Almost 50 years ago, on October 13, 1972, several members of the rugby team were on a plane from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Santiago, Chile, for a friendly match.
But along the way they encounter very bad weather conditions. Because of this, the pilot miscalculated where the plane had landed, crashing into a mountain in the Andes.
12 people died instantly. Another 17 died later either as a result of the cold or injuries they sustained during the accident.
Only 16 men survived.
With repeated searches for the plane and survivors, authorities decided to end the rescue operation after just over a week.
The fuselage was covered with snow, which made it difficult to identify the wreckage.
in order to survive
For the sixteen survivors, this was the beginning of many days of hard fighting for survival.
From the time of the crash, it took 72 days before she was found.
At first, the sixteen men lived off the onboard candy and wine supplies. When these stores were emptied, the men were forced to fill their stomachs with the cotton of plane seats.
In the end, one of the survivors, medical student Roberto Canesa, suggested that they live on human flesh for the dead.
Resistant: Kochi Insert (formerly), Roberto Canesa and Carlos Baez at the crash site, 30 years later. Photo: John Freeman / NTB
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“If one of us dies, the others have to eat our bodies,” Canesa adds does not depend on.
In the documentary Stranded from 2007, the sixteen men describe how they used shards of glass to dismember the dead, then rationalizing the small pieces among themselves.
Another survivor, Carlitos Paez, told The Independent he had no difficulty eating human flesh.
– It doesn’t taste like anything special.
Two airports closed
Help is a stone’s throw away
In the end, Canissa and one of the other survivors, Fernando Parado, decide to leave the rest of the group to find help.
On the five-kilometer trip up the mountain, they took a homemade sleeping bag and socks filled with human flesh.
Ten days later, they discovered three men with each horse. By throwing a paper-wrapped stone toward the riders’ side of the river, Paradou got the message that the survivors of the wreckage were in mortal danger.
The power of resources: In 2016, Roberto Canesa published I Had to Survive, which describes his experiences in the Andes. Here he is a guest on the British TV show “Lorranie” in the same year. Photo: Ken McKay / NTB
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Just before Christmas, December 22, 1972, the two men were flown to safety by helicopter. At this point, Parado and Canissa weigh in less than 40 kg.
The next day, the rest of the plane crash survivors were rescued.
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