---
title: "Flight 571: The Andes Cannibal Story - 72 Days of Survival"
description: "On October 12, 1972, Flight 571 took off from Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, and made its way across South America and over the Andes Mountains. It was carrying the Old Christians Club, a Uruguayan rugby union team, plus their supporters. Add five crew members and there were 45 unfortunate souls in total aboard the flight.\n\nIts final destination was Santiago, Chile, but the plane never made it that far. The following day, pilot error caused the aircraft to crash into the mountains, killing a quarter of the passengers and leaving the survivors injured, starving, and stranded in the middle of nowhere in the merciless environment of the Andes.\n\nWhat followed next were two-and-a-half months of pure terror and hopelessness for the remaining passengers. As more survivors of the crash succumbed to their injuries and perished, the others were left facing a grim reality that most humans would deem unthinkable.\n\nIf they were to have even the slightest chance of survival, they needed food. But way up in the Andes, there was only one thing they could eat — the bodies of their departed loved ones. And, thus, the choice was put before them: become cannibals or starve to death.\n\nThey chose the former, and sixteen people survived their harrowing ordeal and made it out of those treacherous mountains. Today, we bring you their story.\n\n## The Takeoff\n\nFlight 571 took off from Montevideo's Carrasco International Airport on October 12. The rugby team had chartered a twin-engine Fairchild FH-227D airplane from the Uruguayan Air Force to take them to Chile where they were scheduled to play an exhibition game against the \"Old Boys\" English team.\n\nThere were 40 passengers on the plane. Nineteen of them were members of the \"Old Christians\": 18 players plus the team physician. The doctor's wife also tagged along, and the other 20 spots were reserved for some of the team's most ardent supporters. Only one of the passengers had no affiliation to the rugby team: Graziela Augusto de Mariani. She thought it was her lucky day when one of the supporters cancelled and she bought their ticket to attend her daughter's wedding. Lastly, there were five crew members aboard the plane: the pilot, co-pilot, navigator, flight attendant, and mechanic.\n\nThe flight from Montevideo to Santiago was roughly 1,370 km long, most of it over Argentina. At first, things went smoothly. The plane flew 1,200 km without any issues. But as they approached the Andes, the pilot received news of bad weather that made him wary of attempting the final and most dangerous leg of the journey. Instead, they made a one-night stopover in the Argentinean city of Mendoza, nestled in the foothills of the mountains. Passengers took advantage of the delay to stock up on goods such as chocolate, cheese, and whiskey.\n\nThe following day, the weather was still pretty bad in the morning, but it was supposed to improve in the afternoon, so the pilot decided to take off shortly after 2 p.m. Now, Santiago is located almost directly to the west of Mendoza, but the Andes are particularly high in that region and include Mount Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the Americas. It is possible to take a direct route from one city to the other…under ideal conditions.\n\nHowever, these were far from ideal conditions. Besides the weather still not letting up, the aircraft itself wasn't particularly reliable or powerful and was already loaded to capacity. The pilot Colonel Julio César Ferradas opted for a longer, but less risky U-shaped detour. Instead of traveling directly west, Flight 571 would go south to Malargüe, then west over the Planchón Pass to cross the Andes until they reached the city of Curicó in Chile, then back up north again and land in Santiago. After all, better safe than sorry…\n\n## The Crash\n\nThe first part went according to plan. At 3:08 pm, the captain contacted Malargüe airport and informed them of their position, estimating that they would fly over Planchón at 3:21 pm. That was the point where communication would be taken over by the Chilean air traffic control. Indeed, at exactly 3:21 pm, the plane made contact with the Santiago airport, informing them that they had entered Chilean airspace and would reach Curicó at 3:32 pm.\n\nSo far, so good. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. But, then, something unexpected happened. Just three minutes later, at 3:24 pm, air traffic control received another communication from the Fairchild, telling them that the aircraft had Curicó in sight and was starting its right angle turn to head north. But this was eight minutes ahead of schedule. Admittedly, 3:32 was just an estimation. Winds and other factors would affect the actual arrival time. But, still, if someone would have pressed the issue just a bit more, maybe a tragedy could have been averted that day. Instead, air traffic control accepted the dubious information and gave the go-ahead for the airplane to begin making its descent from 5,500 meters to 3,500 meters.\n\nJust a few minutes later, that decision would prove fatal. You see, the pilot Captain Ferradas wasn't the one at the controls, but rather his co-pilot, the much more inexperienced Lieutenant-Colonel Dante Héctor Lagurara. Due to heavy clouds, he had flown over the Planchón Pass using only his instruments as he couldn't actually see the deadly mountains below him. But he had severely undershot his approach to Curicó and, more importantly, neither air traffic control nor the pilot spotted the error. When Lagurara began descending and turning north, he was still over the Andes.\n\nBy 3:30 pm, the Fairchild had descended almost a thousand meters and had entered some air pockets and began shaking violently. No worries from the passengers at first. Some turbulence is to be expected when you're flying over the Andes. But seconds later, the aircraft entered a strong downward current and began plummeting hundreds of meters. The mood inside the plane changed almost immediately from festive to fearful as everyone strapped into their seats. Some of the survivors recall that this was the moment they realized something had gone terribly wrong, as they looked out the window and saw that the airplane had descended beneath the clouds and was passing perilously close to the mountain peaks.\n\nInside the cockpit, both pilots were trying furiously to gain altitude. They succeeded a little bit, just not enough. At 3:34 pm, the plane hit the mountains for the first time, clipping the underside of the tail cone. Immediately after that, a much more serious collision followed, as the entire right wing broke off from the plane with such force that it also hit and severed the tail of the Fairchild. This impact claimed its first victims. Five people who were seated in the rear of the plane, including the steward, the navigator, and three passengers, were sucked out the back of the aircraft and fell to their deaths. Then a third collision also severed the left wing, and the plane began sliding down the Andes like a lethal toboggan. Two more people fell out of the aircraft and perished.\n\nAt this point, what remained of the airplane was skidding out of control at high speeds and it seemed like only a matter of time before it either crashed into the side of a mountain or it fell hundreds of meters into the dark chasm below. Then, finally, a stroke of luck: the plane entered a valley and came to a sudden stop in a snow bank. But even this small dose of good fortune came with a heavy price as five more people soon died from the injuries they sustained in the crash, including Captain Ferradas and the rugby team doctor, Francisco Nicola.\n\nMiraculously, some of the passengers had sustained only minor scrapes and bruises, and they began helping the others. Roberto Canessa and Gustavo Zerbino were two med students who treated the injured survivors as best they could, although many of them were in critical condition and way beyond their limited expertise. Meanwhile, some able-bodied passengers started making fires using the flammable materials aboard the plane, while others plugged up the tail of the aircraft so they could use it as an improvised shelter for the night.\n\n## The First Days\n\nThe following morning, on October 14, the survivors got out of the wreckage of the Fairchild to assess their situation. Twelve people had perished during the initial crash and now, five more had died during the night from their injuries, including the co-pilot Dante Lagurara and Francisco Abal, one of Uruguay's top rugby players. Uncertain whether they would be rescued that day or not, the survivors took stock of their supplies.\n\nThere were around a dozen bars of chocolate and nougat, three small jam jars, a packet of salted crackers, two cans of mussels, and a bunch of dried plums, dates, and caramels that were scattered all over the airplane floor. To drink, there were three bottles of wine, a bottle and a hip flask of whiskey, a bottle of cherry brandy, and another one of crème de menthe. That wasn't a lot to split between 28 people, but in this early stage, the survivors still held out hope that they would soon be rescued. Little did they know that those hopes were in vain.\n\nThe Chilean authorities, indeed, realized quickly that something went wrong when Flight 571 didn't make it to Santiago on time and stopped all communication. They immediately sent out search-and-rescue parties, but they were looking in the completely wrong spot since the co-pilot had given them incorrect information. Unbeknownst to everyone at the time, the survivors weren't even in Chile. They had crashed in a remote valley about 3,500 meters high on the Argentinean side of the Andes.\n\nEventually, search efforts shifted to that area once it had become obvious that the plane had been nowhere near where it said it was when it disappeared. The first day was very cloudy, so there wasn't much hope for success, but the second day was a different matter. There wasn't a single cloud in the bright blue sky. If there were any survivors to be found, this was the day to do it. Around a dozen aircraft from Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay deployed to search for Flight 571, retracing the route that the plane would have taken. Unfortunately, none of them saw anything. Even the airplanes that flew over the wreckage couldn't spot the white fuselage of the Fairchild against the snowy background of the Andes.