Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571

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Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 was a chartered flight carrying 45 people, including a rugby union team, their friends, family, and associates, that crashed in the remote Andes in early spring (Southern Hemisphere) on 13 October 1972, in extremely heavy snowpack -34.765 degrees latitude south of the equator, in an incident known as the Andes flight disaster and, in the Hispanic world and South America, as the Miracle of the Andes (El Milagro de los Andes). More than a quarter of the passengers died in the crash, and several others quickly succumbed to cold and injury. Of the 27 who were alive a few days after the accident, another eight were killed by an avalanche that swept over their shelter in the wreckage. The last 16 survivors were rescued on 23 December 1972, more than two months (72 days) after the crash.

The survivors had little food and no source of heat in the harsh conditions at over 3,600 metres (11,800 ft) altitude. Faced with starvation and radio news reports that the search for them had been abandoned, the survivors fed on the bodies of dead passengers that had been preserved in the snow. Rescuers did not learn of the survivors until 72 days after the crash, when passengers Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, after a 10-day trek across the Andes, found Chilean arriero Sergio Catalán, who gave them food and then alerted the authorities to the existence of the other survivors.

Video Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571

Background

On 13 October 1972, a chartered Uruguayan Air Force twin turboprop Fairchild FH-227D was flying over the Andes carrying the Old Christians Club rugby union team from Montevideo, Uruguay, to play a match in Santiago, Chile. The trip had begun the day before when the Fairchild departed from Carrasco International Airport, but inclement mountain weather forced an overnight stop in Mendoza, Argentina. At the Fairchild's ceiling of 9,000 metres (30,000 ft), the aircraft could not fly directly from Mendoza, over the Andes, to Santiago, in large part because of 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 Curicó before finally turning north and initiating descent into Santiago.

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), between Cerro Sosneado and Volcán Tinguiririca, straddling the remote mountainous border between Chile and Argentina. The aircraft clipped the peak at 4,200 metres (13,800 ft), severing the right wing, which was thrown back with such force that it cut off the vertical stabilizer, leaving a gaping hole in the rear of the fuselage. The aircraft then clipped a second peak which severed the left wing and left the aircraft 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 location of the crash site is 34°45?54?S 70°17?11?W, in the Argentine municipality of Malargüe (Malargüe Department, Mendoza Province).

Early days

Of the 45 people on the aircraft, 12 died in the crash or shortly thereafter; another five died by the next morning; and one more succumbed to injuries on the eighth day. The remaining 27 faced severe difficulties surviving in the freezing mountains at such a high altitude. Many had suffered injuries from the crash, including broken legs from the aircraft's seats piling together. The survivors lacked equipment such as cold-weather clothing and crampons (footwear) suitable for the area, mountaineering goggles to prevent snow blindness (although one of the eventual survivors, 24-year-old Adolfo "Fito" Strauch, devised a couple of sunglasses by using the sun visors in the pilot's cabin, which helped protect the survivors' eyes from the sun), and medical supplies, and the death of Dr. Francisco Nicola left a first and a second year medical student who had survived the crash in charge to improvise splints and braces with salvaged parts of what remained of the aircraft.

Search efforts

Search parties from three countries looked for the missing aircraft, but the initial search was cancelled after eight days. Since the aircraft was white, it blended in with the snow, making it invisible from the sky. At one point, the survivors tried to use several sticks of lipstick recovered from the luggage to write an SOS on the roof of the aircraft but abandoned the effort after it became apparent that they lacked the necessary lipstick to make letters that would be plainly recognizable from the air. The survivors found a small transistor radio on the aircraft, and Roy Harley first heard the news that the search was cancelled on their 11th day on the mountain. Piers Paul Read's book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (based upon interviews with the survivors) described the moments after this discovery:

Cannibalism

The survivors had a small amount of food: a few chocolate bars, assorted snacks, and several bottles of wine. During the days following the crash, they divided up this food in very small amounts to make their meager supply last as long as possible. Fito Strauch devised a way to obtain water by using metal from the seats and placing snow on it. The snow melted in the sun and dripped into empty wine bottles.

