In October 1972, the world was gripped by the harrowing tale of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, a journey destined for Santiago, Chile. The airplane, carrying 45 people—including 19 players from Uruguay’s Old Christian rugby team—met a horrible end when it lost its wings and crashed onto a mountain range in the heart of the Andes.
Twelve people died in the first collision, leaving the survivors to spend a torturous seventy-two days adrift in the dangerous Andes. The documentary “Andes Plane Crash: Terror at 30,000 feet,” which will air on Channel 5, will present the unfiltered accounts of the 16 surviving passengers and highlight the drastic survival tactics they had to employ.
The astonishing choices the group made to get through their ordeal are revealed by Coche Inciarte, a survivor who tragically died in July at the age of 75. They made the desperate decision to turn to cannibalism in the event that any of them perished. “You can have my body if I pass away. You are free to follow in my death. And that’s what made me decide to eat,” Inciarte said in the documentary, giving viewers an insight into the drastic measures taken in order to survive.
Among the survivors, Eduardo Strauch recounts the desperate circumstances they faced due to the lack of provisions. The passengers had to walk a tightrope between survival and starvation with only eight chocolate bars, a tin of mussels, a few dates, almonds, three little jars of jam, dried plums, chocolates, and many bottles of wine. Fito and Daniel, Strauch’s relatives, suggested that in order to prevent weakness, he eat the deceased’s flesh. As Strauch recounted, “We started eating very small pieces and started feeling a little bit better with the protein,” it was clear how desperate they had to be to survive.
One of the travelers, Fernando Parrado, defended the group’s unimaginable acts during a 10-day walk over the Andes in search of assistance.I can guarantee you that if you had been there with us in that condition, you would have done the exact same thing and reached the same conclusion at the same time,” Parrado said, emphasizing the seriousness of their situation.
Another survivor, Roberto Canessa, talked of the inner turmoil he had after deciding to eat human flesh. Fearing that he would be “stealing their souls,” Canessa considered the ethical and psychological difficulties with us in that condition the group was facing. “We questioned if it was insane of us to ever consider such a thing. Had we become barbaric savages?” he asked, revealing some of the ethical conundrums that accompanied their survival tactic.
The compelling story comes to a head when Parrado and Canessa come across Chilean herders following a grueling 72 days of battling avalanches, starvation, and the severe Andean weather. A horrific chapter of their lives came to an end when they were subsequently rescued by the Chilean Air Force.
The captivating story of overcoming overwhelming obstacles to survive has been taken to the big screen with the debut of Netflix’s “Society of the Snow.” The film, which is an adaptation of Pablo Vierci’s 2009 book, not only vividly depicts the horror of the Andes ordeal but also features sequences shot in the exact mountains where this remarkable narrative took place.
The testimonies of the survivors, as told in the documentary and portrayed in the movie, reverberate as one revisits this terrifying chapter of human perseverance because they show the resilience of the human spirit in the face of unfathomable hardship. The history of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 is forever marked as an example of the human spirit’s ability to persevere in the face of adversity.