\n\nThe grim realization that salvation might not come anytime soon slowly dawned on the 28 survivors. Everyone tends to react differently during a crisis. Some of them were completely despondent and had already given up any hope of making it out of those mountains alive. Others were still in shock following the crash. Some were physically too injured to do anything and relied on others to take care of them. But some of the remaining passengers decided that, if they were going to survive this ordeal, they couldn't just sit on their hands and hope to be rescued.\n\n## The Water\n\nFirst things first. Everyone knows that you can't last long without water. Wine and cherry brandy go down well after a nice meal, but aren't ideal for hydration purposes. So, if the stranded passengers were to have any chance of surviving for more than a few days, they needed a source of potable water.\n\nFortunately, they were surrounded by snow. Unfortunately, actually consuming it was trickier than one might expect. Simply eating it was too painful as it froze their mouths. They had already burned everything flammable to keep warm during the first nights, so they couldn't melt it. One semi-useful technique was to make snowballs and suck on them, but this wasn't enough to quench their thirst.\n\nIn came Adolfo \"Fito\" Strauch with an innovative idea. He was a rugby player for the Old Christians alongside his cousin Eduardo. In fact, Adolfo played for a different team back in Uruguay, but Eduardo convinced him to join him on this trip since he had previously never left the country. An agronomy student in his day-to-day life, Fito found a way of using the sun's powerful rays to melt the snow and collect the water. Among the debris of the wrecked Fairchild, he spotted a rectangle of aluminum foil, about 30 by 60 cm wide, which came from inside the back of an airplane seat. Strauch realized that, left in the sun, the foil would warm up enough to melt snow, so he bent the sides to shape it like a bowl and twisted one corner to make a spout. He then placed a thin layer of snow on top of the foil and left it out in the sun. After a while, drops of fresh, lifesaving water began pouring out through the spout and into a bottle that Fito held beneath it.\n\nIt was the first bit of good news as the passengers had a reliable and renewable method of obtaining water. Even better, every single seat in the airplane had one of those aluminum foils, so they could have dozens of them working at the same time. Still…they only produced a few drops, and there were 28 thirsty mouths waiting. That's why one group of survivors were designated water makers, tasked with melting snow around the clock.\n\nThe other able-bodied passengers soon found things to do, as well. Canessa and Zerbino, the two med students, formed the medical team alongside Liliana Methol, who acted as nurse and adopted a motherly role to the other survivors, who were mostly young men in their early 20s. And a third group was on cabin duty, trying to improve their shelter as much as they could. Once again, the airplane seats proved to be an invaluable resource, as they repurposed the seat covers into blankets and the cushions into snowshoes. Later, they improvised a hammock out of some metal poles and nylon webbing used to secure cargo. It was reserved for the seriously wounded, to prevent them from screaming in agony should one of the other passengers accidentally kick or bump them during the night.\n\nA week passed. Nobody else died in the meantime, but no rescue seemed to be forthcoming, either. Several times, the survivors thought their prayers had been answered as they saw a plane fly over them, but each time, their hopes were dashed into a pit of dread and despair as the aircraft carried on like normal. From up high in the sky, the wreckage of the Fairchild was invisible.\n\nAnd there was more bad news on the way. After eight days of looking in vain, the authorities concluded that there could be no survivors and called off their search. They planned to resume looking in a few months when the snow melted, but by then, it would no longer be a search-and-rescue mission, but a recovery operation.\n\n## The \"Food\"\n\nAfter a few days with no new developments, some of the fitter survivors decided it was time to explore their surroundings. After all, as far as they knew, there could be a verdant Chilean village just on the other side of the mountain. That might have been a tad too fanciful, but a more realistic objective was to look for the severed tail of their airplane. They might find more luggage with extra clothes in it, more food, or, perhaps, even other survivors who were using it for refuge.\n\nSo on the morning of the fifth day, four of the passengers set out to climb the mountain. They walked for a few hours, but bid a hasty retreat after one of them almost fell to his death into a crevasse. The experience served as a stark reminder that, even though they had survived the crash and were faring well against the elements so far, there were still other deadly perils lurking in those mountains.\n\nThe foursome returned to the airplane completely dejected, but with the realization that they might have no choice but to try it again if nobody came to rescue them. \"We'd never make it,\" said one of the men, pointing out that they were far too weak from hunger to make such an arduous journey. Then, for the first time, a passenger said out loud that he'd be willing to eat one of the pilots to make it out alive, since it was their fault they were there in the first place. The others took it as a half-joke at first, but then realized that it might be the only way to survive, and carried on walking without saying anything. This was not a discussion that they were prepared to have…not yet.\n\nBut the idea did not go away. How could it when it seemed like the only way for them to stay alive? Way up high above the timberline where they were, there were no plants to harvest; no animals to catch. Their rations, which were meager to begin with, were almost over, and there was no other food source around. In the meantime, there was more bad news. On the eighth night, there was another fatality. Susana Parrado died in the arms of her brother, Nando, leaving 27 passengers still alive.\n\nAt first, the survivors talked about cannibalism in hushed tones, strictly one-on-one, unsure of how the others would react. But after a few more days out in the icy wilderness, they decided to call a meeting and discuss the unimaginable subject out in the open.\n\nThe ones who were in favor had a simple and straightforward argument: do it or die. The food had almost run out and there was literally nothing else to eat. Plus, they pointed out, if they were to perish, they would want to be eaten if it meant saving the lives of the others. This reasoning persuaded a lot of the passengers still on the fence. They felt the same way. There were still a few against the idea, but even they voiced support for the others to do it if they wanted.\n\nRoberto Canessa, one of the med students, took charge of the gruesome task. He went outside and, using a piece of broken glass, cut thin strips of flesh out of a body which was partially protruding from the snow. He didn't know who it was. He didn't want to know. He placed them on the roof to dry in the sun and let everyone know they were there for whoever wanted them. At first, nobody came, so Canessa set the example by being the first among them to eat human flesh. Many of the others followed. Here is how he later recalled the experience:\n\n> \"Our common goal was to survive — but what we lacked was food…After just a few days we were feeling the sensation of our own bodies consuming themselves just to remain alive. Before long we would become too weak to recover from starvation.\n>\n> We knew the answer, but it was too terrible to contemplate. The bodies of our friends and team-mates, preserved outside in the snow and ice, contained vital, life-giving protein that could help us survive. But could we do it?\n>\n> …I will never forget that first incision nine days after the crash…We laid the thin strips of frozen flesh aside on a piece of sheet metal…Each of us finally consumed our piece when we could bear to. Each of us came to our own decision in our own time. And once we had done so, it was irreversible…It was our final goodbye to innocence.\"\n\n## The First Expedition\n\nOne by one, most of the remaining passengers turned to cannibalism in order to survive. The day after the meeting, Canessa went up on the roof and saw that all 20 strips of meat he had placed in the sun were gone, so he and Fito Strauch went to cut some more.\n\nEarlier that day, two other passengers heard a heartbreaking broadcast on a small transistor radio they had recovered from the wreckage. Using an improvised antenna, they occasionally picked up transmissions from Chile. Up until then, they only received political propaganda, but on that day, they caught the end of a news bulletin, which informed them that the search for Flight 571 had been called off. It was a devastating update for the rest of the survivors, particularly since the eternal optimists among them still held out hope they would be found. But this new development probably convinced a few undecided passengers to resort to cannibalism. Now they knew there was nobody coming to their rescue.\n\nIt was time to be more proactive. The survivors who were in the best shape wanted to explore the mountains and survey the surrounding area for the best way out, should they need it. Plus, they still wanted to find the tail of the airplane, convinced that it would contain useful supplies.\n\nThree of them set off on the eleventh day, heading westward for the peak they came over during the crash. It took them all day to reach it and, looking back at their camp, they understood why no rescue plane spotted them. Even from that high up, the wreckage of the Fairchild was almost invisible, a \"tiny dot in the snow.