Even with this strict rationing, their food stock dwindled quickly. There were no natural vegetation or animals on the snow-covered mountain.

The group survived by collectively deciding to eat flesh from the bodies of their dead comrades. This decision was not taken lightly, as most of the dead were classmates, close friends, or even relatives. In his memoir, Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home (2006), Nando Parrado comments on this decision:

All of the passengers were Roman Catholic. According to Read, some rationalized the act of necrotic cannibalism as equivalent to the ritual of Holy Communion, or justified it according to a Bible verse (John 15:13): "no man hath greater love than this: that he lay down his life for his friends"). Others initially had reservations, though after realizing that it was their only means of staying alive, changed their minds a few days later. There are reports that the only surviving female passenger, Liliana, although not seriously injured in the crash, was the last survivor to initially refuse eating the human flesh due to her strong religious convictions. She later began eating after being convinced by her husband, Javier, and the other survivors - though she died shortly thereafter in the avalanche.

Avalanche

On the afternoon of 29 October, an avalanche cascaded down on the survivors as they slept in the fuselage, killing eight of the initial survivors, among them the last surviving female passenger, Liliana Methol, the wife of survivor Javier Methol. For three days the others survived in an appallingly confined space since the aircraft was buried under several feet of snow. Nando Parrado was able to poke a hole in the roof of the fuselage with a metal pole, providing ventilation.

Hard decisions

Before the avalanche, a few of the survivors became insistent that their only way of survival would be to climb over the mountains themselves and search for help. Because of the co-pilot's assertion that the aircraft had passed Curicó (which was completely wrong, the real position was more than 55 miles (89 km) to the east deep in the Andes), the group assumed the Chilean countryside was just a few miles away to the west. The aircraft had crashed inside Argentina, and unknown to the survivors there was an abandoned hotel named the Hotel Termas Sosneado just 18 miles (29 km) east of them. Although the hotel had been closed since 1953, and the building was in ruins, there is a hot spring there, and the walls that remained standing might have provided some shelter. On the other hand, there were no supplies at the hotel, and the trek would have taken 1-2 days, perhaps exhausting the survivors even further. Several brief expeditions were made in the immediate vicinity of the aircraft in the first few weeks after the crash, but they found that a combination of altitude sickness, dehydration, snow blindness, malnourishment, and the extreme cold of the nights made climbing any significant distance an impossible task.

Therefore, it was decided that a group would be chosen, and then allocated the most rations of food and the warmest of clothes, and spared the daily manual labour around the crash site that was essential for the group's survival, so that the chosen might build their strength. Although several survivors were determined to be on the expedition team no matter what, including Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, one of the two medical students, others were less willing or unsure of their ability to withstand such a physically exhausting ordeal. Numa Turcatti and Antonio Vizintin were chosen to accompany Canessa and Parrado. At Canessa's urging, they waited nearly seven days, to allow for the arrival of summer, and with it higher temperatures.

Although they were hoping to get to Chile, a large mountain lay due west of the crash site, blocking any effort they made to walk in that direction. Therefore, they initially headed east, hoping that at some point the valley they were in would make a U-turn and allow them to start walking west. After several hours of walking east, the trio unexpectedly found the tail section of the aircraft, which was still largely intact. Within and surrounding the tail were numerous suitcases belonging to the passengers, containing cigarettes, candy, clean clothing and even some comic books. The group decided to camp that night inside the tail section and continue east the next morning. However, on the second night of the expedition, which was their first night sleeping outside exposed to the elements, the group nearly froze to death. After some debate the next morning, they decided that it would be wiser to return to the tail, remove the aircraft's batteries, and bring them back to the fuselage so they might power up the radio and make an SOS call to Santiago for help.

Radio

Upon returning to the tail, the trio found that the batteries were too heavy to take back to the fuselage, which lay uphill from the tail section. They decided instead that it would be more effective to return to the fuselage and disconnect the radio system from the aircraft's electrical mainframe, take it back to the tail, and connect it to the batteries. One of the other team members, Roy Harley, was an amateur electronics enthusiast, and they recruited his help in the endeavour. Unknown to any of the team members, the aircraft's electrical system used alternating current while the batteries in the tail produced direct current, making the plan futile from the beginning. After several days of trying to make the radio work, they gave up and returned to the fuselage with the knowledge that they would have to climb out of the mountains if they were to have any hope of being rescued.

