Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 Survivors
After passing the Pass of Plachón, at 3:21 pm, Dante Lagurara expected to reach Curicó in a minute and started to get the aircraft ready to descend. He asked the air controller for permission to descend but the air controllers were worried about it since it usually took 11 minutes to reach Curicó after crossing the Pass. Still, it only took 3 minutes for Lagurara and Fairchild. But they permitted him to land. Dante had miscalculated as it turned out, they were still deep into Andes Mountain. The airplane crashed into a glacier later named the “Glacier of Tears.”
- The crash killed 12 of the 45 people who boarded the plane the moment it hit. The rest were alive and many of the surviving 33 members. The survivors were stranded on the mountain 11,500 feet above sea level, with the only thing protecting them from the harsh weather was the still intact airplane’s fuselage. Six more people died in the next few weeks after the crash, the remaining 27 survived on candy bars and wine.
- On, the 29th of October 1972 an avalanche hit the plane burying the plane and killing eight more members of the survivors. The avalanche also buried the fuselage and froze part of it. So the 19 people were left without the only thing that protected them from the murderous weather of the Mountain range.
- By this time, it was believed that the passengers who boarded the plane were dead, due to the weather of the Andes Mountains and also because the expeditioners who went on the search for the missing airplane and survivors for 8 days came empty-handed.
- After being stranded on the mountain for months, three of the passengers, Nando Parrado, Antonio “TinTin” Vinzintin, and Canessa decided it was of no use to wait for rescuers and started navigating the terrain to find an escape route. But they failed. The next day, Nando, Antonio, and Canessa decided to go out again, Nando returned as he realised it was pointless to even try. But Caness and Antonio kept searching for nine days, until they reached a river beyond which they saw a group of Chilean herdsmen. They called upon them for help but their voice could not reach the herdsmen but the herdsmen promised to return the next day.
- The next day, the survivors, Antonio and Canessa, threw a paper that said “I am from the aeroplane that crashed on the mountain.” After finding out about this, the Chilean herdsmen notified the government. The Chilean government immediately sent them a rescue team. Then on 22nd December, the government sent two more helicopters on 23rd of December to save the remaining survivors.
The survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 were stranded on the treacherous mountain for 72 days. They crashed on the mountain on 13th October 1972, the second day after they flew from Montevideo, Uruguay. They went missing for 72 days and were rescued on 23rd of December in 1972.
Uruguayan Air Force flight 571
The Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crash and rescue is one of the most chilling stories in Modern Human History. The flight that was supposed to take a Uruguayan team of Amateur Rugby players from Montevideo, Uruguay to Santiago, Chile ended up crashing on a mountain in the Andes Mountain range in Argentina on the 13th of October in 1972.
The ship’s wreckage was not found until two months after the incident. A lot of crazy, inhumane, and terrifying things happen to the survivors in those 72 days. The story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 is a chilling story of the extent humans will go to survive. The incident later inspired a movie in 2010, which was named, “I am Alive: The Andes Mountain Incident.”
In this article, we will read about the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 Crash, its survivors, location, rescue, and important facts related to the crash.
Table of Content
- About Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571
- Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 Location
- Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 Survivors
- Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 Cannibalism