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The True Story Behind a Rugby Team's Plane Crash In the Andes
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Apr 22, 2025
On Oct. 13, 1972, a plane carrying 45 passengers, including the Old Christians Uruguayan rugby team, crashed in the Andes between Chile and Argentina. The Uruguayan Air Force flight 571 survivors believed they would be rescued within days. They could not have predicted how long their ordeal would last or that they would become famous as the "Andes mountains cannibals."
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On October 13, 1972, a plane carrying 45 passengers
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including an entire professional rugby team, crashed in the Andes Mountains between Chile and Argentina
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There was no way the survivors could have known it at the time, but their nightmare had only just begun
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Their story has been called the miracle of the Andes on account of the incredible odds the survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571
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had to overcome to make it home. Today, we're going to take a look at the true story behind the movie Alive
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and the crash of Uruguayan Flight 571 in the Andes. The rugby team aboard Flight 571 wasn't terribly alarmed
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when the pilot told them they were about to encounter some turbulence. They were en route to a match in Chile, and most had their minds on the coming game
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But at least one of the passengers, a 19-year-old medical student named Roberto Canessa
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recalls someone near him asking, aren't we flying too close to the mountains
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Moments later, his fear was realized when the plane hit the side of a mountain
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The crash was later attributed to an error made by the pilot. While still flying high amongst the Andes Mountains
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the pilot turned north to begin the descent into Santiago, Chile. But the peaks were still too high where they were
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Realizing his mistake, the pilot attempted to increase the altitude by tilting the plane nearly fully vertical, which caused the plane to stall
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The engine sputtered and the plane descended, and that's when it hit the mountain
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Dr. Roberto Canessa would eventually write the book, I Had to Survive, How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives
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in which he would detail exactly how he felt after the plane hit the mountain
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He reported that his body lurched forward upon impact and he immediately struck his head
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His first thought was that his life was about to end. He held on tight to his seat, and he began to pray
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Someone nearby yelled, please, God, help me, help me, while another person shouted that he was blind
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When Canessa looked over at the screaming passenger, he saw that the man's brain was literally spilling out of his head
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When the plane finally came to a stop, all of the seats pushed forward toward the cockpit like a row of dominoes
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The smell of jet fuel and the sounds of screaming filled the air. The crash split the fuselage of the plane wide open
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It broke apart, and the tail was nowhere in sight. The rugby team, along with their friends and family
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who had been aboard the flight, found themselves stranded, surrounded by snow-capped mountains
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in the midst of a raging blizzard. After the crash, the team gathered whatever food and warm
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clothes they could find in the wreckage Convinced that a rescue mission would arrive quickly they took their empty suitcases and used them to make a cross on the ground that they believed would be easily visible from the sky They also used their footsteps to carve an SOS message in the snow for planes that
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might be flying overhead. On the second day, they heard both a jet and a smaller plane fly over them
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Both times, the survivors became enlated, feeling sure that a rescue was imminent
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But day after day, came and went with no sign of help
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Flight 571 took off with 45 people aboard. 12 of those perished in the crash, and five more succumbed to their injuries within hours
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Another person died one week later from injuries sustained in the crash. And on the 17th day, disaster struck again
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A sudden avalanche swept over the crash site, where another eight people met their demise
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The survivors lacked food, which made starvation their number one concern. However, they were also trapped at an altitude of 11,800 feet
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which meant that their second biggest problem was the unrelenting freezing temperatures
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To stay alive, the survivors of Flight 571 had to get clever
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To get drinking water, they used a section of aluminum from one of the plane seats to melt the snow
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They also needed to stay warm, so they disassembled all of the wool seat covers to form blankets
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Walking around in the deep snow wasn't easy, so they figured out they could use seat bottoms as snowshoes
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They used the fuselage as shelter, and to block the cold air from getting inside
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they packed suitcases into the open spaces. Sunglasses were fabricated from plastic
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that was found in the pilot's cabin. Hammocks were constructed for people with broken legs
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and sleeping bags were made from insulation pulled from the plane's kitchen. When it came to bodily functions
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the survivors would urinate into rugby balls, because if they tried to do it outside in the snow
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their urine would freeze. Roberto Canessa, just a young medical student at the time
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used his nascent skills to nurse the injured. He drained fluids and stabilized fractured bones
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He also assumed responsibility for moving the corpses, a job some couldn't bring themselves to do
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In an interview with National Geographic, Dr. Canessa later reflected on the ingenuity of the survivors
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saying that you get very smart when you are dying. It was nine days after the crash that the food ran out
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The land around the crash site had no vegetation, and there were no animals at that altitude either
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so hunting or foraging was out of the question. With nothing to sustain them, it was only a few days
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before they were all feeling the symptoms of starvation. The survivors were aware that if they waited too long to eat