Sleeping bag

It was now apparent that the only way out was to climb over the mountains to the west. They also realized that unless they found a way to survive the freezing temperature of the nights, a trek was impossible. It was at this point that the idea for a sleeping bag was raised.

In his book, Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home, Nando Parrado would comment 34 years later upon the making of the sleeping bag:

After the sleeping bag was completed and Numa Turcatti died from an illness, the hesitant Canessa was finally persuaded to set out, and the three men took to the mountain on 12 December.

12 December

On 12 December 1972, two months after the crash, Parrado, Canessa, and Vizintín began their trek up the mountain. Parrado took the lead and often had to be called to slow down, although the thin oxygen made it difficult for all of them. It was still bitterly cold, but the sleeping bag allowed them to live through the nights. In the film Stranded, Canessa called the first night during the ascent, when they had difficulty finding a place to use the sleeping bag, the worst night of his life.

On the third day of the trek, Parrado reached the top of the mountain before the other two. Stretched before him as far as the eye could see were more mountains. In fact, he had just climbed one of the mountains (as high as 4,650 metres (15,260 ft)) which forms the border between Argentina and Chile, meaning the trekkers were still tens of kilometres from the green valleys of Chile. After spying a small "Y" in the distance, Parrado gauged that a way out of the mountains must lie beyond and refused to give up hope. When he and Canessa realized the hike was going to take more time than they had originally planned for, and they were running out of food, they sent Vizintín back to the crash site. Since the return was entirely downhill, it only took him one hour to get back to the fuselage using a makeshift sleigh.

Search for help

Parrado and Canessa hiked for several more days. First, they were able to reach the narrow valley that Parrado had seen on the top of the mountain, where they found the bed of Río San José, leading to Río Portillo which meets Río Azufre at Maitenes. They followed the river and reached the end of the snowline. Gradually, there appeared 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 the Portillo River, Nando and Canessa tried to convey their situation, but the noise of the river made communication difficult.

One of the horsemen, a Chilean arriero named Sergio Catalán, shouted, "Tomorrow!" The trekkers knew at this point they would be saved and settled to sleep by the river. During the evening dinner, Catalán discussed what he had seen with the other arrieros who were staying 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 aircraft, had asked them about the Andes crash. The arrieros could not imagine that anyone could still be alive. The next day, Catalán took some loaves of bread and went back to the riverbank. There he found the two men still on the other side of the river, on their knees and asking for help. Catalán threw them the loaves, which they immediately ate, and a pen and paper tied to a rock. Parrado wrote a note telling about the aircraft crash and asking for help. Then he tied the paper to a rock and threw it back to Catalán, who read it and gave them a sign that he understood.

Catalán rode on horseback for many hours westwards to bring help. During the trip he saw another arriero on the south side of Río Azufre, and asked him to reach the boys and to bring them to Los Maitenes. Then, he followed the river to its intersection with the Río 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, Chile and then to Santiago. Meanwhile, Parrado and Canessa were rescued and reached Los Maitenes, where they were fed and allowed to rest.

The following morning, the rescue expedition left Santiago and, after a stop in San Fernando, moved eastwards. Two helicopters had to fly in the fog but reached a place near Los Maitenes just when Parrado and Canessa were passing on horseback while going to Puente Negro. 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 crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 on 13 October had also leaked to the international press, and a flood of reporters 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 their survival ordeal.

Maps Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571

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. The expedition (with Parrado on board) was unable to reach the crash site until the afternoon due to the difficulty of air travel through the Andes. The weather was very poor, 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 with the remaining survivors. They were taken to hospitals in Santiago for evaluation and were treated for a variety of conditions, including altitude sickness, dehydration, frostbite, broken bones, scurvy, and malnutrition.

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Timeline

October 1972

12 October (Thu) Day 0

Crew 5, Passengers 40.

