Flight 571: The Harrowing Journey of Survival and Cannibalism in the Andes

In 1972, a 22-year-old man named Nando Parrado arrived at the airport. An outgoing athlete, Nando studied economics in college and played rugby at Stella Maris College. He met up with his team, where they began discussing their game plan for the upcoming match in Chile. Parrado's mother and sister sat beside him.

The next to arrive was Nando's friend, Roberto Canessa, who was 19 at the time. While they waited, the two tossed a rugby ball back and forth. A few minutes later, their coach approached and briefed them on their flight. He informed the group that, due to the high cost of flying to Chile, they had opted for the cheapest option: an American-made Fairchild FH-227D. What the team didn’t know was that this particular plane had earned the nickname "the lead sled" because of its heavy weight and weak engine.

At 12:45 PM, the plane was ready, and the passengers began boarding. A total of 45 people were on board: 19 rugby players, 13 family members, 6 supporters, and 5 crew members, including 2 pilots. The plane took off, but soon ran into bad weather and was forced to make an early landing in Mendoza, Argentina. Fortunately, there was a direct flight to Santiago the next day.

It's important to note that due to the aircraft's weight, it couldn't reach the 25,000 feet required to fly over the mountains. Instead, the flight would take a route that avoided the highest peaks of the Andes. This meant they would need to make a right turn to reach the airport. As if to add to the sense of foreboding, the flight on Friday the 13th began its second leg at around 9:00 AM.

The flight initially started with a sense of joy. Passengers threw a rugby ball around, and everyone was in high spirits. Nando Parrado, sitting by the window, gave up his seat so his friend could get a better view of the mountains. Little did Nando know, this small gesture would ultimately save his life.

Not long after the turbulence began, at first, the passengers didn’t seem too concerned. But then, someone pointed out how close the mountains appeared, seemingly just outside the plane. What they didn't know was that the pilot and co-pilot had made a deadly mistake. They had told air traffic control they would reach the airport in a minute. However, visibility was poor due to the clouds, and they were mistaken. They were actually still about 11 minutes away from the airport and hadn't reached the safe spot where they could turn toward it. Instead, they continued descending, entering an area of chaotic winds in the heart of the mountains. The plane was thrown around violently.

Then, the clouds parted, and the pilots saw a black ridge directly ahead of them. They attempted to ascend, but by now, the passengers knew something was terribly wrong. The aircraft collided with the ridge, tearing off the rear of the plane. It was sent hurtling forward and plummeted around 3,000 feet before its wing struck another ridge. The tail was torn off, leaving only the front part of the fuselage. The plane then crashed into a snow-covered mountain, sliding down the slope until it came to a stop at around 11,000 feet above sea level.

Miraculously, a few people survived, but the interior of the plane had been torn to shreds, and many bodies remained attached to their seats. Most of the survivors suffered broken bones or had parts of the plane lodged in their bodies. However, they faced an even greater challenge: they were trapped in remote glaciers with no name, far from civilization. There was no hope of anyone finding them.

Of the 45 passengers on the plane, 12 died instantly when the plane struck the mountain or were thrown out when the rear section of the plane was torn off. The survivors with the least severe injuries began helping the more critically wounded, those with broken bones or internal injuries. Nando was in a coma and would remain unconscious for three days. During this time, he was unaware that his mother had died, and his sister was dying. They had only been on the flight because Nando had been told he could have the empty seats for free.Nando would later say: “inviting them would turn out to be the biggest regret of his life”.

The survivors look around their surroundings. The pilot is dead, but the co-pilot, who made the mistake, is alive, though crushed under debris. He tells the survivors that he has a handgun and asks them to shoot him to end his suffering. They don’t kill him, but he dies soon after.

The first night is brutally cold, with temperatures dropping as low as -22°F. The survivors try to block the hole in the fuselage with suitcases. They mistakenly believe that a rescue operation will find them soon and that this will be their only night on the mountain. They could not have been more wrong. What they don't realize is that the plane's white color makes it nearly invisible from the air. On that first night, five more people died from their injuries.