\"\n\nUnfortunately for the three climbers, they had to spend the night on the mountain, fearing that one or more of them might die of exposure. But the following morning, all were still alive, albeit not exactly in mint condition: their feet were red and swollen, while their eyes were in searing pain from snow blindness. Despite their suffering, they continued their trek hoping to find the tail of the airplane and make this trip worthwhile. They appeared to be in the right spot. Debris from the crash littered the ground. And then, they came upon something more sinister — a seat facedown in the snow. Still strapped into the seat, with his body frozen and his face black, was one of the seven people who got thrown out of the plane during the crash.\n\nAs they kept looking, they found five other bodies, belonging to their Old Christian teammates and the crew of the Fairchild. Only one person remained unaccounted for, and he would eventually be found, although not for a while. Also undiscovered was the tail of the plane. The three explorers couldn't see it or any other wreckage anywhere. They hadn't reached the summit yet, but they were certain that another night in the mountains would be their doom, so they began making their way back to camp.\n\n## The Avalanche\n\nAfter a few weeks in the frozen wilderness, armed with the knowledge that nobody would come looking for them, the survivors resigned themselves to the fact that they would have to live there for a couple of months, wait for the snow to melt, and then try to get out of those mountains on their own. They had a reliable method of making water and a decent supply of food, as reprehensible as it was, and they had a strong will to survive, which they hoped would be enough to see them through this grueling ordeal.\n\nBut then disaster struck again. On the seventeenth night, October 29, the wreckage of the Fairchild was struck by an avalanche and the inside of the fuselage was almost completely filled with snow. All of the people were sleeping and were caught completely unaware and unprepared…some of them, fatally so.\n\nEight passengers were smothered to death that night. The others, although they survived the initial flurry, were still in an extremely precarious position, trapped under meters of snow. And just to drive the point home, a second avalanche hit about an hour later, although the entrance to the plane was already blocked so most of it passed over the fuselage.\n\nThe nineteen survivors had managed to dig themselves out of the snow and find refuge in a tight space inside the airplane that didn't get filled in. There was nothing to do now. They had to wait until morning. They were cramped, they were freezing, they had no blankets, shoes, or cushions, and they had to spend the night knowing that eight of their closest companions were sitting lifeless, trapped in snow just a few meters away from them.\n\nAfter a few hours, a new danger arose. The air was getting stale as the oxygen was starting to run out. Some of the survivors were already getting dizzy and things would get a hell of a lot worse if they didn't find an air source…and soon. Nando Parrado took one of the steel poles used for the hammock and began stabbing the roof of the cabin, trying to make a hole. After a while, he managed to pierce it, but now came the moment of truth. They had been snowed in by two avalanches. Nobody inside the wreckage knew if the snow layer on top of the plane was a few centimeters or a few meters thick. Would they survive…or slowly suffocate to death, one by one? Parrado held his breath as he began poking the bar through the snow and, after a few seconds, let out a giant sigh of relief as the bar slid forward unimpeded. There was nothing on top of the plane and the cold, fresh air started to fill the cabin.\n\nThe following morning, the survivors began tunneling their way out. They actually got it done fairly quickly. Maybe it was finally time for a small reprieve. Or maybe not. As soon as the first man exited the tunnel, he realized that there was a heavy blizzard outside, much stronger and much colder than anything they had experienced so far. He quickly retreated back into the relative safety of the airplane, with nothing else to do but to wait out the snowstorm.\n\nThey spent the whole second day and night inside, not eating anything and sucking on snow for moisture. On the third day, the weather was still fierce, and the nineteen survivors were starving. By this point, they had gotten fairly used to the consumption of human flesh, but all the bodies that perished in the crash were outside, inaccessible. If they wanted to eat, they had to cut meat from the fresh bodies of those killed in the avalanche.\n\nReluctantly, they did so. This time, the meat wasn't cooked or dried. It was raw. All the passengers were filled with revulsion. Many gagged and struggled to hold the food down, but without knowing how long the blizzard would last, it was their only option for survival.\n\n## The Tail\n\nThe blizzard stopped the following day. It was the 1st of November, and with the weather clear, the remaining passengers spent the next week or so clearing the snow from inside the plane and removing the corpses of those who perished in the avalanche. One section of the wreckage was left untouched, bodies and all. As grim as it might sound, they were kept as a reserve supply of food, should they get snowed in by an avalanche again.\n\nAfterward, the survivors began making plans for another expedition. They thought that their best chance of finding salvation would be for four or five of their strongest men to go down the valley once the snow started to melt. It was decided that these explorers would be kept as healthy as possible by excusing them from hard labor, allowing them plenty of sleep, and giving them the most provisions. The question was: who should they be?\n\nAfter much debating, three men emerged as suitable candidates. Roberto Canessa, the med student; Nando Parrado, because he kept a cool head in a crisis; and Numa Turcatti, because he already proved himself during the trek up the mountain. Fito Strauch also volunteered being one of the de facto leaders of the group, but he developed severe hemorrhoids after the avalanche and was dismissed as a candidate.\n\nThree other men wanted to go: Carlos Páez, Roy Harley, and Antonio Vizintín. The trio set off on a test expedition down into the valley, to see who had what it takes and who didn't. Ultimately, it was Vizintín who proved himself the most capable of the three, so he, Canessa, Parrado, and Turcatti were declared the expeditionaries who held the entire group's hope for survival.\n\nSummer in the southern hemisphere was fast approaching, but the explorers expected to leave before that. And so, on November 17th, they set off. Just three of them, unfortunately, as Numa Turcatti developed boils on his leg \"the size of hen's eggs\" that Canessa had to lance to remove the pus.\n\nThey traveled downhill toward the east and made quick progress as their rugby boots gripped well to the frozen snow. Just after a few hours, they made a startling discovery — the tail of the Fairchild, perched on top of a snow hillock in front of them. The trio rushed to it and found everything they had hoped for: clean, warm clothes, new boots, chocolate, meat pastries, sugar, rum, cartons of cigarettes, even a skiing kit. They also found the plane's batteries which still worked well enough to power a lightbulb, so the three expeditionaries spent that night in the cramped, warm conditions of the luggage compartment, reading comics by their improvised nightlight.\n\nWith new clothes and supplies, the trio set off the following day in high spirits, but morale started to dip by midday. Their route simply wasn't taking them where they expected. To their left was the biggest mountain they had seen so far, and they definitely weren't going to get over that anytime soon. They thought there would be an opening somewhere where the valley would curve toward the west, but it just kept going east, further into the Andes.\n\nCanessa convinced the others that they were traveling in the wrong direction. So there was a change of plans: they would return to the tail, salvage the batteries, and bring them back to camp. Maybe they could make the plane's radio work.\n\nIt sounded like a reasonable idea. Didn't work, though. The batteries were too heavy to carry on their makeshift sled. New plan: bring the radio to the batteries. For the moment, they loaded up the sled with all the extra clothes, a medicine chest, and thirty cartons of cigarettes and returned to the others.\n\n## The Final Expedition\n\nGetting the radio to work was their project for the rest of November. Disassembling and removing it from the cockpit of the Fairchild was easier said than done, especially when they only had a knife, a screwdriver, and a pair of pliers to work with. Thankfully, Roy Harley was an amateur electronics enthusiast, so after toiling for a few days they got it done. Harley, however, was not optimistic about their chances of fixing the radio, but he reluctantly went along with the plan, anyway.\n\nUnfortunately, he was proven right. One day, the three expeditionaries plus Harley made the trip to the tail again carrying all the necessary equipment. They spent several days trying to get the plane radio to work, but to no avail, and they almost didn't make it back to camp after getting caught in a blizzard.\n\nA sense of desperation began setting in among the survivors, and things were only getting worse. Two more men died in November, and in December, Numa Turcatti also passed away from an infection in his leg. Sixteen survivors were left and, although they were all loath to admit it, it was good for them that they had a few more bodies to replenish their food supply.\n\nTheir stock was getting woefully low. They had begun digging in the snow, searching for some of the corpses that were buried by the avalanche. They resorted to eating parts of the body they had previously discarded, such as the small intestines, the brains, and the marrow from the bones. The organs and muscles and fat were mixed into a stew and cooked to make them more palatable, but the survivors were faced with the reality that, in a while, they would literally have nothing left to eat. They didn't want to end up wishing for each other to die to get more food, so in December, a new expedition was planned.