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they would be too weak to survive. They were also aware that the bodies of the deceased passengers lay preserved in the packed snow not too far from the fuselage It didn take long to realize what the only option really was Many of the survivors resisted and some of them prayed to God
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asking for guidance as to whether or not they should resort to eating their fellow passengers and teammates
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There was plenty of discussion among the team, but in the end, starvation led to action
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As a medical student, Roberto Canessa knew that human tissue contains proteins and fat
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like any other kind of meat. He knew that it would be sufficient for sustaining
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the starving survivors. And as the closest thing they had to a doctor
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he felt confident about being the first to cut into one of the corpses. In his memoir, Knessa would later
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write about the mental barrier he encountered when he tried to eat his friend. For him, it was one thing to know
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at an intellectual level that you were hungry and needed food to live. But it was another thing entirely
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to know that the so-called food in one's hand is from the body of a loved one
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The experience for the survivors was, needless to say, unbelievably stressful. Knessa used a shard of glass to slice into the first body
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and each survivor took a piece, forcing themselves to consume it on the spot
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Every survivor except one. Koche and Searte initially refused to take part
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as he could not stomach the idea. Eventually, though, even he gave in and ate to stay alive
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Technically speaking, what the survivors did is not cannibalism per se. That term usually refers to the devious means in order to consume a person
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What the survivors did is actually known as anthropophagy. Despite the pedantics, the survivors realized the severity of their actions
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and vowed to consider it a sacred act. Of the then ten remains they had, they deemed three of them off-limits
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Those were the bodies of Fernando Parado's mother and sister and Javier Methol's nephew
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All of the survivors had serious difficulties committing to the idea of eating another human
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being. To come to grips with the situation, Knessa and the others reasoned that if the
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situation was reversed, they would want their own bodies to be used for food. Knessa felt the act of
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eating another person connected the two physically and spiritually. With all in agreement, the
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survivors vowed that if they themselves perished, they would willingly donate themselves so the
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others could live. During the avalanche that hit on the 17th day, the frozen bodies that the team
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were living off of were all swept away. However, the avalanche also resulted in the loss of eight
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additional passengers. The survivors once again faced an agonizing decision. Should they consume
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their friends, who only hours earlier had been living and breathing? After more discussion
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Canessa and the others once again decided to do what they must to survive and they fed off the newly lost passengers Though they were stranded the team wasn totally cut off from the outside world
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They used a transistor radio to hear about the search efforts being made to find them
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But on October 23, 1972, they heard some gravely distressing news. After over 100 attempts to
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locate the crashed plane, the authorities were calling off the search. The survivors realized
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that if they were going to make it home, they would have to get help themselves. Soon afterwards, Canessa, Nando Parado, and Antonio Tintin Visentin set out on a hike to find rescue
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They reached the top of the mountain, but once they got there, they realized they were still far from finding safety
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Tintin was sent back to the plane so that Canessa and Parado could better divide their meager food rations
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At night, they endured sub-zero temperatures, but after 10 days of walking
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they reached a spot that had grass and water, and they suddenly felt confident that they were going to survive
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Kinesa and Parado hiked 10 days and 44 miles before they finally found someone who could help them
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It was 70 days after the initial crash when they finally emerged back into civilization
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The two then led authorities to the crash site, where the rest of the survivors were saved
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Considering their severe malnutrition and the incredibly dangerous terrain they walked across
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Knessa and Parado's feet was nothing short of astonishing. On December 22, 1972
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two helicopters were sent to find the survivors still living in the plane wreckage
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Six were immediately flown home, but eight others had to wait until the next day
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due to poor weather conditions. The rescue made all the headlines, but reactions quickly shifted
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from joyous amazement to shock and disgust when word got out about what the team had to do
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to survive. It wasn't until the survivors were able to express their own hesitations about their actions
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and describe the spiritual battle that ensued over the decision that the public was swayed
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to support them. Especially troubling was that the church took issue with the survivors' actions
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However, once they explained that they had treated the consumption of their friends as
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an act of communion, the church absolved them of their sins. After the rescue, Canessa set out to meet the parents of all those who had perished
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He took them the letters the dead had written before they passed away. He felt strongly about telling the survivors' side of the story
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and making sure the circumstances of their plight were well understood. Knessa knew how taboo what they had done was
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and he believed no one would be more outraged than those of the families of the deceased
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But in the end, he found he was met with understanding and forgiveness from the families of the victims
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They all seemed to understand living was more important than anything else