Cold Open

It’s October 13th, 1972.

An airplane owned by the Uruguayan Air Force crosses over the Andes Mountains. On board are 19 players of the Old Christians, an amateur Uruguayan rugby team that chartered the plane to take them to a match in Chile.

To break up the monotony of the trip, 21-year-old Nando Parrado cracks jokes with his teammates. Their laughter is a welcome respite from the stress of their travels. A storm over the Andes forced the plane to land in Argentina last night, and the whole team is eager to finally make it to their destination, safe and sound.

Spirits are high as the plane begins to descend. The players and their supporters hardly pay the growing turbulence any mind, continuing to joke and laugh with one another and toss around rugby balls.

But when the aircraft suddenly drops several hundred feet, the cabin grows quiet. Something obviously is wrong. Nando glances out his window and instead of seeing cloud cover, he sees the black ridge of a mountain.

Nando and his fellow passengers scramble to fasten their seatbelts as they realize they’re headed straight toward a mountain.

The plane’s engine strains and the pilot tries to gain altitude, but it’s too late. There’s a terrible screeching as the lower part of the plane hits the mountain. Nando braces himself as pieces of the aircraft are torn away, throwing the airplane against the mountain again and again, until it skids down the side of a glacier, finally coming to a stop at 12,000 feet in the snow-capped Andes.

Knocked unconscious during the crash, Nando will fall into a coma for three days. When he wakes up, he’ll discover that 12 of the 45 people on board died in the crash, including one of the pilots, and his own mother. But Nando will have little time or energy to grieve as he and the remaining survivors will have to contend with extreme conditions in a fight for their lives after their plane crashes in the Andes on October 13th, 1972.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is October 13th, 1972: The Miracle of the Andes.

Act One

It’s October 13th, 1972, immediately after Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed into the Andes Mountains.

As agonized cries ring out inside what’s left of the aircraft, rugby player and medical student Gustavo Zerbino jumps into action. He and Roberto Canessa, also a medical student, get to work tending to the injured, barely able to comprehend the dizzying turn of events that just occurred.

Mere minutes ago, the passengers of flight 571 were talking, singing, and laughing. But while they were enjoying their time in the cabin, trouble was brewing in the cockpit.

With heavy clouds obscuring the peaks of the Andes, the planes’ pilots misjudged their location. After prematurely reporting that they were out of the Andes, they were authorized by air traffic controllers to begin their descent. But in fact, they were still in the mountain range and unable to avert the disastrous crash caused by their early descent.

Now, the plane’s 33 survivors must deal with the fallout. Many of those who aren’t already dead are either unconscious or critically injured. Gustavo and Roberto do their best to provide medical care to those most in need, but keeping their fellow passengers alive is no small order. The highly remote location of the crash puts them out of reach of civilization. There’s only so much they can do with so little supplies, and the elements are not in their favor. Ultimately, they face a grim reality. They’re all alone with little food in below-freezing temperatures.

Still, the survivors are determined to do what they can. While Gustavo and Roberto handle first aid, surviving members of the rugby team begin work fashioning the remains of the airplane into a shelter. They tear out seats to barricade themselves inside the main body of the plane and fend off the cold. But despite their efforts, five more passengers die on their first night in the Andes.

And while the crash victims fight to stay alive, the Chilean Air Search and Rescue Service struggles to locate them. The survivors try to write out SOS in lipstick on the white roof of the plane, but the effort is in vain. They run out of lipstick before the letters are large enough and search planes are unable to locate the wreckage in the vast mountain range.

And without weather-appropriate clothing and barely any food beyond candy bars and wine, both the authorities and crash survivors know the time is running out.

In the days following the crash, the surviving passengers are as resourceful as possible. Marcelo Perez, the captain of the rugby team, assumes leadership of the survival effort and helps keep up the morale of the survivors as they hunker down for the long road ahead of them. Together, they devise a method to make drinkable water from the snow. By using pieces of sheet metal like warming devices, they’re able to use the sun’s rays to melt snow. Then capture the water using empty wine bottles. To stay warm, the survivors remove the wool covers from the airplane’s seats and use them as blankets. To move around the area outside the plane, they fashion the seat cushions into snowshoes.