\n\nThis was the big one. Vizintín, Canessa, and Parrado packed as many supplies and medicines as they could, plus their personal belongings they didn't want to leave behind. The others even used insulating material to fashion a sleeping bag for them, so they had a chance of surviving the freezing nights up in the mountains. It was now or never. The three expeditionaries expected either to find help, or die trying.\n\nThe trio left in the early hours of December 12. They headed westward, climbing the mountain like the first expedition did, and spent the night in a small trench behind a boulder. The following day, Nando Parrado led the way and actually made it to the summit. He didn't know it back then, but he was the first person to climb that mountain. He named it Mount Seler after his father, and that became its official name.\n\nAs impressive as this feat might have been, it was followed by bad news. The men were all hoping that, once they made it past the ridge, they would see the green valleys of Chile. Instead, what they saw was more mountains and more snow because, remember, they weren't anywhere near where they thought they were. They still believed the co-pilot when he said that they passed Curicó when, in fact, they crashed way before reaching it.\n\nThere was a small glimmer of hope, though. Way in the distance, they saw a pair of smaller mountains without any snow, which the trio colourfully dubbed, umm, \"the tits.\" They were their best bet, but they were very far away. About a 50-day journey, they estimated, and they only had food to last about 15 days. A new plan was set: Vizintín would return to camp and leave the other two his rations so they would last longer.\n\n## The Rescue\n\nIt was a huge gamble, but it paid off big time, and it didn't take 50 days, either. After a few days of trekking, Canessa and Parrado reached a Y-section at the end of a valley. Past it was the most beautiful sight the two had ever seen: nature. They saw patches of grass, bushes, yellow and purple flowers, a stream of water, even some birds and lizards. After over two months spent in the icy wilderness of the Andes, surrounded by only snow, this was paradise.\n\nImmensely bolstered by this discovery, the two pressed on. They hiked for several more days, finding signs of human habitation: an empty soup can, a discarded horseshoe, a herd of cows. Then, on the ninth night, December 20, they finally found what they'd been looking for: humanity. Three men on horseback spotted them from across a river, but the torrent of the water was so loud that the two sides couldn't hear each other. Canessa and Parrado only understood one word: \"tomorrow.\"\n\nThe strangers were as good as their promise and returned the following morning. The two sides communicated by writing messages on paper, wrapping it around stones, and throwing them over the river. From that point on, salvation came swiftly. One of the strangers rode to town to tell them what happened. Later that day, they sent a rescue team who brought Canessa and Parrado to the police station. The local authorities informed the Chilean army who sent three rescue helicopters for the remaining survivors. Because of weather conditions, it took two days to get them all out, but by December 23, all 16 had made it back to civilization.\n\nThe story of Flight 571 became an international sensation — surviving a plane crash and spending 72 days in the extreme conditions of the Andes. It was an incredible tale, but the media wanted to know exactly how they accomplished it. Specifically, what did they eat all that time?\n\nUnsurprisingly, the survivors were reluctant to admit to cannibalism, but had no choice after tabloids published photographs of human remains from their campsite. There were even rumors that they had killed those they cannibalized, so the 16 survivors decided to make a clean breast of it and confess their deed before the story spun out of control. As you would expect, they were greeted with mixed reactions. All the survivors were devout Catholics and, fortunately for them, the Catholic Church was on their side, concluding that they \"acted justifiably\" given the extreme circumstances. Even Pope Paul IV supposedly sent them a telegram absolving them of guilt.\n\nRafael Echavarren, one of the deceased, was buried in his family's mausoleum in Uruguay, per his explicit request. The other 28 people who perished in Flight 571 were all buried at the crash site where a memorial was erected with a cross that bears a simple prayer:\n\n> \"The world to its Uruguayan brothers/ Near, O God, to thee.\"\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Flight 571 crashed in the Andes on October 13, 1972, killing a quarter of the 45 passengers and leaving the rest stranded.\n- The survivors faced extreme conditions and starvation, leading them to resort to cannibalism to stay alive.\n- Initial search efforts were misdirected due to incorrect information from the co-pilot, delaying rescue attempts.\n- The survivors innovated to create water from snow and used plane materials to improve their shelter.\n- After 72 days, 16 survivors were rescued, and their story became an international sensation, sparking debate about their actions.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What was the final destination of Flight 571?\n\nThe final destination of Flight 571 was Santiago, Chile.\n\n### How many people were on Flight 571?\n\nThere were 45 people on Flight 571, including 40 passengers and 5 crew members.\n\n### What caused Flight 571 to crash?\n\nFlight 571 crashed due to pilot error. The co-pilot, who was inexperienced, flew the plane over the Andes using only instruments and severely undershot the approach to Curicó, leading to a collision with the mountains.\n\n### How did the survivors of Flight 571 obtain water?\n\nThe survivors used aluminum foil from the airplane seats to melt snow and collect water. They placed a thin layer of snow on the foil and left it in the sun, allowing the snow to melt and drip into a bottle.\n\n### What did the survivors of Flight 571 eat to survive?\n\nThe survivors resorted to cannibalism, eating the bodies of their deceased companions to survive. They initially found the idea repulsive but realized it was the only way to stay alive in the harsh conditions of the Andes.\n\n### How were the survivors of Flight 571 eventually rescued?\n\nTwo survivors, Roberto Canessa and Nando Parrado, trekked for days through the Andes and eventually found a Chilean farmer who alerted authorities. A rescue team was sent, and all 16 remaining survivors were airlifted to safety.\n\n### What was the reaction of the public and the Catholic Church to the survivors' actions?\n\nThe survivors were initially met with mixed reactions, but the Catholic Church supported them, stating that they acted justifiably given the extreme circumstances. Pope Paul IV even sent them a telegram absolving them of guilt.\n\n### What was the initial plan for the survivors to find help?\n\nThe survivors planned for a group of their strongest members to explore the valley once the snow melted, hoping to find a way out of the Andes. They prepared by keeping these explorers healthy and well-supplied.\n\n### How did the survivors communicate with the outside world during their ordeal?\n\nThe survivors occasionally picked up transmissions from Chile using a small transistor radio they recovered from the wreckage. They used an improvised antenna to receive broadcasts, which sometimes provided them with crucial information.\n\n### What was the impact of the avalanche on the survivors?\n\nThe avalanche on the seventeenth night filled the fuselage with snow, smothering eight passengers to death and trapping the remaining survivors. They had to dig themselves out and endure a blizzard, further depleting their resources and morale.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Into the Shadows video: Flight 571: The Andes Cannibal Story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh63AV0Sk2c)\n- [https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/1972-andes-plane-crash-story-photos/](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/1972-andes-plane-crash-story-photos/)\n- [https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20231213-society-of-the-snow-the-horrifying-story-of-the-1972-andes-plane-crash-is-also-one-of-survival-and-generosity](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20231213-society-of-the-snow-the-horrifying-story-of-the-1972-andes-plane-crash-is-also-one-of-survival-and-generosity)\n- [https://time.com/6551709/society-of-the-snow-true-story-netflix/](https://time.com/6551709/society-of-the-snow-true-story-netflix/)\n- [https://www.today.com/popculture/andes-uruguay-plane-crash-1972-survivors-now-rcna133498](https://www.today.com/popculture/andes-uruguay-plane-crash-1972-survivors-now-rcna133498)\n- [https://www.mentalfloss.com/history/uruguayan-air-force-flight-571-plane-crash-facts](https://www.mentalfloss.com/history/uruguayan-air-force-flight-571-plane-crash-facts)\n- [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/flight-571-andes-crash-true-story](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/flight-571-andes-crash-true-story)\n- [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/04/nando-parrado-andes-plane-crash-1972-rugby-team](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/04/nando-parrado-andes-plane-crash-1972-rugby-team)\n- [https://web.archive.org/web/20171126141829/http://www.alpineexpeditions.net/as-the-accident.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20171126141829/http://www.alpineexpeditions.net/as-the-accident.html)\n- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/8M_-_Montevideo_2025_-_44.jpg) by Betttttttt / openverse, by-sa.\n\n## Related Coverage"
url: https://intotheshadows.pub/article/flight-571-andes-cannibal-story.md
canonical: https://intotheshadows.pub/article/flight-571-andes-cannibal-story
datePublished: 2026-07-28
dateModified: 2026-07-28
author:
  - name: Simon Whistler
    url: https://intotheshadows.pub/author/simon-whistler
publisher: Into the Shadows
image: "https://media.intotheshadows.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/Hh63AV0Sk2c/hero.jpg"
type: Article
contentHash: ad1a78af81b44354f2db36ff0040d1eeb516939e846dbb9fe4e6e490e12efd74
tokens: 10108
summaryUrl: https://intotheshadows.pub/article/flight-571-andes-cannibal-story.md.summary.md
---

