On October 13, 1972, flight 571 of the Uruguaya Air Force crashed into the mountains of the Andes of Argentina, and the survivors were forced to resort to cannibalism while waiting for rescue.

Collection Everett Historical / Alamy Stace of the survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force flight 571, shortly after the rescuers discovered them.

On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force flight 571 crashed into the Andes. Forty-five people were on board when the plane broke down, but when they were rescued more than two months later, only 16 were still alive. However, the most horrible part of its history was the distance to which they were ready to arrive to do so.

Shortly after the survivors’ safeguard, it was revealed that they had been forced to resort to cannibalism to avoid starving.

When the public learned of these frightening circumstances, the reaction was immediate and intense, but quickly faded once the men said that their actions had been inspired by the last dinner, when Jesus gave bread and wine to his disciples made of his own body. A priest also determined that the survivors had acted only by necessity and absorbed them with any related sin.

The tragedy was chronic by a survivor, Nando Parrado, in his memoriesMiracle in Los AndesAnd in the film Ethan Hawke 1993Vivo.

This is the story of the survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571.

The passengers of flight 571 of the Uruguayan Air Force

The group of people at the center of the tragic and unhappy plane crash in the Andes included an amateur rugby team: the Old Christian Club, which comes from the Carrasco district of Montevideo, Uruguay, his friends and families and, of course, the plane crew.

Former Christians headed for Santiago, Chile, for a match, which left Carrasco International Airport on October 12, 1972. In total, Fairchild Genelo’s turbopulser transported five crew members and 40 passengers.

Among these passengers were Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, two members of the rugby team who would finally take a step forward to take a research game on the accident site.

However, poor climatic conditions in the Andes, however, forced the plane to land before arriving in Chile. The passengers spent only one night in Mendoza, Argentina, before leaving the next day just after 2 p.m.

Knowing that her small plane could not fly to an altitude high enough to clear the mountains of the Andes, the pilots decided to go to the south through the Col de Plachón.

An hour after the flight, a pilot informed the air traffic drivers that they had crossed the passage and were ready to land. Unfortunately, they were wrong and their mistake would be fatal.

The Air Force flight 571 crashes against the Andes

Without realizing that the plane was still in the Andes, the air traffic controllers gave the pilots who broke down to start their descent and prepare to land. And due to the poor climatic conditions which caused low visibility, the pilots could not see the mountains in which they went down directly.

The belly of the plane quickly cut a beak and the plane lost its right wing. Shortly after, the left wing also disappeared and the fuselage of the plane crashed into the Andes covered with snow.

Andes plane crash site

Wikimedia compromised the place of the accident at Uruguayan Air Force flight 571.

“I felt the pain in each cell of my body, and even if I shivered spastically in his grip, every moment he seemed to last eternity,” recalls Nando ParradoMiracle in Los Andes.

“The dried blood clots were tangled in my hair, and three bloody injuries formed an irregular triangle of about four inches on my right ear. I felt rough riddled riddled ridges, and when I slightly pressed the bottom, I slightly felt a feeling of spongy finger. My stomach, my stomach, the pieces of my skull against the surface of my brain. ”

Parrado reached immense pain in heartbreaking circumstances, but it had been better than some of the others. In the initial accident, 12 people were killed. Thirty-three of them were still alive, but some were even more injured than Parrado.

Canessa, described in Parrado as a “strong and intense will”, informed him that he has been unconscious for three days at that time.

It would take another 10 weeks before the survivors were found. But the most difficult part of its history was to start.

The survivors turn to cannibalism

Passenger supplies were rare. They were 11,500 feet above sea level, faced frozen temperatures and had a little more than wine and sweet bars to hold. Parrado hadn’t even wrapped in cold clothes.

Canessa and another survivor underwent medical training and tried to serve the wounded, but without the good instruments, they could only do it.

A search for the missing plane had been launched, but due to the poorly reported location which led to the accident in the first place, the research equipment did not know where to look. White plan paint has not facilitated research in the mountains covered with snow.

The search was canceled after only 10 days.

Air accident survivors

The plane fuselage was still intact, but did not do much to provide refuge or protection. In a week, most of the food had disappeared and soon the injured began to die. Six died in the first two weeks after the accident, and eight others followed the grave on October 29, when an avalanche buried the fuselage.

With the assessment of death increasing and the supplies almost exhausted, the passengers allowed themselves difficult: they should eat the dead to survive.

“We thrill our hands and say:” If I die, please use my body. So, at least you can get out of here. And tell my family how much I love them, ”said Parrado to ABC News in 2023.

The survivors compared this decision to a communion, quoting the last biblical dinner, during which Jesus shared the bread and came from his own body with his disciples.

“It’s a very, very humiliating thing to eat a body,” said Canessa. “I thought of my mother that I had a unique opportunity to tell her not to cry anymore, that I was alive. And that I did it, I had to buy time and buy time, I had to eat the bodies.”

For December 12, only 16 of the 45 original passengers were still alive and the decision was made to send three by the mountain to ask for help. The “expeditionaries” chosen were Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa and Antonio Vizintín.

Sixty-one day after their plane crashed in the mountains, men have undertaken what they thought was a day trip.

The trip of Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa on the mountain

Three days after their departure, the experts reached the top of the mountain and realized that everything around them was more the same.

It was then decided that Vizintín would return to the accident site to inform others that the trip would take more time than expected. He left his remaining rations with Parrado and Canessa and withdrew in the way they came.

Meanwhile, Parrado and Canessa continued their path, which turned out to be more dangerous when descending. Finally, after eight days, they reached a shore and a cattle path that took them to the city of Los Maitennes, in Chile.

On the other side of the roaring river, Parrado and Canessa could see three farmers, but noise made it effectively impossible to communicate. One of the men, Sergio Catalán, said they would come back the next day.

“This dream tomorrow we still had, was real now,” said Canessa.

Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa Y Sergio Catalan

Wikimedia Commonando Parrado (left) and Roberto Canessa (right) shortly after their rescue.

When they returned early the next morning, they designed a plan to communicate writing notes on paper, binding them to the rocks and threw them through the river.

Parrado’s initial note said: “I come from an airplane that crashed in the mountains. I am Uruguayan. We have been walking for 10 days. I have 14 friends injured at the scene of the accident. We need help. We don’t have food.” Come and get us. “

The Catalan was immediately useful, traveling 10 hours on horseback to inform the authorities, and in the following days, the other 14 survivors were rescued by helicopter.

In the media frenzy, the voice was extended that the survivors had used cannibalism, which makes the question the ethics of such an act. The survivors, on the other hand, approached the reaction directly, and their comparison with the last dinner seemed to calm part of the moral panic.

“Some thought it was good, some thought it was bad, but I couldn’t have less importance,” said Canessa. “They are not allowed to judge us.”