Courage and cannibalism: inside the Andes plane disaster | 7NEWS Spotlight

[Music] i just remember the sound of the impact lost the wings lost the tail i was so afraid i knew i was going to die i'm buried under concrete i couldn't move people die and people crying people screaming the search has been called off now we were on our home this would be their home for 72 days no food no water no help this is a nightmare how do you die slowly i just wanted to leave hernando told me carlitos i'm going to eat the pilot it's just after sunrise near santiago chile our chopper is taking us high into the andes below us towering 15 000 foot peaks it's the world's longest mountain range [Music] very little lives here where we're going is hours away and that's where we'll see the sight of history's greatest survival story it's more than a story about cannibalism or a story about putting someone in in a bucket than eating them was dying an easier option i didn't want to lie not for me that nando parado is alive to tell his story is nothing short of amazing in 1972 he and a bunch of schoolmates were on a rugby tour on a chartered air force plane they were flying from uruguay to chile for a game of social football there were some seats available on the airplane so i invited my mother and my sister to go with me too i was so strong and 19 years old so full of life all my hair were black and everything and now i'm six years old like nando roberto canessa had gone to uruguay's top private school christian brothers it has a long and proud rugby tradition they were part of the old boys team the youngest member was 18 year old calitos paius i was a a spoiled boy i have my breakfast but somebody was bringing me to me in bed all the time you know i wasn't even a boy scout so i know nothing about life on thursday october 12th they took off from the uruguayan capital montevideo on board were five crew and 40 passengers but the plane soon ran into bad weather and was forced to land in argentina and the next day on friday 13th we took off from mendoza to fly to santiago but we never made it after leaving mendoza the pilot who'd made the same flight 29 times before headed south to cross the andes when he believed he crossed the highest point he turned north and began to descend but he was still in argentina on the wrong side of the andes thick cloud hid what was below on board the rugby team had no idea we were all happy making jokes the pilots had made a fatal miscalculation i just remember the sound of the impact and the intense force of the impact i hit something with my head and i passed out i was in a coma for a few days after the plane crash 12 died in that initial crash and 33 survived yeah it was a very strange impression to see your friends dead i mean they were lying there on the snow they had the same clothes you had but there was an invisible line of life and death between you and him even now 40 years later getting to the side is dangerous and difficult looking around there is nothing but sheer rock places we had to wait till late summer when the snow has melted and it's safe to land now we are over there just there is the crash site yeah okay it's a place that you have to go to understand it you get the shortness of breath and then you will understand for example how wouldn't have the enough strength to bury our friends we didn't have even earth to bury them time has buried much of the plane just a few twisted relics remain no sound no life just rocks and mountains and sky this would be their home for 72 days they had no warm clothes and the only food supplies they had was a bottle of white rum and two blocks of chocolate this first night was horrible you know everybody people dying people crying people screaming but at the end this this night goes away and appears saturday the saturday was a great day no clouds in the sky uh beautiful you know the the andes is in a kind of always beautiful in another it's horrible you know it's uh and that day two two planes uh pass over us didn't say they did is your next memory after the crash my next memory after the crash is starting to wake up slowly coming back from that coma and i realized that there were faces close to me and there were my friends none though we crashed nando can you hear me we crashed we crashed his friends inadvertently had saved his life after the crash believing he died they placed his body with the other dead near the entrance of the fuselage nando's head lay in the snow where the freezing temperature stopped his brain swelling and kept him alive when he came to his first thoughts were for his mum and sister so i asked about my my family and they were very blunt to me very tenderly blunt you know nando your mother is dead panchito is dead you know and i said where is susie and she said she's badly badly injured and she's lying on the floor i stayed with her stayed with her for for a few hours until she died amongst the wreckage the survivors found a camera and a radio on day 10 while listening to it they heard the search had been called off so it was a very strange sensation feeling that their world is alive and they consider you dead when you're abandoned to die at you know 13 000 or 14 000 feet with -35 degrees below zero no food no water no help no rescue you turn yourself into a survival machine lost in the andes surrounded by the dead all they had was each other they were cold and hungry facing starvation we don't have any food yeah no food you had no you had little pieces of chocolate but yeah but they're napping well not quite nothing who was the first to raise the idea i remember clearly being with carlitos and trying to sleep at night nasekalitos what do you think i say to nando say nando nothing nothing is left in the in the in the little the chocolates hernando told me carlitos i'm going to eat the pie lot that it's logic uh to say that because nando loses his mother and his sister after so as i used to say consciently or unconsciously he was say the the responsible of the whole thing is the pilot so [Music] what are we going to do we have to eat and the only proteins are the dead bodies of the people that were on display i said you know everybody's thinking the same thing unable to light a fire to cook with it would be raw flesh your mouth doesn't want to open because you don't want to swallow a piece of a dead person and then i thought of my mother that she told me if one of my sons dies i couldn't make it in life i would die myself so i said it for not giving up i have to eat this piece i just swallow it and nothing happened i just want to ask one thing though that first bite the first the first bite for me it's like your first sexual relation you have lots of expectations lots of things going to happen and then after it happens it's over life goes on and the taste the taste is like raw