<!-- aeo:section start="lede" -->
On October 12, 1972, Flight 571 took off from Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, and made its way across South America and over the Andes Mountains. It was carrying the Old Christians Club, a Uruguayan rugby union team, plus their supporters. Add five crew members and there were 45 unfortunate souls in total aboard the flight.

Its final destination was Santiago, Chile, but the plane never made it that far. The following day, pilot error caused the aircraft to crash into the mountains, killing a quarter of the passengers and leaving the survivors injured, starving, and stranded in the middle of nowhere in the merciless environment of the Andes.

What followed next were two-and-a-half months of pure terror and hopelessness for the remaining passengers. As more survivors of the crash succumbed to their injuries and perished, the others were left facing a grim reality that most humans would deem unthinkable.

If they were to have even the slightest chance of survival, they needed food. But way up in the Andes, there was only one thing they could eat — the bodies of their departed loved ones. And, thus, the choice was put before them: become cannibals or starve to death.

They chose the former, and sixteen people survived their harrowing ordeal and made it out of those treacherous mountains. Today, we bring you their story.

<!-- aeo:section end="lede" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-takeoff" -->
## The Takeoff

Flight 571 took off from Montevideo's Carrasco International Airport on October 12. The rugby team had chartered a twin-engine Fairchild FH-227D airplane from the Uruguayan Air Force to take them to Chile where they were scheduled to play an exhibition game against the "Old Boys" English team.

There were 40 passengers on the plane. Nineteen of them were members of the "Old Christians": 18 players plus the team physician. The doctor's wife also tagged along, and the other 20 spots were reserved for some of the team's most ardent supporters. Only one of the passengers had no affiliation to the rugby team: Graziela Augusto de Mariani. She thought it was her lucky day when one of the supporters cancelled and she bought their ticket to attend her daughter's wedding. Lastly, there were five crew members aboard the plane: the pilot, co-pilot, navigator, flight attendant, and mechanic.

The flight from Montevideo to Santiago was roughly 1,370 km long, most of it over Argentina. At first, things went smoothly. The plane flew 1,200 km without any issues. But as they approached the Andes, the pilot received news of bad weather that made him wary of attempting the final and most dangerous leg of the journey. Instead, they made a one-night stopover in the Argentinean city of Mendoza, nestled in the foothills of the mountains. Passengers took advantage of the delay to stock up on goods such as chocolate, cheese, and whiskey.

The following day, the weather was still pretty bad in the morning, but it was supposed to improve in the afternoon, so the pilot decided to take off shortly after 2 p.m. Now, Santiago is located almost directly to the west of Mendoza, but the Andes are particularly high in that region and include Mount Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the Americas. It is possible to take a direct route from one city to the other…under ideal conditions.

However, these were far from ideal conditions. Besides the weather still not letting up, the aircraft itself wasn't particularly reliable or powerful and was already loaded to capacity. The pilot Colonel Julio César Ferradas opted for a longer, but less risky U-shaped detour. Instead of traveling directly west, Flight 571 would go south to Malargüe, then west over the Planchón Pass to cross the Andes until they reached the city of Curicó in Chile, then back up north again and land in Santiago. After all, better safe than sorry…

<!-- aeo:section end="the-takeoff" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-crash" -->
## The Crash

The first part went according to plan. At 3:08 pm, the captain contacted Malargüe airport and informed them of their position, estimating that they would fly over Planchón at 3:21 pm. That was the point where communication would be taken over by the Chilean air traffic control. Indeed, at exactly 3:21 pm, the plane made contact with the Santiago airport, informing them that they had entered Chilean airspace and would reach Curicó at 3:32 pm.

So far, so good. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. But, then, something unexpected happened. Just three minutes later, at 3:24 pm, air traffic control received another communication from the Fairchild, telling them that the aircraft had Curicó in sight and was starting its right angle turn to head north. But this was eight minutes ahead of schedule. Admittedly, 3:32 was just an estimation. Winds and other factors would affect the actual arrival time. But, still, if someone would have pressed the issue just a bit more, maybe a tragedy could have been averted that day. Instead, air traffic control accepted the dubious information and gave the go-ahead for the airplane to begin making its descent from 5,500 meters to 3,500 meters.

Just a few minutes later, that decision would prove fatal. You see, the pilot Captain Ferradas wasn't the one at the controls, but rather his co-pilot, the much more inexperienced Lieutenant-Colonel Dante Héctor Lagurara. Due to heavy clouds, he had flown over the Planchón Pass using only his instruments as he couldn't actually see the deadly mountains below him. But he had severely undershot his approach to Curicó and, more importantly, neither air traffic control nor the pilot spotted the error. When Lagurara began descending and turning north, he was still over the Andes.

By 3:30 pm, the Fairchild had descended almost a thousand meters and had entered some air pockets and began shaking violently. No worries from the passengers at first. Some turbulence is to be expected when you're flying over the Andes. But seconds later, the aircraft entered a strong downward current and began plummeting hundreds of meters. The mood inside the plane changed almost immediately from festive to fearful as everyone strapped into their seats. Some of the survivors recall that this was the moment they realized something had gone terribly wrong, as they looked out the window and saw that the airplane had descended beneath the clouds and was passing perilously close to the mountain peaks.

Inside the cockpit, both pilots were trying furiously to gain altitude. They succeeded a little bit, just not enough. At 3:34 pm, the plane hit the mountains for the first time, clipping the underside of the tail cone. Immediately after that, a much more serious collision followed, as the entire right wing broke off from the plane with such force that it also hit and severed the tail of the Fairchild. This impact claimed its first victims. Five people who were seated in the rear of the plane, including the steward, the navigator, and three passengers, were sucked out the back of the aircraft and fell to their deaths. Then a third collision also severed the left wing, and the plane began sliding down the Andes like a lethal toboggan. Two more people fell out of the aircraft and perished.

At this point, what remained of the airplane was skidding out of control at high speeds and it seemed like only a matter of time before it either crashed into the side of a mountain or it fell hundreds of meters into the dark chasm below. Then, finally, a stroke of luck: the plane entered a valley and came to a sudden stop in a snow bank. But even this small dose of good fortune came with a heavy price as five more people soon died from the injuries they sustained in the crash, including Captain Ferradas and the rugby team doctor, Francisco Nicola.

Miraculously, some of the passengers had sustained only minor scrapes and bruises, and they began helping the others. Roberto Canessa and Gustavo Zerbino were two med students who treated the injured survivors as best they could, although many of them were in critical condition and way beyond their limited expertise. Meanwhile, some able-bodied passengers started making fires using the flammable materials aboard the plane, while others plugged up the tail of the aircraft so they could use it as an improvised shelter for the night.

<!-- aeo:section end="the-crash" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-first-days" -->
## The First Days

The following morning, on October 14, the survivors got out of the wreckage of the Fairchild to assess their situation. Twelve people had perished during the initial crash and now, five more had died during the night from their injuries, including the co-pilot Dante Lagurara and Francisco Abal, one of Uruguay's top rugby players. Uncertain whether they would be rescued that day or not, the survivors took stock of their supplies.

There were around a dozen bars of chocolate and nougat, three small jam jars, a packet of salted crackers, two cans of mussels, and a bunch of dried plums, dates, and caramels that were scattered all over the airplane floor. To drink, there were three bottles of wine, a bottle and a hip flask of whiskey, a bottle of cherry brandy, and another one of crème de menthe. That wasn't a lot to split between 28 people, but in this early stage, the survivors still held out hope that they would soon be rescued. Little did they know that those hopes were in vain.

The Chilean authorities, indeed, realized quickly that something went wrong when Flight 571 didn't make it to Santiago on time and stopped all communication. They immediately sent out search-and-rescue parties, but they were looking in the completely wrong spot since the co-pilot had given them incorrect information. Unbeknownst to everyone at the time, the survivors weren't even in Chile. They had crashed in a remote valley about 3,500 meters high on the Argentinean side of the Andes.