13 October (Fri) Day 1--crashed at 3:34 pm

5 people dead (Ferradas, F. Nicola, E. Nicola, E. Parrado, Vazquez), 7 people missing (Martinez, Ramirez, Costemalle, Hounié, Magri, Shaw, Valeta). Alive: 33

14 October (Sat) Day 2

Five people died (Lagurara, Abal, Mariani, Maquirriain, Martinez-Lamas) Dead: 10, missing: 7, alive: 28

21 October (Sat) Day 9

Susana "Susy" Parrado died. Dead: 11, missing: 7, alive: 27

24 October (Tue) Day 12

6 missing people found dead (Carlos Valeta not found until 14 December). Dead: 17, missing presumed dead: 1, alive: 27

29 October (Sun) Day 17

8 people died in an avalanche (Perez, Platero, L. Methol, Nicolich, Maspons, Menendez, Storm, Roque). Dead: 25, missing presumed dead: 1, alive: 19

November 1972

15 November (Wed) Day 34

Arturo Nogueira died. (dead: 26, missing presumed dead: 1, alive: 18)

18 November (Sat) Day 37

Rafael Echavarren died. (dead: 27, missing presumed dead: 1, alive: 17)

December 1972

11 December (Mon) Day 60

Numa Turcatti died. (dead: 28, missing presumed dead: 1, alive: 16)

12 December (Tues) Day 61

Parrado, Canessa and Vizintin set off to find help.

13 December (Wed) Day 62

Body of Daniel Shaw found.

14 December (Thu) Day 63

Body of Carlos Valeta found. (dead: 29, alive: 16)

15 December (Fri) Day 64

Antonio Vizintin sent back to the fuselage.

20 December (Wed) Day 69

Parrado and Canessa encounter Sergio Catalán.

21 December (Thu) Day 70

Parrado and Canessa rescued.

22 December (Fri) Day 71

7 people rescued.

23 December (Sat) Day 72

7 people rescued. 16 people alive.

26 December (Tue)

Front page of the Santiago newspaper El Mercurio reports that all survivors resorted to cannibalism.

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Passengers and Crew

Crew

• Colonel Julio César Ferradas, Pilot (died in crash)
• Lieutenant Colonel Dante Héctor Lagurara, Co-Pilot (died on first night)
• Lieutenant Ramón Martínez, Navigator (fell to death from aircraft)
• Sergeant Ovidio Joaquín Ramírez, Flight attendant (fell to death from aircraft)
• Sergeant Carlos Roque, Mechanic (died in avalanche)

Passengers

*Rugby players

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Aftermath

When first rescued, the survivors initially explained that they had eaten some cheese they had carried with them, planning to discuss the details in private with their families. They were pushed into the public eye when photos were leaked to the press and sensational articles were published.

The survivors held a press conference on 28 December at Stella Maris College in Montevideo, where they recounted the events of the past 72 days. (Over the years, they also participated in the publication of two books, two films, and an official website about the event.)

The rescuers and a Chilean priest later returned to the crash site and buried the bodies of the dead, 80 m (260 ft) from the aircraft. Close to the grave they built a stone pile with an iron cross. They doused the remains of the fuselage in gasoline and set it alight.

Books

• Blair, Clay, Jr. (1973). Survive!. American Heritage Center - Virtual Exhibits. Retrieved 14 October 2012. CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
• Read, Piers Paul (1974). Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors.  Read's book, based on interview of the survivors and their families, was a critical success and remains a highly popular work of non-fiction. In the book's opening, the survivors explain why they wanted it to be written:

• • Harper published a reprint in 2005, re-titled: Alive: Sixteen Men, Seventy-two Days, and Insurmountable Odds--The Classic Adventure of Survival in the Andes. It includes a revised introduction as well as interviews with Piers Paul Read, Coche Inciarte, and Álvaro Mangino.
• 34 years after the rescue, Nando Parrado published the book Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home (with Vince Rause), which has received positive reviews. In this text, Parrado also touches upon public reaction to this event:

• Canessa, Roberto (Survivor) (2016). I Had to Survive: How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives.  In this book, Canessa recalls how the plane crash helped him learn many life lessons about survival, and how his time in the mountains helped renew his motivation to become a doctor. Today, Canessa is a successful pediatric cardiologist in Uruguay.

