Alive! a human dream of survival.
Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571,
It all began on Thursday the twelvth of October in 1972. There were 45 people on the Fairchild, a Uruguayan military plane chartered by the "Old Christians," a Uruguayan rugby team, for a game in Chile. They had to land in Argentina on the way because of poor weather conditions, but after one day in Argentina, they were forced to continue. (It is illegal for a foreign military vehicle to stay on Argentinean soil for more than 24 hours.) Back in the air, the pilots became disoriented. They thought they had made it through Planchon Pass, but they had actually flown straight into the highest peaks of the Andes. The Fairchild went down just to the Argentinean side of the Chilean border. The tail snapped off first, then the wings. Only the fuselage remained. All hope seemed lost. The survivors were on the mountain for 72 days and had to resort to cannibalism for survival. They put their lives in God's hands, but in the end, they saved themselves. Just before Christmas, Fernando Parrado and Roberto Cannessa made their way to civilization, and the rest of the survivors were rescued by helicopter. Out of 45, sixteen men survived.
The trip had begun the day before, October 12, when the Fairchild departed from Carrasco International Airport, but inclement mountain weather forced an overnight stop in Mendoza. At the Fairchild's ceiling of 29,500 feet, the plane could not fly directly from Mendoza, over the Andes, to Santiago, in large part due to the weather. Instead, the pilots had to fly south from Mendoza parallel to the Andes, then turn west towards the mountains, fly through a low pass (Planchon), cross the mountains and emerge on the Chilean side of the Andes south of Curico before finally turning north and initiating descent to Santiago after passing Curico. After resuming the flight on the afternoon of October 13, the plane was soon flying through the pass in the mountains. The pilot then notified air controllers in Santiago that he was over Curicó, Chile, and was cleared to descend. This would prove to be a fatal error. Since the pass was covered by the clouds, the pilots had to rely on the usual time required to cross the pass (dead reckoning). However, they failed to take into account strong headwinds that ultimately slowed the plane and increased the time required to complete the crossing. As a result, the turn and descent was initiated too soon, before the plane had passed through the mountains, leading to a controlled flight into terrain.
Dipping into the cloud cover while still over the mountains, the Fairchild soon crashed on an unnamed peak (later called Cerro Seler, also known as Glaciar de las Lágrimas or Glacier of Tears), located between Cerro Sosneado and Volcán Tinguiririca, straddling the remote mountainous border between Chile and Argentina. The plane clipped the peak at 4200 m, neatly severing the right wing, which was thrown back with such a force that it cut off the vertical stabilizer, leaving a gaping hole in the rear of the fuselage. The plane then clipped a second peak which severed the left wing and left the plane as just a fuselage flying through the air. One of the propellers sliced through the fuselage as the wing it was attached to was severed. The fuselage hit the ground and slid down a steep mountain slope before finally coming to rest in a snow bank.
The survivors had a small amount of food: a few chocolate bars, other assorted snacks, and several bottles of wine. During the days following the crash they divided out this food in very small amounts so as not to exhaust their meager supply. Fito also devised a way to melt snow into water by using metal from the seats and placing snow on it. The snow then melted in the sun and dripped into empty wine bottles.
Even with this strict rationing, their food stock dwindled quickly. Furthermore, there was no natural vegetation or animals on the snow-covered mountain. The group thus survived by collectively making a decision to eat flesh from the bodies of their dead comrades. This decision was not taken lightly, as most were classmates or close friends. In his 2006 book, Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home
All of the passengers were Roman Catholic, a point which was emphasized by Piers Paul Read in Alive. According to Read, some equated the act to the ritual of Holy Communion. Others initially had reservations, though after realizing that it was their only means of staying alive, changed their minds a few days later.
Finding help
Parrado and Canessa hiked for several more days. First, they were able to actually reach the narrow valley that Parrado had seen on the top of the mountain, where they found the bed of Rio Azufre; then they followed the river and finally they reached the end of the snowline and, gradually, more and more signs of human presence, first some signs of camping and finally, on the ninth day, some cows. When they rested that evening, they were very tired and Canessa seemed unable to proceed further. As Parrado was gathering wood to build a fire, Canessa noticed what looked like a man on a horse at the other side of the river, and yelled at the near-sighted Parrado to run down to the banks. At first it seemed that Canessa had been imagining the man on the horse, but eventually they saw three men on horseback. Divided by a river, Nando and Canessa tried to convey their situation to which one of them, a Chilean Huaso named Sergio Catalan, shouted "tomorrow." They knew at this point they would be saved and settled to sleep by the river.
During the evening dinner, Sergio Catalan discussed what he had seen with the other huasos who were staying at the time in a little summer ranch called Los Maitenes. Someone mentioned that several weeks before the father of Carlos Paez, who was desperately searching for any possible news about the plane, had asked them about the Andes crash; however, the huasos could not imagine that someone could still be alive. The next day Catalan took some loaves of bread and went back to the river bank, where he found the two men who were still on the other side of the river, on their knees and asking for help. Catalan threw them the bread loaves, which they immediately ate and following Parrado's gestures, a pen and paper to write a note, addressed in red lipstick, telling the huasos about the plane crash and asking for help; then he tied the paper to a rock and threw it back to Catalan, who read it and gave the boys the sign to have understood.
Catalan rode on horseback for many hours westwards to bring help. During the trip he saw another huaso on the south side of Rio Azufre and asked him to reach the boys and to bring them to Los Maitenes. Instead, he followed the river till the cross with Rio Tinguiririca, where, after passing 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. Here he was able to stop a truck and reach the police station at Puente Negro, where the news was finally dispatched to the Army command in San Fernando and then to Santiago. Meanwhile, Parrado and Canessa were rescued and they reached Los Maitenes, where they were fed and allowed to rest.
The following day in the morning the rescue expedition left Santiago and, after a stop in San Fernando, moved eastwards. The two helicopters had to fly in the fog and reached a place near Los Maitenes just when Parrado and Canessa were passing there on horseback while going to Puente Negro. Nando Parrado was recruited to fly back to the mountain in order to guide the helicopters to the remaining survivors. The news that people had survived the October 13 crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 had also leaked to the international press and a flood of reporters also began to appear along the narrow route from Puente Negro to Termas del Flaco. The reporters hoped to be able to see and interview Parrado and Canessa about the crash and the following days.
Parrado and Canessa with Chilean Huaso Sergio Catalan
The mountain rescue
In the morning of the day when the rescue started, those remaining at the crash site heard on their radio that Parrado and Canessa had been successful in finding help and that afternoon, 22 December, 1972, two helicopters carrying search and rescue climbers arrived. However, the expedition (with Parrado onboard) was not able to reach the crash site until the afternoon, when it is very difficult to fly in the Andes. In fact the weather was very bad and the two helicopters were able to take only half of the survivors. They departed, leaving the rescue team and remaining survivors at the crash site to once again sleep in the fuselage, until a second expedition with helicopters could arrive the following morning. The second expedition arrived at daybreak on 23 December and all sixteen survivors were rescued. All of the survivors were taken to hospitals in Santiago and treated for altitude sickness, dehydration, frostbite, broken bones, scurvy and malnutrition.
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