Eventually, search efforts shifted to that area once it had become obvious that the plane had been nowhere near where it said it was when it disappeared. The first day was very cloudy, so there wasn't much hope for success, but the second day was a different matter. There wasn't a single cloud in the bright blue sky. If there were any survivors to be found, this was the day to do it. Around a dozen aircraft from Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay deployed to search for Flight 571, retracing the route that the plane would have taken. Unfortunately, none of them saw anything. Even the airplanes that flew over the wreckage couldn't spot the white fuselage of the Fairchild against the snowy background of the Andes.

The grim realization that salvation might not come anytime soon slowly dawned on the 28 survivors. Everyone tends to react differently during a crisis. Some of them were completely despondent and had already given up any hope of making it out of those mountains alive. Others were still in shock following the crash. Some were physically too injured to do anything and relied on others to take care of them. But some of the remaining passengers decided that, if they were going to survive this ordeal, they couldn't just sit on their hands and hope to be rescued.

<!-- aeo:section end="the-first-days" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-water" -->
## The Water

First things first. Everyone knows that you can't last long without water. Wine and cherry brandy go down well after a nice meal, but aren't ideal for hydration purposes. So, if the stranded passengers were to have any chance of surviving for more than a few days, they needed a source of potable water.

Fortunately, they were surrounded by snow. Unfortunately, actually consuming it was trickier than one might expect. Simply eating it was too painful as it froze their mouths. They had already burned everything flammable to keep warm during the first nights, so they couldn't melt it. One semi-useful technique was to make snowballs and suck on them, but this wasn't enough to quench their thirst.

In came Adolfo "Fito" Strauch with an innovative idea. He was a rugby player for the Old Christians alongside his cousin Eduardo. In fact, Adolfo played for a different team back in Uruguay, but Eduardo convinced him to join him on this trip since he had previously never left the country. An agronomy student in his day-to-day life, Fito found a way of using the sun's powerful rays to melt the snow and collect the water. Among the debris of the wrecked Fairchild, he spotted a rectangle of aluminum foil, about 30 by 60 cm wide, which came from inside the back of an airplane seat. Strauch realized that, left in the sun, the foil would warm up enough to melt snow, so he bent the sides to shape it like a bowl and twisted one corner to make a spout. He then placed a thin layer of snow on top of the foil and left it out in the sun. After a while, drops of fresh, lifesaving water began pouring out through the spout and into a bottle that Fito held beneath it.

It was the first bit of good news as the passengers had a reliable and renewable method of obtaining water. Even better, every single seat in the airplane had one of those aluminum foils, so they could have dozens of them working at the same time. Still…they only produced a few drops, and there were 28 thirsty mouths waiting. That's why one group of survivors were designated water makers, tasked with melting snow around the clock.

The other able-bodied passengers soon found things to do, as well. Canessa and Zerbino, the two med students, formed the medical team alongside Liliana Methol, who acted as nurse and adopted a motherly role to the other survivors, who were mostly young men in their early 20s. And a third group was on cabin duty, trying to improve their shelter as much as they could. Once again, the airplane seats proved to be an invaluable resource, as they repurposed the seat covers into blankets and the cushions into snowshoes. Later, they improvised a hammock out of some metal poles and nylon webbing used to secure cargo. It was reserved for the seriously wounded, to prevent them from screaming in agony should one of the other passengers accidentally kick or bump them during the night.

A week passed. Nobody else died in the meantime, but no rescue seemed to be forthcoming, either. Several times, the survivors thought their prayers had been answered as they saw a plane fly over them, but each time, their hopes were dashed into a pit of dread and despair as the aircraft carried on like normal. From up high in the sky, the wreckage of the Fairchild was invisible.

And there was more bad news on the way. After eight days of looking in vain, the authorities concluded that there could be no survivors and called off their search. They planned to resume looking in a few months when the snow melted, but by then, it would no longer be a search-and-rescue mission, but a recovery operation.

<!-- aeo:section end="the-water" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-food" -->
## The "Food"

After a few days with no new developments, some of the fitter survivors decided it was time to explore their surroundings. After all, as far as they knew, there could be a verdant Chilean village just on the other side of the mountain. That might have been a tad too fanciful, but a more realistic objective was to look for the severed tail of their airplane. They might find more luggage with extra clothes in it, more food, or, perhaps, even other survivors who were using it for refuge.

So on the morning of the fifth day, four of the passengers set out to climb the mountain. They walked for a few hours, but bid a hasty retreat after one of them almost fell to his death into a crevasse. The experience served as a stark reminder that, even though they had survived the crash and were faring well against the elements so far, there were still other deadly perils lurking in those mountains.

The foursome returned to the airplane completely dejected, but with the realization that they might have no choice but to try it again if nobody came to rescue them. "We'd never make it," said one of the men, pointing out that they were far too weak from hunger to make such an arduous journey. Then, for the first time, a passenger said out loud that he'd be willing to eat one of the pilots to make it out alive, since it was their fault they were there in the first place. The others took it as a half-joke at first, but then realized that it might be the only way to survive, and carried on walking without saying anything. This was not a discussion that they were prepared to have…not yet.

But the idea did not go away. How could it when it seemed like the only way for them to stay alive? Way up high above the timberline where they were, there were no plants to harvest; no animals to catch. Their rations, which were meager to begin with, were almost over, and there was no other food source around. In the meantime, there was more bad news. On the eighth night, there was another fatality. Susana Parrado died in the arms of her brother, Nando, leaving 27 passengers still alive.

At first, the survivors talked about cannibalism in hushed tones, strictly one-on-one, unsure of how the others would react. But after a few more days out in the icy wilderness, they decided to call a meeting and discuss the unimaginable subject out in the open.

The ones who were in favor had a simple and straightforward argument: do it or die. The food had almost run out and there was literally nothing else to eat. Plus, they pointed out, if they were to perish, they would want to be eaten if it meant saving the lives of the others. This reasoning persuaded a lot of the passengers still on the fence. They felt the same way. There were still a few against the idea, but even they voiced support for the others to do it if they wanted.

Roberto Canessa, one of the med students, took charge of the gruesome task. He went outside and, using a piece of broken glass, cut thin strips of flesh out of a body which was partially protruding from the snow. He didn't know who it was. He didn't want to know. He placed them on the roof to dry in the sun and let everyone know they were there for whoever wanted them. At first, nobody came, so Canessa set the example by being the first among them to eat human flesh. Many of the others followed. Here is how he later recalled the experience:

> "Our common goal was to survive — but what we lacked was food…After just a few days we were feeling the sensation of our own bodies consuming themselves just to remain alive. Before long we would become too weak to recover from starvation.
>
> We knew the answer, but it was too terrible to contemplate. The bodies of our friends and team-mates, preserved outside in the snow and ice, contained vital, life-giving protein that could help us survive. But could we do it?
>
> …I will never forget that first incision nine days after the crash…We laid the thin strips of frozen flesh aside on a piece of sheet metal…Each of us finally consumed our piece when we could bear to. Each of us came to our own decision in our own time. And once we had done so, it was irreversible…It was our final goodbye to innocence."

<!-- aeo:section end="the-food" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-first-expedition" -->
## The First Expedition

One by one, most of the remaining passengers turned to cannibalism in order to survive. The day after the meeting, Canessa went up on the roof and saw that all 20 strips of meat he had placed in the sun were gone, so he and Fito Strauch went to cut some more.

Earlier that day, two other passengers heard a heartbreaking broadcast on a small transistor radio they had recovered from the wreckage. Using an improvised antenna, they occasionally picked up transmissions from Chile. Up until then, they only received political propaganda, but on that day, they caught the end of a news bulletin, which informed them that the search for Flight 571 had been called off. It was a devastating update for the rest of the survivors, particularly since the eternal optimists among them still held out hope they would be found. But this new development probably convinced a few undecided passengers to resort to cannibalism. Now they knew there was nobody coming to their rescue.

It was time to be more proactive. The survivors who were in the best shape wanted to explore the mountains and survey the surrounding area for the best way out, should they need it. Plus, they still wanted to find the tail of the airplane, convinced that it would contain useful supplies.

Three of them set off on the eleventh day, heading westward for the peak they came over during the crash. It took them all day to reach it and, looking back at their camp, they understood why no rescue plane spotted them. Even from that high up, the wreckage of the Fairchild was almost invisible, a "tiny dot in the snow."

