The unpublished report of the survivors of the Andes ....... Four decades later, and for the first time, the 16 Uruguayans who emerged alive from a plane crash count as faced 72 days in the snow - and remember the despair and the pain of be compelled to practice cannibalism ~~~~ Check chapter of the book "the Snow Society"


1. March 2006: return to the mountain

Climb up the glacier in tears them Valley in March 2006, where is buried the fuselage of the F571 which fell at the foot of the hills of San Hilario, among Tinguiririca and Sosneado volcanoes, is a risky experience.

It involves a long journey, a slow rise two days riding in makeshift tracks, with less than half a meter wide, the cliff always at hand, a mountain range whose landscapes and heights change continuously, but where the vertigo of imminent risk is always present . Advances slowly, step by step, whether in the mountains or when crossing the rushing streams of ice water that descend from the mountains dragging all the way. Seem to want to take even the mules and horses, which stagger but do not fall signing hooves among the rocks in the background before taking the next step. Some riders advance blindfolded to avoid surprises, relying on animal instinct.

Each piece comes an image or some unforeseen event that makes you shiver. Snowstorms and winds erupt suddenly. A mule slides ravine below by several feet, kicking and raising so much dust that is impossible to observe the outcome until the hulls can establish a projection of the descent, with curved and grabbed the mane rider. A horse stumbles, supports one knee on the track and is balancing in the air with his hind legs over the precipice. A pack mule is frightened by the wind and runs among the rocks, galloping down the mountain, dropping its load along the way, while a trooper fires behind her at a gallop. The codes are already changing; dizziness part of the landscape. The group approaches the prehistory.

Two days later, when it gets to them Valley Tears, almost 4000 meters of altitude, in the center of the Andes on the border between Chile and Argentina, the picture is great and terrifying. Resembles a monumental amphitheater: the center, on a rock promontory, there is a cross of iron where are buried the remains of the dead in the accident. South border is an endless succession of mountains and peaks that go to Cape Horn, at the end of the continent. To the north, a similar landscape extends to Panama, unfolding its 7240 km long and forming a mountain range longer than the Himalayas; west the view collides with a rock wall and ice 5180 meters high, the hills of San Hilario, so imposing that makes it impossible to imagine the horizon. Back east, returns to Argentina, where did the horse group. The endless snowy peaks culminate, in the misty distance to the east, in the highest of all: Sosneado volcano of 6000 meters high. At this end of the world landscape reigns an inorganic silence, broken occasionally by wind violence and the creaking of the glacier.

It is necessary to leave the horses that need to go down one thousand meters before the sun sets in the mountains not to die frozen. After the group has to walk eight hundred meters west of the iron cross to the exact location where the fuselage of the Fairchild is buried in the middle of the glacier. Lack oxygen, every step requires more effort than the last. Nausea, confusion, headache, altitude sickness starts to creep into the body of the least used.

Four survivors of the 1972 crash are part of the group: Roberto Canessa, Gustavo Zerbino, Adolfo Strauch and Ramón "Moncho" Sabella. Accompanies them also Juan Pedro Nicola, whose parents died in the accident. As everyone in the group, he brings the son to know the grave where the remains of their grandparents and others who never returned. The son says the father, who is absorbed, staring at the five stone needles with the plane crashed.

When the glacier is closer, and the snow wall of San Hilario saw has its increased dimensions, the group members have to tie each other and put crampons on the soles of the boots before continuing the climb. The glacier, with the fuselage in the center, is right there, crossed from side to side for cracks twenty to thirty feet deep, hidden by thin layers of ice. Three professional climbers go ahead, testing the waters with their ice axes and bats. Some meters behind following the four survivors.