meat raw meat from from cow or whatever the living now dined on the dead but the mountain wasn't finished with them yet on the 18th day an avalanche hit [Music] when the avalanche hits the fuselage it goes inside and it buries 27 of the guys over there it was so fast it's like a lightning hitting you and i tried with all my strength i couldn't move and i said roberto you had it you're going to die that's it a very nice sensation of heat between my legs because i was peeing on myself and saying that's it i was dying i didn't have maybe 5-10 seconds of life in me somebody scratched my face and i could breathe and then roy harley took the snow of my face because i had time to put my hands out only my hands were out and i could breathe again and i was back again so these guys who started this chain reaction they saved 19 guys 19 guys in three four minutes as the weeks passed and more died they realized they would have to pick the strongest to take on the near impossible task of crossing the andes for help how did you decide who went you know in the case of nando his motivation was to don't stay in the plane because if he stays in the plane he he must eat his his mother and his sister also trekking out with nando was roberto and had you known how tough that journey would be would you have gone yes yes yes because nothing is tougher than to die sitting there on december 12 two months after the crash they left heading west they had no mountain climbing experience no equipment and their only food human remains carried in football socks i took us three days to climb the first mountain and the worst part was the last part of the third day when i reached the summit of the mountain and i thought i was going to look into a green valley with roads and then i realized i was in the middle of the endless range i couldn't see anything but pigs and peaks and peaks surrounded by mountains 360 degrees around my compromise was to give a step and this is what's something i learned in life i don't look at the mountain i look to my next step because there are lots of things that are uncertain in life and you don't know but if you don't take the steps you will never know how far can you go it would be many steps and many more days back at the crash site their friends had all but lost hope it was horrible you know the days were passing 10 days 10 days in the mountain 25 below it's it's impossible finally for me the moment line of life and there was a snow finished and the river began to appear there for me i knew i i was going to survive on the other side of the river they spotted a chilean farmer can you imagine the relief roberto had dysentery and nando was beyond exhaustion but none of that mattered because they were getting out alive he took a rock put a piece of paper around it tied it with a pencil and threw it across the river and that's when i wrote the message i come from a plane that crashed in the mountains i'm uruguayan i need help i have 14 friends wounded on the airplane so that's the start of the of the end the farmer's name was sergio as well as the pencil and paper he also threw them bread and i was so impressed with those pieces of bread that last year i told the shepherd sergio i will never forget the two pieces of bread that you gave nando and he said two i gave him four pieces of bread and i asked nando nando what how many pieces of bread did the shepherd he began winkling when nando winkle said he's telling you lies was it four pieces or two i think i can't remember roberto says it was four and i ate two i think there were three and i anyway i have done all the therefore to go to get the the bread we start hearing the beautiful noise of the helicopters coming and then they appear as those two beautiful birds as i used to say birds of freedom this is actual vision of the rescue the living numbered 16 29 had perished my father when i met him he still didn't know if my mother was alive or not [Music] so the first moment that we embraced each other he says i'm so happy i he didn't let go and he asked in my ear is mommy alive he's just alive i said no so it was a very strange moment happiness and sadness at the same time in the days following the joy at their survival turned to horror as the world discovered the reason why and i know 100 of the people who maybe are watching this program they say oh i wouldn't have done it if you were there you would have done it in the years following carletos turned his near-death experience into a living traveling the world talking about it [Music] roberto canessa has given his life to medicine a children's heart specialist he once ran for president of uruguay in 1972 roberto had a young girlfriend laura they're still together today married with three children on the day he was found her father broke the news at two o'clock in the morning she remembers he was sitting on the bed and telling her you are right he's alive after beating all the odds nando continued to caught danger he became a racing car driver a good one making a living out of it for 25 years what's your favorite track mount panorama in australia that is bad hurst my dream once was to raise the bath horse 1000 and i'm too old now but uh my dream is to drive a racing car on bathhouse once we will have to get you out there please if somebody has a racing marks cave all these beautiful people there craig lounge i want to drive one of those cars during his time on the circuit nando wooed and wed veronique they have two daughters i had a fantastic life i married a fantastic woman i had a beautiful family and i cannot ask for anything more what can we learn from your experience roberto that in life your plane might fall once you must be ready for your plane crash we receive from life lots more than what we need and we do lots less than what we we can if you have a decent kind of food to eat if you have a bed if you have water appreciate the simple things in life yeah yeah life is more simple than what we think we really make it complex [Music] you

Channel: 7NEWS Spotlight

Views: 3,982,553

Rating: 4.9303212 out of 5

Keywords: 7news, Channel 7, News, air crash documentary, air crash investigation, air crash survivors, air disasters, andes, cannibal, cannibalism, cannibalism in the andes, courage, crash survivor stories, documentary, feature, i survived full episodes, interview, plane crash, plane crash survivor, plane crash survivor documentary, plane crash survivor interview, plane crash survivor stories, spotlight, story, sunday night, the andes mountains

Id: 1Pg__L5Ijr0

Length: 20min 32sec (1232 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/919Firefighter]

Can you just imagine insulting someone for doing literally the last resort to survive? Unbelievable survival story. You have to be extremely mentally tough to move past that and live a happy life