Unfortunately for the three climbers, they had to spend the night on the mountain, fearing that one or more of them might die of exposure. But the following morning, all were still alive, albeit not exactly in mint condition: their feet were red and swollen, while their eyes were in searing pain from snow blindness. Despite their suffering, they continued their trek hoping to find the tail of the airplane and make this trip worthwhile. They appeared to be in the right spot. Debris from the crash littered the ground. And then, they came upon something more sinister — a seat facedown in the snow. Still strapped into the seat, with his body frozen and his face black, was one of the seven people who got thrown out of the plane during the crash.

As they kept looking, they found five other bodies, belonging to their Old Christian teammates and the crew of the Fairchild. Only one person remained unaccounted for, and he would eventually be found, although not for a while. Also undiscovered was the tail of the plane. The three explorers couldn't see it or any other wreckage anywhere. They hadn't reached the summit yet, but they were certain that another night in the mountains would be their doom, so they began making their way back to camp.

<!-- aeo:section end="the-first-expedition" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-avalanche" -->
## The Avalanche

After a few weeks in the frozen wilderness, armed with the knowledge that nobody would come looking for them, the survivors resigned themselves to the fact that they would have to live there for a couple of months, wait for the snow to melt, and then try to get out of those mountains on their own. They had a reliable method of making water and a decent supply of food, as reprehensible as it was, and they had a strong will to survive, which they hoped would be enough to see them through this grueling ordeal.

But then disaster struck again. On the seventeenth night, October 29, the wreckage of the Fairchild was struck by an avalanche and the inside of the fuselage was almost completely filled with snow. All of the people were sleeping and were caught completely unaware and unprepared…some of them, fatally so.

Eight passengers were smothered to death that night. The others, although they survived the initial flurry, were still in an extremely precarious position, trapped under meters of snow. And just to drive the point home, a second avalanche hit about an hour later, although the entrance to the plane was already blocked so most of it passed over the fuselage.

The nineteen survivors had managed to dig themselves out of the snow and find refuge in a tight space inside the airplane that didn't get filled in. There was nothing to do now. They had to wait until morning. They were cramped, they were freezing, they had no blankets, shoes, or cushions, and they had to spend the night knowing that eight of their closest companions were sitting lifeless, trapped in snow just a few meters away from them.

After a few hours, a new danger arose. The air was getting stale as the oxygen was starting to run out. Some of the survivors were already getting dizzy and things would get a hell of a lot worse if they didn't find an air source…and soon. Nando Parrado took one of the steel poles used for the hammock and began stabbing the roof of the cabin, trying to make a hole. After a while, he managed to pierce it, but now came the moment of truth. They had been snowed in by two avalanches. Nobody inside the wreckage knew if the snow layer on top of the plane was a few centimeters or a few meters thick. Would they survive…or slowly suffocate to death, one by one? Parrado held his breath as he began poking the bar through the snow and, after a few seconds, let out a giant sigh of relief as the bar slid forward unimpeded. There was nothing on top of the plane and the cold, fresh air started to fill the cabin.

The following morning, the survivors began tunneling their way out. They actually got it done fairly quickly. Maybe it was finally time for a small reprieve. Or maybe not. As soon as the first man exited the tunnel, he realized that there was a heavy blizzard outside, much stronger and much colder than anything they had experienced so far. He quickly retreated back into the relative safety of the airplane, with nothing else to do but to wait out the snowstorm.

They spent the whole second day and night inside, not eating anything and sucking on snow for moisture. On the third day, the weather was still fierce, and the nineteen survivors were starving. By this point, they had gotten fairly used to the consumption of human flesh, but all the bodies that perished in the crash were outside, inaccessible. If they wanted to eat, they had to cut meat from the fresh bodies of those killed in the avalanche.

Reluctantly, they did so. This time, the meat wasn't cooked or dried. It was raw. All the passengers were filled with revulsion. Many gagged and struggled to hold the food down, but without knowing how long the blizzard would last, it was their only option for survival.

<!-- aeo:section end="the-avalanche" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-tail" -->
## The Tail

The blizzard stopped the following day. It was the 1st of November, and with the weather clear, the remaining passengers spent the next week or so clearing the snow from inside the plane and removing the corpses of those who perished in the avalanche. One section of the wreckage was left untouched, bodies and all. As grim as it might sound, they were kept as a reserve supply of food, should they get snowed in by an avalanche again.

Afterward, the survivors began making plans for another expedition. They thought that their best chance of finding salvation would be for four or five of their strongest men to go down the valley once the snow started to melt. It was decided that these explorers would be kept as healthy as possible by excusing them from hard labor, allowing them plenty of sleep, and giving them the most provisions. The question was: who should they be?

After much debating, three men emerged as suitable candidates. Roberto Canessa, the med student; Nando Parrado, because he kept a cool head in a crisis; and Numa Turcatti, because he already proved himself during the trek up the mountain. Fito Strauch also volunteered being one of the de facto leaders of the group, but he developed severe hemorrhoids after the avalanche and was dismissed as a candidate.

Three other men wanted to go: Carlos Páez, Roy Harley, and Antonio Vizintín. The trio set off on a test expedition down into the valley, to see who had what it takes and who didn't. Ultimately, it was Vizintín who proved himself the most capable of the three, so he, Canessa, Parrado, and Turcatti were declared the expeditionaries who held the entire group's hope for survival.

Summer in the southern hemisphere was fast approaching, but the explorers expected to leave before that. And so, on November 17th, they set off. Just three of them, unfortunately, as Numa Turcatti developed boils on his leg "the size of hen's eggs" that Canessa had to lance to remove the pus.

They traveled downhill toward the east and made quick progress as their rugby boots gripped well to the frozen snow. Just after a few hours, they made a startling discovery — the tail of the Fairchild, perched on top of a snow hillock in front of them. The trio rushed to it and found everything they had hoped for: clean, warm clothes, new boots, chocolate, meat pastries, sugar, rum, cartons of cigarettes, even a skiing kit. They also found the plane's batteries which still worked well enough to power a lightbulb, so the three expeditionaries spent that night in the cramped, warm conditions of the luggage compartment, reading comics by their improvised nightlight.

With new clothes and supplies, the trio set off the following day in high spirits, but morale started to dip by midday. Their route simply wasn't taking them where they expected. To their left was the biggest mountain they had seen so far, and they definitely weren't going to get over that anytime soon. They thought there would be an opening somewhere where the valley would curve toward the west, but it just kept going east, further into the Andes.

Canessa convinced the others that they were traveling in the wrong direction. So there was a change of plans: they would return to the tail, salvage the batteries, and bring them back to camp. Maybe they could make the plane's radio work.

It sounded like a reasonable idea. Didn't work, though. The batteries were too heavy to carry on their makeshift sled. New plan: bring the radio to the batteries. For the moment, they loaded up the sled with all the extra clothes, a medicine chest, and thirty cartons of cigarettes and returned to the others.

<!-- aeo:section end="the-tail" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-final-expedition" -->
## The Final Expedition

Getting the radio to work was their project for the rest of November. Disassembling and removing it from the cockpit of the Fairchild was easier said than done, especially when they only had a knife, a screwdriver, and a pair of pliers to work with. Thankfully, Roy Harley was an amateur electronics enthusiast, so after toiling for a few days they got it done. Harley, however, was not optimistic about their chances of fixing the radio, but he reluctantly went along with the plan, anyway.

Unfortunately, he was proven right. One day, the three expeditionaries plus Harley made the trip to the tail again carrying all the necessary equipment. They spent several days trying to get the plane radio to work, but to no avail, and they almost didn't make it back to camp after getting caught in a blizzard.

A sense of desperation began setting in among the survivors, and things were only getting worse. Two more men died in November, and in December, Numa Turcatti also passed away from an infection in his leg. Sixteen survivors were left and, although they were all loath to admit it, it was good for them that they had a few more bodies to replenish their food supply.

Their stock was getting woefully low. They had begun digging in the snow, searching for some of the corpses that were buried by the avalanche. They resorted to eating parts of the body they had previously discarded, such as the small intestines, the brains, and the marrow from the bones. The organs and muscles and fat were mixed into a stew and cooked to make them more palatable, but the survivors were faced with the reality that, in a while, they would literally have nothing left to eat. They didn't want to end up wishing for each other to die to get more food, so in December, a new expedition was planned.

