People think they know this story because they’ve seen Alive or Netflix’s Society of the Snow. But movies have a way of cleaning things up. When the Fairchild FH-227D clipped a ridge and slammed into a glacier on October 13, 1972, it wasn’t just a "survival situation." It was a seventy-two-day descent into a level of physical and psychological misery that most of us can't even wrap our heads around. Honestly, the 1972 airplane crash in the Andes is less about the "cannibalism" tabloid headline and more about a group of boys—mostly rugby players from the Old Christians Club—who had to invent a new way to live while they were literally freezing to death.
They weren't experts. They were kids.
Why the 1972 airplane crash in the Andes was a statistical impossibility
Airplanes aren't supposed to hit mountains and leave survivors. When Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 clipped that peak, the tail section ripped off, taking several passengers with it into the abyss. The fuselage didn't just explode; it became a high-speed toboggan. It skidded down a steep glacier at a terrifying speed before slamming into a snowbank. Out of the 45 people on board, 33 initially survived the impact. That is a miracle in itself. But they were stuck at 11,000 feet. No gear. No food. No winter clothes. Just a broken metal tube in the middle of a white desert.
The pilots were dead or dying. The lead pilot, Ferradas, had flown the Andes 29 times, but his co-pilot, Lagurara, was the one flying that day. Lagurara mistakenly thought they had already passed Curicó, Chile. He began the descent too early. They were flying straight into the heart of the mountains while thinking they were on the verge of landing. By the time they saw the ridge, it was over.
The first ten days of hell
Imagine being in a suit jacket in -30 degree weather. That’s what these guys faced. Roberto Canessa and Gustavo Zerbino, two medical students who hadn't even finished their degrees, became the de facto doctors. They were treating compound fractures and "brain leak" with nothing but scraps of cloth and snow.
They found a small transistor radio. On the eleventh day, they huddled around it, hoping for news of their rescue. Instead, they heard the announcer say the search had been called off. They were dead to the world. Imagine that moment. Nicolich, one of the survivors, walked back into the fuselage and told the others, "Hey, I have good news!" When they asked what it was, he said, "The search is off. We're going to have to get out of here on our own."
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That shift in mindset is what saved them.
The choice nobody wants to talk about
We have to talk about the food. By day ten, they were starving. There was nothing. No moss, no animals, no plants. Just snow and rock. The decision to eat the bodies of those who had died wasn't a sudden, frantic impulse. It was a slow, agonizing theological and logical debate. These were devout Catholics. They equated the act to the Eucharist—taking the body of a friend so that life could continue.
Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa were the ones who pushed the hardest for this. They knew that without protein, their muscles would waste away and they’d never be able to hike out. If you don't eat, you don't walk. If you don't walk, you die. It’s that simple.
The avalanche that almost ended it
Just when they thought it couldn't get worse, it did. On October 29, an avalanche swept down the mountain and filled the fuselage with snow while they were sleeping. Eight more people died. For three days, the survivors were buried alive in a cramped, oxygen-deprived metal tube, literally living on top of the people who had just suffocated next to them.
It sounds like a horror movie. But for the survivors of the 1972 airplane crash in the Andes, it was Tuesday. This event actually bonded the remaining group even tighter. They became a "society." They had roles. Some were "inventors" who made sunglasses from airplane parts or water-melting devices from metal seat backs. Others were the "medical team." Everyone had a job.
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The final "Expeditionaries"
They knew the only way out was over the mountains to the west. But they didn't know where they were. They thought they were in the foothills of Chile. In reality, they were much further east, deep in the Argentine heartland of the cordillera.
Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa, and Antonio Vizintín were chosen to hike out. They waited for the weather to "warm up" in December. They spent weeks sewing a sleeping bag made from the plane's thermal insulation. It was their secret weapon. Without that bag, they would have frozen to death the first night on the peak.
The climb that changed everything
Parrado and Canessa climbed a 15,000-foot peak with no climbing gear. When Parrado reached the top, he expected to see green valleys of Chile. Instead, he saw more mountains. Thousands of them. It was a crushing blow. Most people would have sat down and waited for the end.
Instead, Parrado turned to Canessa and basically said, "We're going to die anyway, so let's die walking."
They hiked for ten days. Ten days of sheer physical exhaustion on a diet of almost nothing. Eventually, the snow began to thin. They saw a river. They saw cows. And then, across a river, they saw Sergio Catalán, a Chilean arriero (muleteer).
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Parrado threw a message wrapped around a rock across the water. It read: "I come from a plane that fell in the mountains..."
What we can learn from the survivors
The 16 men who came off that mountain weren't the same people who went up. They had lived in a state of "pure survival" for 72 days. When they were finally rescued on December 22 and 23, the world was shocked. They looked like skeletons.
The medical examinations later showed something incredible. Their bodies had basically begun to consume themselves, but their mental state was remarkably resilient. This story is now studied in psychology classes and leadership seminars because it shows what happens when a group refuses to fracture. They didn't turn on each other. They collaborated.
Critical takeaways for extreme resilience
If you're looking for the "how-to" in this tragedy, it's not about mountaineering. It's about the "Rule of Three" and the psychology of small wins.
- Accept your reality fast. The survivors who stayed in denial died early. The ones who accepted that the search was over and they were on their own were the ones who started innovating.
- Invent a structure. Even in a crashed plane, they had "rules." They kept the "cabin" clean. They had a hierarchy. Chaos kills; routine saves.
- The "Sleeping Bag" principle. You can't tackle a 15,000-foot mountain without a way to survive the night. Always solve for your most immediate lethal threat first (in their case, the cold) before worrying about the long-term goal (the hike).
- Shared Purpose. Canessa and Parrado didn't just walk for themselves. They walked because they were carrying the lives of the 14 others left at the plane. That weight is what kept them moving when their legs gave out.
The 1972 airplane crash in the Andes isn't just a historical footnote or a movie plot. It’s a case study in the human spirit’s refusal to quit. If you want to dive deeper into the actual logistics of how they survived, I highly recommend reading La Sociedad de la Nieve (Society of the Snow) by Pablo Vierci. He was a childhood friend of the survivors and captures the nuance that the English-language books sometimes miss.
For those interested in the actual site, it is still reachable today. The "Valle de las Lágrimas" (Valley of Tears) is a pilgrimage site for some, though it's a grueling trek. It serves as a stark reminder that even in the most desolate places on Earth, humans find a way.
Next Steps for Understanding Extreme Survival:
To truly understand the physics of what happened, research the Fairchild FH-227D's flight ceiling and how the specific "mountain wave" winds in the Andes can drop an aircraft hundreds of feet in seconds. Understanding the technical failure of the flight makes the survival of the 16 men seem even more impossible. You should also look into the work of Dr. Roberto Canessa, who became a world-renowned pediatric cardiologist, using the same "don't give up" mentality he learned on the mountain to save children with heart defects today.