Miracle in the Andes
Does the name Nando Parrado mean anything to you? If you relish raw, visceral survival stories it should. And if it doesn’t now, you soon won’t forget him. Nando details the gut-wrenching story of his survival following a plane crash in the Andes mountains in his book, “Miracle in the Andes: 72 days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home.” On Friday the 13th of October, 1972, Nando was one of the 45 souls who boarded the chartered Fairchild turboprop, Uruguayan Air Force flight 571. Nando was a member of the Old Christians Club rugby team on their way to a match. Along with the team were several of the teams’ family members and friends. The flight was in poor weather. The pilots did not factor in the heavy headwinds when they guesstimated their position incorrectly. They turned the plane into the face of an unnamed mountain peak. Later on it was named Cerro Seler, or Glacier of Tears. The plane clipped the peak at 13,800 feet, shearing off both wings. The tubular fuselage slid down a steep slope before coming to rest in a snow bank. When the wings came off, they were viciously twisted backwards so that the spinning propellers sliced through the fuselage. Additionally the tail section broke off. Of the 45 souls on board, 12 were killed immediately. Another 5 died by the next morning and 1 more died on the 8th day. The 27 remaining faced 35-below wind chill temperatures. There was no food but the few chips and candy bars and bottles of wine they scrounged from the luggage. They had no cold-weather clothing and many of the 27 had severe injuries. 22-year old Nando himself was in a coma for 3 days and was assumed dead by his companions. Nando’s mother and 17-year old sister perished in the flight as well. To add further terror and insult to the survivors, an avalanche on day 16 claimed 8 more lives. There were two pivotal moments however that decided the ultimate fate of the 16 eventual survivors of the air disaster. First, on day 9 the survivors held a 2-hour meeting to discuss what they would do for food. There was only one obvious choice, since the mountain was frozen and afforded no trees, shrubs or animals of any kind. The decision was agreed upon to cannibalize the frozen bodies of their fellow travelers now deceased. They concluded the meeting by agreeing that if any of them died, they granted permission to the living to use their corpses for food. Their argument played on the idea that eating the flesh of the dead was not dissimilar to receiving an organ transplant from a deceased person. Secondly, the huddled group had a small transistor radio they found in the luggage. On day 11 they discovered that the search for...
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