Now, the survivors need to start thinking about food. At such low temperatures, the body burns calories faster to stay warm. All the luggage is searched, and while there is an endless supply of cigarettes and wine, there isn't much food. In total, they find 8 chocolate bars, a tin of mussels, jars of jam, a tin of almonds, some candy, and a couple of bottles of wine. The survivors make a plan to ration the food, but it's nearly nothing for so many people, and they have no idea how long it needs to last. At least they have water, as they can melt snow in the wine bottles.

Days pass, and more people die. On the tenth day, Nando, now conscious, holds his sister as she dies in his arms. He would later say that he went to sleep and woke up in hell. Then, they heard on the transistor radio, which they had found in the wreckage, that the search for them had been called off. Upon hearing this, Nando turned to Robert and said, "I'm going to eat the pilot."

Nando was not the first to consider this. They had run out of supplies days ago, and there were no animals or vegetation in sight. By this point, only 27 people were still alive, and there were many mouths to feed. They started with the pilot, stripping any and all meat from the body, including the organs.

On day 17, disaster struck. In the middle of the night, they heard a noise—it was an avalanche. Snow burst through the hole in the plane, and the entire fuselage was packed tight. Eight more died, and the rest were trapped in the plane for three days. The snow eventually melted.

Days passed, and they continued eating their deceased friends. The men who were still alive made a pact: if they were to die, they gave permission to be eaten in order to keep the rest alive. Some days, they took turns exploring the mountains, trying to find help, but they were too malnourished to go more than a few hundred meters. On one expedition, they found the other half of the fuselage. Inside, they discovered some batteries and chocolates. They hoped they could hook the batteries up to the radio, but their efforts proved unsuccessful.

Nando realized they couldn’t stay there much longer. Their food was dwindling, and it only took another avalanche to finish them off. They knew Chile was to the west and remembered that the pilot had said they weren’t far from their destination. However, they didn't know they were still 37 miles away from the nearest road—37 miles of glaciers and rough terrain. Nando knew their only hope was to walk over the range to Chile.

So, Nando and two others—Roberto Canessa and Antonio Vizintín—decided to go. They stocked up on human meat. On day 61, when the men set off, there were only 16 survivors, all of whom were sick or malnourished. They prayed the men would make it, though they had no way of knowing if they survived.

Before they left, a man named Carlitos Páez made the men a sleeping bag using parts of the aircraft’s insulation and copper wiring, which could fit all three. Without it, they surely would have frozen to death.

It took them three days to climb the first mountain. Nando expected to see greenery afterward, but all that lay before them were more snowy ranges. Vizintín, exhausted, gave his food to the others and turned back. Nando and Canessa both said, "We'll die, but we'll die trying." They didn’t die. They walked for 10 days, almost passing out from exhaustion, but on the final day of their journey, they found a river and saw green poking out from the mountains.

They also spotted another person on the other side of the river. The man brought a pen and piece of paper, tied them to a rock, and threw it across. Nando wrote, "We are survivors of the plane crash. We have no food. We cannot walk anymore. There are more of us in the mountains."

The man was a sheep herder named Sergio Catalán. He was with his son, and when he understood the situation, he threw bread and water across the river. Then, he rode his horse for hours to get help. When he told the police, they initially didn’t believe him, dismissing him as a drunk making up stories. However, he managed to convince them, and the two men were picked up by the army and carried back on horses.

On day 71 since the plane crash, the rest of the team was picked up. Though all of them had serious injuries, they all recovered, and to this day, all but one are still alive. Reporters began asking how they survived so long without food. It seemed impossible for so many people to survive that long on barely any food.

Then, a photograph taken by one of the survivors came to light, showing human remains that had been completely stripped of any meat. The survivors admitted to what they had done, and the public turned on them, calling them "cannibal savages." Nando said eating human flesh wasn’t easy, but it had been their last resort. He added, "We tried to eat bits of leather torn from luggage, though we knew the chemicals it had been treated with weren't good for us." They even ripped open seat cushions looking for straw, but only found inedible upholstery foam.

One survivor refused to turn to cannibalism and died. Of the 45 people who boarded the plane, only 16 survived, all of whom turned to cannibalism. Because of this, they managed to come off the mountain alive.