The landscape Gustavo Zerbino seen on October 13, 1972, at 15:35, moments after the accident, when the shattered fuselage stranded in the middle of the glacier after sliding at a dizzying speed, zigzagging, crashing into the rocky sets that arise amid the snow slope, little has changed in 34 years. The first thing he saw in the south were the steep slopes covered with snow and crowned at the top with stone points observed a few moments before by Juan Pedro Nicola. The highest are the extreme, and it was against one of those which hit the left wing of the plane, and her womb to the middle, while traveling with the engines roaring to the maximum, in a desperate attempt to avoid a collision that by now with the direction already totally lost, it was inevitable. Toward the west, seen from the point where the fuselage is located, the wall of snow-covered rocks seems embedded in vertical position, humanly unattainable, except for a feat beyond all logic, or unless one is living in a unknown society.

On October 13, 1972, at 15h37, Gustavo Zerbino, with nineteen years of age, belonging to the group of young, experiencing the same as now. He felt short of breath, had no strength, was plagued by headaches and was very confused. Was unhurt but had to help his friend Roberto Canessa, the same age, to escape the trap where it had fallen assets under two torn seats whole the impact that the left caught between sharp or pointed edges irons. Immediately, the two begin to remove the seats holding the other, injured or unharmed. To remove some prisoners corpses to twisted irons and fuselage wreckage, need to tie them by the feet using the seat belts and drag them four to snow, to leave them there without more, face down, to three meters disaster.

Gustavo runs with determination to help in what may. No time to think, only to work with Roberto, who while caring for a wounded examines the pulse of a dying moments before improvise an emergency tourniquet to stop the bleeding of Fernando Vasquez, had a leg wound the propeller wing right that broke off and moved in the machine direction. Soon after he twists the broken tibia Alvaro Mangino, snapping it into place and away from the path:'ve ever been served. Now it is the turn of another, a fellow tangle between irons, trembling, with a wound in the belly, which soon rises to show Gustavo metal tube spiked in his gut.

- It does not hurt. I just feel cold - says Enrique Platero.

Today everything is intact. As if time had frozen. There is no rust on air debris around the site. On the left wing, split in half exactly where was the propeller, shine clearly the old inscriptions, the place of manufacture, the date, the technical instructions. The sky suddenly closes and the group decides to go back half a mile to the stone promontory where the iron cross, beside which were mounted two special tents mountain.
Dark clouds threatening advance, announcing the wind and snow storms that soon made the sacolejarem stalls as if they pull them off the ground. Adolfo Strauch, which in 1972 belonged to the group of older, with 24 years, announces the imminence of an avalanche. Notes carefully, and soon after making his warning he shows to his daughter, Alejandra, we produce a gigantic release of accumulated snow in great west wall, which causes its passage a strong bang and generates a vapor trail. But now they are safe, half a mile where the 72 plane wreckage.
Standing by the iron cross with his arm over the shoulder of Roberto Canessa, Gustavo Zerbino vibrates like you are living a continuous present. Last night, at base camp of El Barroso, a mountain tent shared with one of his sons, on the way to the Valley of Tears them, Gustavo could not sleep, plagued by nausea and nightmares. At dawn, he rides his horse and goes silent, isolating themselves in time. When you can see the tears them Valley, is already on board the F571. His account now merges with sighs, intercalates with such vivid memories that he comes to feel that you are taking a step back, as in 1972, to move away from the ghostly wreck of the party plane.
The moment the aircraft clashed with stone needle, to 15.30, after plummeting by an unlimited vacuum column, Gustavo got rid unconsciously seat belt and stood in the hallway, holding with all the force the metal brackets that surrounded the baggage, not to fly with shock. Felt the impact, and soon after the whistles of the cold wind and snow that punished his head, back and legs, and told the endless seconds the airplane party body led skating on the ice to stop abruptly, crushing seats and people against the luggage compartment and the pilots.
Roberto Canessa feel the impact of the wing against the rocks and grab the seat in front with all their might. Pop into your mind loose, fiery and confused images, which refer to a single outcome: he's starring in a plane crash in the Andes. Anytime he had crashed against the mountain and know what lies on the other side of life.