On October 13, 1972, a chartered aircraft carrying forty-five passengers, including 19 members of the Old Christians’ Club rugby team, departed from Montevideo, Uruguay bound for Santiago, Chile. About an hour into the flight, the copilot incorrectly believed the plane had gotten off course and requested permission from air traffic control in Santiago to begin his descent and course correct. However, when the plane began descending out of the cloud cover, the copilot realized he’d been wrong about their position and were in fact dangerous close to the Andes mountains. The pilots attempted to pull the plane back up, but they were unsuccessful and the crashed directly into the mountain.
Ultimately, sixteen of the forty-five passengers survived the crash of flight 571, spending seventy-two days in an isolated, untraveled part of the Andes. They endured extremely harsh conditions including sub-zero temperatures, exposure to freezing wind, and most significantly, starvation. The survivors were eventually rescued after two passengers hiked three days out of the mountains, using only materials from the wreckage to aid in the trek, where they eventually found help.
In the years since the crash, the story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 has become one of the most famous tales of survival and human endurance.
Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!
References
Associated Press. 1972. "16 survive 2 months in Andes after crash." Boston Globe, December 23: 2.
—. 1972. "Crash survivors resorted to cannibalism." Boston Globe, December 27: 2.
—. 1972. "16 Air crash survivors found after 69 days in icy Andes." Los Angeles Times, December 23: 1.
Benales, Carlos. 1972. "Andes survivors solved problem of food, shelter." Chicago Tribune, December 31: 9.
Campbell, Matthew. 2022. "Fifty years on, 'Alive' team say eating flesh was awful but they got used to it." Sunday Times, October 16.
Godfrey, Chris. 2023. "My plane crashed in the Andes. Only the unthinkable kept me and the other starving survivirs alive." The Guardian, December 4.
Lilliston, Lynn. 1974. "Andes crash survivors tell their story." Los Angeles Times, May 5: 179.
Read, Piers Paul. 1974. Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors. New York, NY: J.B. Lippincott Company.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Плейлист
Morbid
On October 13, 1972, a chartered aircraft carrying forty-five passengers, including 19 members of the Old Christians’ Club rugby team, departed from Montevideo, Uruguay bound for Santiago, Chile. Abou...
In the winter of 1924, the boroughs of New York City were plagued by a series of robberies ostensibly committed by a young couple. This was not the first time a woman had been involved in armed robber...
In February 1942, Gordon Cummins, a twenty-eight-year-old Royal Air Force Serviceman, murdered four women and attempted to murder two others over a six-day period in London, leading the press to dub h...
In response to the onset of German bombing raids during World War II, many of England’s most vulnerable citizens evacuated or were temporarily evacuated out of urban areas to safer, more rural parts o...
On January 12, 1983, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department received a call from a frantic driver who reported they’d just witnessed a shooting on the side of the side of the road in Fulton, Californi...
Happy New Year, weirdos, and we're celebrating the holidays with Holiday tales brought TO you, BY you, For you, FROM you, and ALLLLL about you!Today we have boogens, a Hanukkah haunting, horrible Four...
When a girl walking on a Provincetown, Massachusetts beach discovered the decomposing body of a young woman in the summer of 1974, it began an investigation into what would become one of the most noto...
This episode was that was originally published as Episode 240. We are revisiting it as a refresher before we update the case next Monday! We hope that you have a happy and safe holiday! We’re bringin...
This episode is a fan favorite that was originally published as Episode 476. We hope that you have a happy and safe holiday! Juliane Koepcke's story will have you questioning any recent complaint you'...
On the morning of April 10, 1936, Nancy Evans Titterton, novelist and wife of NBC Radio executive Lewis Titterton, was found sexually assaulted and strangled to death in the bathtub of her apartment i...
When thirty-four-year-old St. Paul housewife Carol Thompson was murdered in the spring of 1963, her entire neighborhood was shocked by the evil that had invaded their middle-class neighborhood. As far...
Weirdos!! It’s our second SPECIAL BONUS EPISODE brought to YOU by our friends at Audible!Today we’re joined by a member of the PodFam, Spencer Henry from Cult Liter, Obitchuary & Gossip's Bridle! Join...
When Kathryn Wombacher suspected her husband, Walter Andrew, of having an affair in the spring of 1920, she hired a private detective to follow him on one of his many “out-of-town” trips that he’d tak...
In late 1931, several Native trappers in Aklavik, Northwest Territories, reported to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that a newly arrived white man, Albert Johnson, had been tampering with th...
When police were called to the scene of shooting at the Castillion Apartments in Los Angeles on April 20, 1968, they assumed the victim, twenty-two-year-old Cheryl Perveler, had been shot in a robbery...
This episode is a Fan Favorite that was originally published as Episode 401. We hope that you continue to have a happy and safe holiday!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California P...
Happy Thanksgiving! Pull up a chair and get ready for a brand new batch of tales brought TO you, BY you (Salad Fingers & the Sims thief), For you, FROM you, and ALLLLL about you!Today we have some wil...
This episode is a fan favorite that was originally published as Episode 476. We hope that you have a happy and safe holiday!When musician Bobby Mackey opened Bobby Mackey’s Music World in 1978, he had...
On November 2, 2016, thirty-four-year-old so-called “Supermom” Sherri Papini went out for a run near her home in Redding, California, and disappeared without a trace. Three weeks later, on Thanksgivin...
On April 25, 2004, Broadmoor Hospital inmate Peter Bryan attacked a killed fellow inmate Richard Loudwell, a man awaiting sentencing for the murder of an eighty-two-year-old woman. The fact that the m...
At first glance, there wasn’t much to the mild and unassuming Jerry Brudos; however, when investigators looked into his background, they discovered several arrests for theft, prowling, and sexual assa...
Over the course of 1968 and well into 1969, several young women in Salem, Oregon went missing and would later turn up dead—all murdered and showing signs of having been tortured. Many of the cases bor...
Just because October is over doesn't mean that Spooky Season needs to end!! Today, our friend Bridget Marquardt drops by to tell us about her NEW PODCAST-- "Ghost Bunny" available everywhere you find...
Weirdos! Are you ready to talk about Vampires? Today we are joined by the ICONIC actor Doug Jones, the nicest monster in Hollywood! He has played everyone from Billy Butcherson in the Hocus Pocus film...
Weirdos! It's *ACTUALLY* Halloween!!! Join us for a fresh batch of tales brought TO you, BY you, For you, FROM you, and ALLLLL about you! Today we have shadow men throwing ass, ghostly exes, sinister...
In January 2014, a strange article appeared in the Indianapolis Star about Latoya Ammons, an Indiana single mother of three who claimed that for more than a year, she and her children were besieged by...
On the afternoon of February 9, 1958, a complaint was called into Long Island’s seventh police precinct regarding a series of “strange occurrences” taking place in the caller’s home. According to the...
In the early hours of June 30, 1987, Boise resident Clinton Sparks was awoken by someone pounding frantically on his storm door. A moment later, Sparks heard a loud scream in the distance, and he went...
On December 18, 1975, George and Kathy Lutz moved their family into their new house on Ocean Avenue in Amityville, NY, where, just one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo Jr. had murdered all six members of hi...
On the evening of November 13, 1974, twenty-three-year-old Ronald DeFeo Jr. burst through the door of Henry’s Bar in Amityville, Long Island, frantically yelling for help and telling the patrons that...