"If I die, you can eat me," was a gruesome agreement reached by 27 survivors 10 days after the 1972 Andean air disaster. It was a very helpless and uneasy decision, and it was especially difficult for this group of Catholics.
On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 flew from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Santiago, Chile, a charter flight carrying 5 crew members and 40 passengers, including 19 members of the Old Christian Club Rugby Union, as well as their families, supporters and friends.
The plane crossed the Andes in bad weather, and the inexperienced co-pilot Lagulara mistakenly believed that the plane had reached Curico, where flights would begin to descend to Podavere airport. But the real situation is that the plane is still 60-70 km from Curico.
The plane crashed into a snowy mountain, and the wings and tail on both sides were cut off. The fuselage slid down the glacier at a speed of about 350 km / h, descended about 725 meters, and then stopped at an altitude of 3600 meters, 3 crew members and 9 passengers died on the spot, and that night, 5 more people died. Seventy-two days after the crash, rescue teams finally arrived, leaving only 16 survivors.
The Chilean Air Search and Rescue Team was notified of the flight missing within an hour, and four aircraft were dispatched that afternoon to search until dark. The next day, a total of 11 aircraft from Uruguay, Chile and Argentina launched a search and rescue.
Over the next few days, the search plane flew over the crash site several times, but the white fuselage on the snow was not visible. After 8 days, the search was canceled.
In this case, water and food are the primary elements of survival, and they can obtain drinking water by drying snow in a bowl of aluminum sheets.
But there was a severe shortage of food, eight chocolate bars, a jar of mussels, three small jars of jam, a jar of almonds, a few dates, candy, dried plums and a few bottles of wine, which were everyone's food reserves after the crash. In the days after the crash, they divided the food into small amounts and distributed it to each person, buying as much time as possible for everyone to wait for rescue. According to the recollections of one of the survivors, Parrado, he was in a coma for three days after the crash and ate only one chocolate peanut for three days after waking up.
Just like that, a week later the food ran out, and they tore open the seats on the plane, hoping to find straw to fill their hunger, but only found cotton and leather, but eating these things made them sicker. By the 8th day, Palado's sister had died, leaving only 27 survivors.
At this time, there was a proposal to eat the bodies of those victims, which sparked a fierce and lengthy moral debate among the survivors. Because most of the players are Catholic, some fear cannibalism will subject them to eternal damnation. And the dead were mostly friends, relatives and even family members they knew, and many could not accept the practice of sharing their food.
However, the harsh reality left them with no choice. Later, someone quoted John chapter 15 verse 13: "There is no greater love than the love of man who lays down his life for his friend." "to defend it.
On the 10th day, they sat in a circle and swore in turns that "if they die, others have the right to use their bodies for food." Even the staunchest opponents quietly acquiesced. Robert Canesa, who was a medical student at the time, was the first to eat, and then the others reluctantly ate it.
Although Parado also agreed to the use of his "corpse", he firmly defended the bodies of his mother and sister from being violated.
On the 11th day, 18-year-old Roy Harley found a transistor radio in the wreckage, but the news heard from the radio sent them into despair in an instant. The press report said that Chilean authorities have canceled their search because no one can survive in the cold mountains for more than a week.
Late at night on the 17th day, people were sleeping, an avalanche filled the cabin and 8 people died. Among them, Squad Leader and Survivor Leader Perez and Liliana Meesor, who cared for survivors "like a mother and saint", made their hearts sink to the bottom.
In early November, more than 20 days after the incident, someone proposed to send a few young and strong young men out of the mountains to seek rescue. But because the weather is extremely cold, they are preparing clothes for the cold while waiting for the weather to warm up.
It wasn't until November 15 that Parado, Caneza and another young man, Antonio Vicetin, tried to go east, because there was a big mountain to the west. After walking east for a few hours, about 1.6 kilometers east of the fuselage they found the tail of the plane, including galley, a small amount of food and a two-way radio of the plane, and they built a fire in the tail of the plane that night to keep warm.
The next day, they continued east, and by night, the first night they slept outside, they almost froze to death. After some discussion the next morning, they decided to go back to the tail, take out the radios, and bring them back to the fuselage so they could turn on the radio for help with the batteries on the fuselage, but in the end it was unsuccessful because of the current mismatch between the battery and the radio on the plane.
By the 60th day of the incident, December 11, several more people died, some because of wound infection, others because of the rapid decline of the body caused by eating meat.
At this time, they thought that crossing the mountains west for help was the only way out, because this side was closer, but there was a problem, if the cold clothes were not solved, they would definitely freeze to death.
They later found a way to make a sleeping bag using insulation from the rear of the fuselage, copper wires and waterproof fabric that covered the plane's air conditioning.
On December 12, the three young men, without any climbing equipment, set out again, and at night the three of them slept together in sleeping bags to spend the cold night.
On the third day, they were blocked by a nearly vertical wall of snow, which was more than 100 meters high. Parador turned his heart sideways, fall to death, anyway, if you can't get out, you will die. He used a stick to cut steps in the wall and climbed it, and when he climbed the 4,650-meter-high peak, he thought he would see the green valley of Chile to the west, but he was stunned by the white snow-capped mountains in front of him.
