the cold, the guys made several attempts to get out of the snow trap. During one of these sorties, they found the tail of the plane and removed the insulation material from the air conditioner. A large sleeping bag was sewn from this fabric with the help of electrical wires.

However, hunger and cold are not all the trials that the survivors went through. On October 29 (on the 17th day) an avalanche hit the camp. Eight more people died under the snow. Only sixteen survived. But that was not all. The plane was buried under a meter layer of snow. Nando Parrado punched a hole in the roof of the fuselage with a metal pipe and thus provided ventilation. Then, with frostbitten hands, the guys cut a tunnel in the snow and climbed to the surface.

Trial

All these days, the survivors strictly rationed their food supplies. But the food is over. And then they collectively made a tough but necessary decision. To stay alive, it was decided to eat the flesh of their dead friends. It didn't come easily. Most of the deceased were classmates, friends or even relatives.

In his memoirs, Nando Parrado described the grim situation as follows: high altitude the calorie requirement is astronomical... we were terribly hungry. Again and again they dug up the fuselage in search of bread crumbs. We tried to eat strips of leather found in our luggage, even though we knew they would do us more harm than good. We ripped open the seat cushions, hoping to find feathers or grass, but found only inedible thread. There was nothing around us but aluminum, plastic and ice.”

“I will never forget this day,” one of the survivors, Roberto Canessa, would later write. “We put thin strips of frozen human flesh on a piece of wing. Each of us ate our own piece. For each of us it was a serious mental trauma. But it was the only chance to survive.”

The rescue

After the avalanche, people realized that their only way to stay alive was to find help. Despite exhaustion, two of the toughest guys, Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, set off across the ridge in search of people. Wrapped in clothes taken from the dead, and taking with them pieces of dead flesh, the scouts crossed a steep pass. A few days later, the exhausted guys stumbled upon a Chilean farmer.

Rescue helicopters soon arrived in the area of ​​the accident. The 16 surviving passengers were rescued on December 23, 1972. They spent 72 days in the snow trap.

In January 1973, after the snow melted, the bodies of the dead were buried 800 meters from the crash site. And at the top of the stone embankment, an iron cross was installed with the inscription: "Oh God, we are closer to you."

As soon as the bodies were buried, the main part of the body, which served as a dwelling for the survivors, was burned ...

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