This was the big one. Vizintín, Canessa, and Parrado packed as many supplies and medicines as they could, plus their personal belongings they didn't want to leave behind. The others even used insulating material to fashion a sleeping bag for them, so they had a chance of surviving the freezing nights up in the mountains. It was now or never. The three expeditionaries expected either to find help, or die trying.

The trio left in the early hours of December 12. They headed westward, climbing the mountain like the first expedition did, and spent the night in a small trench behind a boulder. The following day, Nando Parrado led the way and actually made it to the summit. He didn't know it back then, but he was the first person to climb that mountain. He named it Mount Seler after his father, and that became its official name.

As impressive as this feat might have been, it was followed by bad news. The men were all hoping that, once they made it past the ridge, they would see the green valleys of Chile. Instead, what they saw was more mountains and more snow because, remember, they weren't anywhere near where they thought they were. They still believed the co-pilot when he said that they passed Curicó when, in fact, they crashed way before reaching it.

There was a small glimmer of hope, though. Way in the distance, they saw a pair of smaller mountains without any snow, which the trio colourfully dubbed, umm, "the tits." They were their best bet, but they were very far away. About a 50-day journey, they estimated, and they only had food to last about 15 days. A new plan was set: Vizintín would return to camp and leave the other two his rations so they would last longer.

<!-- aeo:section end="the-final-expedition" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-rescue" -->
## The Rescue

It was a huge gamble, but it paid off big time, and it didn't take 50 days, either. After a few days of trekking, Canessa and Parrado reached a Y-section at the end of a valley. Past it was the most beautiful sight the two had ever seen: nature. They saw patches of grass, bushes, yellow and purple flowers, a stream of water, even some birds and lizards. After over two months spent in the icy wilderness of the Andes, surrounded by only snow, this was paradise.

Immensely bolstered by this discovery, the two pressed on. They hiked for several more days, finding signs of human habitation: an empty soup can, a discarded horseshoe, a herd of cows. Then, on the ninth night, December 20, they finally found what they'd been looking for: humanity. Three men on horseback spotted them from across a river, but the torrent of the water was so loud that the two sides couldn't hear each other. Canessa and Parrado only understood one word: "tomorrow."

The strangers were as good as their promise and returned the following morning. The two sides communicated by writing messages on paper, wrapping it around stones, and throwing them over the river. From that point on, salvation came swiftly. One of the strangers rode to town to tell them what happened. Later that day, they sent a rescue team who brought Canessa and Parrado to the police station. The local authorities informed the Chilean army who sent three rescue helicopters for the remaining survivors. Because of weather conditions, it took two days to get them all out, but by December 23, all 16 had made it back to civilization.

The story of Flight 571 became an international sensation — surviving a plane crash and spending 72 days in the extreme conditions of the Andes. It was an incredible tale, but the media wanted to know exactly how they accomplished it. Specifically, what did they eat all that time?

Unsurprisingly, the survivors were reluctant to admit to cannibalism, but had no choice after tabloids published photographs of human remains from their campsite. There were even rumors that they had killed those they cannibalized, so the 16 survivors decided to make a clean breast of it and confess their deed before the story spun out of control. As you would expect, they were greeted with mixed reactions. All the survivors were devout Catholics and, fortunately for them, the Catholic Church was on their side, concluding that they "acted justifiably" given the extreme circumstances. Even Pope Paul IV supposedly sent them a telegram absolving them of guilt.

Rafael Echavarren, one of the deceased, was buried in his family's mausoleum in Uruguay, per his explicit request. The other 28 people who perished in Flight 571 were all buried at the crash site where a memorial was erected with a cross that bears a simple prayer:

> "The world to its Uruguayan brothers/ Near, O God, to thee."

<!-- aeo:section end="the-rescue" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="key-takeaways" -->
## Key Takeaways

- Flight 571 crashed in the Andes on October 13, 1972, killing a quarter of the 45 passengers and leaving the rest stranded.
- The survivors faced extreme conditions and starvation, leading them to resort to cannibalism to stay alive.
- Initial search efforts were misdirected due to incorrect information from the co-pilot, delaying rescue attempts.
- The survivors innovated to create water from snow and used plane materials to improve their shelter.
- After 72 days, 16 survivors were rescued, and their story became an international sensation, sparking debate about their actions.

<!-- aeo:section end="key-takeaways" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="frequently-asked-questions" -->
## Frequently Asked Questions

### What was the final destination of Flight 571?

The final destination of Flight 571 was Santiago, Chile.

### How many people were on Flight 571?

There were 45 people on Flight 571, including 40 passengers and 5 crew members.

### What caused Flight 571 to crash?

Flight 571 crashed due to pilot error. The co-pilot, who was inexperienced, flew the plane over the Andes using only instruments and severely undershot the approach to Curicó, leading to a collision with the mountains.

### How did the survivors of Flight 571 obtain water?

The survivors used aluminum foil from the airplane seats to melt snow and collect water. They placed a thin layer of snow on the foil and left it in the sun, allowing the snow to melt and drip into a bottle.

### What did the survivors of Flight 571 eat to survive?

The survivors resorted to cannibalism, eating the bodies of their deceased companions to survive. They initially found the idea repulsive but realized it was the only way to stay alive in the harsh conditions of the Andes.

### How were the survivors of Flight 571 eventually rescued?

Two survivors, Roberto Canessa and Nando Parrado, trekked for days through the Andes and eventually found a Chilean farmer who alerted authorities. A rescue team was sent, and all 16 remaining survivors were airlifted to safety.

### What was the reaction of the public and the Catholic Church to the survivors' actions?

The survivors were initially met with mixed reactions, but the Catholic Church supported them, stating that they acted justifiably given the extreme circumstances. Pope Paul IV even sent them a telegram absolving them of guilt.

### What was the initial plan for the survivors to find help?

The survivors planned for a group of their strongest members to explore the valley once the snow melted, hoping to find a way out of the Andes. They prepared by keeping these explorers healthy and well-supplied.

### How did the survivors communicate with the outside world during their ordeal?

The survivors occasionally picked up transmissions from Chile using a small transistor radio they recovered from the wreckage. They used an improvised antenna to receive broadcasts, which sometimes provided them with crucial information.

### What was the impact of the avalanche on the survivors?

The avalanche on the seventeenth night filled the fuselage with snow, smothering eight passengers to death and trapping the remaining survivors. They had to dig themselves out and endure a blizzard, further depleting their resources and morale.

<!-- aeo:section end="frequently-asked-questions" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="sources" -->
## Sources

- [Original Into the Shadows video: Flight 571: The Andes Cannibal Story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh63AV0Sk2c)
- [https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/1972-andes-plane-crash-story-photos/](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/1972-andes-plane-crash-story-photos/)
- [https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20231213-society-of-the-snow-the-horrifying-story-of-the-1972-andes-plane-crash-is-also-one-of-survival-and-generosity](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20231213-society-of-the-snow-the-horrifying-story-of-the-1972-andes-plane-crash-is-also-one-of-survival-and-generosity)
- [https://time.com/6551709/society-of-the-snow-true-story-netflix/](https://time.com/6551709/society-of-the-snow-true-story-netflix/)
- [https://www.today.com/popculture/andes-uruguay-plane-crash-1972-survivors-now-rcna133498](https://www.today.com/popculture/andes-uruguay-plane-crash-1972-survivors-now-rcna133498)
- [https://www.mentalfloss.com/history/uruguayan-air-force-flight-571-plane-crash-facts](https://www.mentalfloss.com/history/uruguayan-air-force-flight-571-plane-crash-facts)
- [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/flight-571-andes-crash-true-story](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/flight-571-andes-crash-true-story)
- [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/04/nando-parrado-andes-plane-crash-1972-rugby-team](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/04/nando-parrado-andes-plane-crash-1972-rugby-team)
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20171126141829/http://www.alpineexpeditions.net/as-the-accident.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20171126141829/http://www.alpineexpeditions.net/as-the-accident.html)
- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/8M_-_Montevideo_2025_-_44.jpg) by Betttttttt / openverse, by-sa.

<!-- aeo:section end="sources" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="related-coverage" -->
## Related Coverage
<!-- aeo:section end="related-coverage" -->