In art, entertainment, and media

Films and television

• Survive! (1976), also known as Supervivientes de los Andes, is a Mexican feature film production directed by René Cardona, Jr. and based on Blair's book, Survive! (1973)
• Alive (1993) is a feature film directed by Frank Marshall, narrated by John Malkovich, and starring Ethan Hawke, based on Read's book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors. Nando Parrado served as a technical adviser to the film. Additionally, Carlitos Páez and Ramon "Moncho" Sabella visited the fuselage set during the production to aid with the historical accuracy of the set, and to advise the actors on how events unfolded.
• Alive: 20 Years Later (1993) is a documentary film produced, directed, and written by Jill Fullerton-Smith and narrated by Martin Sheen. It explores the lives of the survivors 20 years after the crash and discusses their participation in the production of Alive: The Miracle of the Andes.
• Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains (2007), written and directed by Gonzalo Arijón, is a documentary film interlaced with dramatised scenes. All the survivors are interviewed, along with some of their family members and people involved with the rescue operation, and an expedition in which the survivors return to the crash site is documented. The film premiered at the 2007 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Netherlands and received the Joris Ivens Award. This film appeared on PBS Independent Lens as "STRANDED: The Andes Plane Crash Survivors" in May 2009.
• "Trapped: Alive in the Andes" (7 November 2007) is a season 1 episode of the National Geographic Channel documentary television series Trapped. The series examines incidents which left survivors trapped in their situation for a period of time.
• I Am Alive: Surviving the Andes Plane Crash (20 October 2010) is a documentary film directed by Brad Osborne that first aired on the History Channel. The film mixed reenactments with interviews with the survivors and members of the original search teams. Also interviewed were Piers Paul Read, renowned mountain climber Ed Viesturs, Andes Survivors expert and alpinist Ricardo Peña, historians, expert pilots, and high-altitude medical experts.

Music

• Miracle in the Andes, composed and created by musician Adam Young, is a musical score comprising 10 tracks that tell the story of the Andes flight disaster through song.
• Punk band GBH included a graphic experience of the passengers on the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in their song "Passenger On The Menu" (1982).
• "The Plot Sickens" was written by the American Metalcore Band Ice Nine Kills on their 2015 album Every Trick in the Book.

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See also

• 1947 BSAA Avro Lancastrian Star Dust accident
• Emergency position-indicating radiobeacon station
• List of accidents involving sports teams

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References

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Further reading

Books

• Alcalde, Alfonso (1973). Vivir O Morir (First ed.). 
• Canessa, Roberto (2016). I Had to Survive. 
• Parrado, Nando & Rause, Vince (2006). Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home. CS1 maint: Uses authors parameter (link)
• Read, Piers Paul (1974). Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (First ed.). 
• Read, Piers Paul (2005). Alive: Sixteen Men, Seventy-two Days, and Insurmountable Odds - The Classic Adventure of Survival in the Andes (Reprint ed.). 
• Verci, Paulo (2008). La Sociedad de la Nieve: Por Primera Vez Los 16 Sobrevivientes Cuentan la Historia Completa. 

Articles

• Dowling, Claudia Glenn (February 1993). "Still Alive". LIFE. pp. 48-59. 

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External links

• "Home page". Viven! El Accidente de Los Andes (Official Website). 
• Peña, Ricardo. "Andes Survivors: Latest discoveries". AlpineExpeditions.net. 
• "Conferences". Viven! El Accidente de Los Andes (Official Website). 
• "Interviews". Viven! El Accidente de Los Andes (Official Website). 
• Arijon, Gonzalo & Silvera, Marc. "STRANDED: The Andes Plane Crash Survivors". Independent Lens. PBS. CS1 maint: Uses authors parameter (link)
• "National Geographic Expedition 2005". AlpineExpeditions.net. 2005. 
• Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network
• Strauch, Eduardo (2006). "Back to the Andes Expedition 2006 with one of the survivors". AlpineExpeditions.net. 
• WiCis Sports-Benegas Brothers 2017 Expedition with live streaming of biometrics and geo-location

Source of the article : Wikipedia