Meanwhile, planes continue to scour the Andes with no luck. The survivors are able to listen along to updates on the rescue efforts using a small transistor radio they found on the plane. But they’re unable to contact the outside world.

Then on the third day in the Andes, Nando Parrado awakes from his coma after sustaining a fractured skull in the crash. He learns that his mother perished in the accident and that while his 19-year-old sister is still alive, she is critically injured. Nando takes a small bite of food, before then turning his attention to his sibling, giving her whatever care and comfort he can while praying she makes it through.

Meanwhile, the survivors fine-tune their plan to ration what little food they have left. They have eight chocolate bars, a tin of mussels, three small jars of jam, a container of almonds, a few dates, candies, dried plums, and several bottles of wine. Somehow, they must find a way to spread this among 28 survivors; it's no easy feat, considering they have no idea how long they’ll be stranded. Not to mention, the majority of them are young athletes with big appetites.

Bundled up with his ailing sister inside the plane, Nando listens as the survivors discuss their options. With no way of knowing when they’ll be discovered by the search and rescue teams, the mood is tense and becoming ominous, and Nando, still nursing his own injuries, worries for himself and his sister.

The path ahead will be treacherous and heartbreaking. Three days after waking from his coma, Nando will watch his sister take her final breaths. Shortly after, the survivors will run out of food and will have to find a new way to nourish themselves. Desperate, they’ll try eating cotton and leather from the plane seats. But it won’t be enough. And with no other options available, they’ll agree to do the unthinkable.

Act Two

It’s the evening of October 29th, 1972, 17 days after the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571.

Amid the stark silent landscape of the Andes, 21-year-old Nando Parrado struggles to sleep inside the makeshift shelter of the plane. His body aches with hunger and exhaustion.

The past week and a half has been the hardest Nando has ever endured. Since the death of his sister, matters have only grown more dire. On the group’s eleventh day in the Andes, they heard on their transistor radio that the search for them has been called off. Surrounded only by rock and ice, with no animals or vegetation to speak of, and no help on the way, the survivors could only come to one conclusion: if they wanted to stay alive, they had to resort to cannibalism.

The decision, though simple, was not easy. The survivors are all Roman Catholic, a religion that condemns the act of cannibalism. Fearing eternal damnation, many struggled with the idea of eating human flesh for religious reasons as much as any other natural aversion to it. The survivors tried to weigh their options but found they had none. It was terrible to even contemplate consuming the body of any human, let alone their friends, family, and teammates. But if they wanted to survive, the group agreed it was unavoidable; they needed to eat the flesh of the deceased.

With the group’s consent, medical student Roberto Canessa used broken glass from a windshield to cut tiny pieces off one of the frozen bodies. Slowly, and reluctantly, each survivor consumed their strip when they could bear to. Many struggled to keep it down. But it was the only path forward. So, they also mutually agreed that if any of them died, the others could eat them for sustenance too.

These drastic lengths trouble Nando, who is also determined to protect the bodies of his mother and sister. He prays they’re somehow found before his family becomes the group’s next meal. But as Nando lies inside the plane, he tries not to think about the horrors of the past or future. He needs rest now. And as the temperature drops, he tosses and turns before sleep finally comes to him. But soon, Nando and his fellow survivors are rudely awakened by an unsettling sound: the soft but growing roar of what can only be an avalanche.

Without warning, a cascade of snow races down the mountainside. The plane, their only sanctuary, is swiftly and completely buried, sealed under a blanket of cold, crushing snow. The whole party is trapped inside the plane. And as the cramped space quickly runs out of breathable air, their situation becomes even more desperate.

Nando springs into action. Using a metal pole from a luggage rack, he pries open a window in the pilot's cabin and pokes through the snow, providing much-needed ventilation and fresh breathable air. But for eight people it’s already too late. They’ve died by asphyxiation, bringing the crash’s total death toll to 26.

