38 years ago today: Uruguayan AF flight 571 crashed in the Andes.

[edbermac]

Friday Oct 13, 1972.

"Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, also known as the Andes flight disaster, and in South America as Miracle in the Andes (El Milagro de los Andes) was a chartered flight carrying 45 people, including a rugby team and their friends and family and associates that crashed in the Andes on October 13, 1972. The last of the 16 survivors were rescued on December 23, 1972. More than a quarter of the passengers died in the crash, and several more quickly succumbed to cold and injury. Of the twenty-nine who were alive a few days after the accident, another eight were killed by an avalanche that swept over their shelter in the wreckage.

The survivors had little food and no source of heat in the harsh conditions, at over 3,600 metres (11,800 ft) altitude. Faced with starvation and radio news reports that the search for them had been abandoned, the survivors fed on the dead passengers who had been preserved in the snow. Rescuers did not learn of the survivors until 72 days after the crash when passengers Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, after a 12-day trek across the Andes, found a Chilean huaso, who gave them food and then alerted authorities about the existence of the other survivors."

I'd read their book ALIVE and saw that several of the Andes survivors spoke to the miners to keep their spirits up.

Ironic that on this date the miner's ordeal has ended while the Uruguayans was just beginning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571#2010_Chilean_Mine_Disaster

[txlibdem]

1. Mmmmm. Save me a leg and a thigh!

:-) Too soon???

[uppityperson]

2. Time is odd. That seems like a really long time ago, while something @ the same time

seems like yesterday.

[virgogal]

3. I agree---seems like yesterday to me,but----------------- !

Tempus fugit !:-(

[sinkingfeeling]

4. Did you ever read Nando's book, "Miracle in the Andes"? I thought it was much

more inspirational than "Alive".