The avalanche is another brutal blow to the survivors’ spirit. They work to dig themselves out of the snow, but a raging blizzard ultimately forces them to spend the next three days in the cramped shelter, sitting side by side with the bodies of those who perished in the avalanche, until finally, the sun comes out. The snow begins to melt and the group is able to break free of the plane.

Finally, outside again, the survivors contemplate their next move. Among those killed in the avalanche was team captain and de facto leader Marcelo Perez. As they try to find their balance without his leadership, they decide to form an expedition team, made up of Nando and two others, who will venture out and try to find help.

For the next week, this expedition team rests up, preparing their bodies for the trip ahead, while the others do the manual labor around the crash site to keep their survival effort going. Then, the explorers set off.

They spend several hours hiking through the snow until they come across the tail section of the aircraft, about a mile downhill from their shelter inside the plane’s body. There, they find luggage containing valuable supplies, including more chocolates, three meat patties, a bottle of rum, cigarettes, extra clothes, comic books, and medicine. They spend the night camping inside the tail section, excited about their discovery.

But the next day is not so pleasant. The group continues hiking and is forced to spend the night outside in the elements, where they nearly freeze to death. The next morning, they return to the tail section with the goal of removing the aircraft’s batteries, which they hope will make a two-way radio operable back at the main camp, allowing them to make an SOS call.

But the batteries prove too heavy to carry. So instead, Nando and his team hike up to the main shelter and carry the two-way radio back down to the batteries. When they return, they’re devastated to discover that the batteries aren’t a match.

With their only hope of rescue foiled, many of the survivors will begin to doubt that they’ll ever make it off the mountain alive. As the days stretch on, more will perish from injuries, starvation, or both. But Nando will refuse to give up hope. Summoning whatever strength and courage he has left, he’ll begin planning a new expedition, one that may be their last chance of survival.

Act Three

It’s December 12th, 1972, two months after the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571.

21-year-old college student and rugby player Nando Parrado bids farewell to the group, before setting off with the two other members of the expedition team.

For the past few weeks, Nando and his fellow survivors have been evaluating options to get them out of the Andes. With their remote location at such a high altitude, search and rescue teams have been unable to pinpoint their location. They’ve come to the conclusion that the only viable option is to hike over the mountain peaks to the west and descend in search of help.

Today, Nando and his expedition members are ready to go. Slowly, but surely, they make their way to the 15,000-foot peak. They try to conserve their energy and morale. By the 4th day of the trek though, it becomes clear that it’s gonna take much longer to reach the peak than they had originally calculated, let alone the valleys of Chile that lay beyond.

With their food supplies running low, Nando suggests that one member of the expedition team return to the crash site, which will leave enough rations for Nando and one other to survive. The group agrees.

A few hours later, Nando and his remaining partner finally reach the summit, but their initial celebration ends when they see nothing but the peaks of more mountains spread out before them in all directions. Realizing they’re deeper in the mountains than they thought, Nando’s partner becomes inconsolable, but Nando convinces him to keep going.

The two men hike for a few more days, using a river running between the mountains as a guide toward any sign of human life. And finally, on the ninth day of their expedition, their prayers are answered. They spot a herd of cows, a sure sign that civilization is nearby.

Shortly after, Nando then spots several men on horseback on the other side of the river. Eventually, he is able to get their attention and the men help the disoriented survivors evacuate on horseback and alert authorities of their discovery.

The final remaining survivors will then be rescued and flown out of the crash site a few days later. Of the 45 people aboard Flight 571, only 16 will survive the ordeal. The remains of the rest will eventually be buried at the crash site and a memorial will be erected there. The incident will garner major international attention, especially after learning the survivors had to resort to cannibalism. Several books will be published, including one by Nando, and Hollywood will produce a film about the harrowing survival story of those who underwent a 72-day fight for their lives after their plane crashed in the Andes on October 13th, 1972.

Outro

Next on History Daily. October 16th, 1869. An American trickster masterminds the discovery of a mysterious petrified giant in upstate New York.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Katrina Zemrak.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Weiss.

Executive Producers are Alexandra Currie-Buckner for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.