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Introduction

This is the case of October 12, 1972, when a small charted plane takes off from the country of Uruguay in South America. This plane has to go to Santiago, the capital of Chile, and some rugby team players and their friends and family members are sitting in it.

Generally it takes 3 hours to go from Uruguay to Santiago but the huge Andes mountains come on the way. The Andes Mountain Range present in South America is the longest mountain range in the world, after the Himalayan mountains, the highest mountains are also found here.

On that day of 12 October, due to a strong storm in the hills, the plane is unable to go ahead and the pilots decide that they will stop on the way and continue the journey the next day.

A CRASH

The plane is landed for the night in Mendoza city of Argentina and the next day on October 13, the plane takes off again. At about 2:18 pm, the pilot sees that the weather is clearing, only then the plane is brought down. While taking off, sudden turbulence is seen, no one understands what is happening. Some passengers think that the pilot is joking with them, but as the plane comes out of the clouds among the high hills near the city, the pilot sees that there is a huge rock in front of them. In panic, the pilot tries to turn the plane upwards to avoid the hills, but the plane was so close to the hills that the rear part of the plane hits the hills and gets separated from the plane and the right wing breaks. After this collision, the plane suddenly starts falling down and the left wing of the plane also gets separated from the plane. People fly out of the plane in the air and start falling down.

Now only the front portion of the plane was left, which falls directly into the glacier at a speed of 350 kilometers and after sliding on the glacier for about 700 meters, a final collision occurs. After this collision, everything in the plane gets destroyed and Both pilots are killed.

But the surprising thing is that out of 45 people present in the plane, 33 people were still alive.

The plane had deviated from its scheduled route by about 80 kilometers, the remaining passengers could not even guess where they were, but these passengers felt that soon a rescue team would definitely come to save them, but friends, this is only this was the beginning of a painful story

Search Mission

Here, one hour after Flight 571 disappears from the radar, 4 helicopters of the Chilean Air Search And Rescue Services (SARS) leave on the same route where the last signal is received by the radar. Even after this search operation which lasted for 12 hours, the searching team did not get any information about the plane, let alone the plane. Rescue service officers inform the higher authority and return to the base.

The next day, on October 14, 11 planes from Argentina, Chile and Uruguay are sent for search operations. But unfortunately these people also do not find any clue of the plane at the crash site. The plane that had crashed was of white color and there was a white sheet of snow all around the place where it had crashed, due to which it had become even more difficult to search the plane. On the other hand, the passengers had only one thing in their mind that somehow they have to spend just one night and tomorrow morning some rescue team will find them. His guess turns out to be so wrong that you can’t even imagine. On the same day, 5 more passengers are unable to survive in the bitter cold and the number of survivors reduces to 28.

Passengers see three helicopters flying above them, they scream loudly but the search operation team cannot see them. Passengers decide that they will write SOS on the plane with lipstick so that any plane passing above can read it. Can track them easily. But he can only write S and realizes that he doesn’t have enough lipstick to write SOS. Then these people make a big cross from suitcases in the snow but this idea also does not work and the rescue team fails to search these people. After 8 days of the crash, finally the rescue team gives up. They feel that no sign of any survivor has been found in eight days, so there is no point in continuing the search operation because after 8 days, anyway, there will be no trace of any survivor in this snowy place. There would be no one left alive in the hills and officially this search operation is called off.

Survival

Meanwhile, the survivors find a transistor radio lying between the seats of the plane, they try to turn it on, one of the remaining survivors, rugby player Roy Harley, who was also knowledgeable about electronics, tries to turn on that radio. They try and finally make a long antenna and turn on that radio, but this radio could only have one way communication. Survivors could hear outside but could not give out their information. When they turn on the radio 11 days after the crash, they come to know that the search operation has been stopped. Hearing this, the survivors become very upset, start crying and pray to God. But now they realize that no one will come to save them and they will have to find some way. Here, after 11 days, the food had almost completely ended. At an altitude of 3800 meters, there were neither plants nor animals that could be killed and eaten. Due to the food getting completely exhausted, some people Tried to eat things inside the plane like cotton, leather etc. But this also did not help, on the contrary these people started reading ill. In this situation, when there was no option other than dying of hunger, the survivors did something which could not even be imagined.

These people decided that there is no other way to survive other than eating the dead bodies of friends and relatives. It was not easy for anyone to take this decision, this idea came to Roberto Canessa so he first started eating the body, some other people also tried to eat the dead body but they could not swallow the human flesh but after 2 more days After this, when there was nothing to eat, they also made human flesh their food.

16 days after the 29 October 1972 crash, these people heard a very loud roaring sound that night. It turns out that a huge snow storm is coming towards them, and within no time the snow completely fills the plane, 8 people get buried in this snow and die due to lack of breathing and now The number of survivors is reduced to 19, these survivors keep trying to remove the snow and after two days of hard work they make a tunnel so that some air can come in to breathe. When these people come out of the tunnel and look outside, they come to know that the storm has not stopped yet and again they go into the same ice cave. After 3 days, when these people come out again, they see that the storm has calmed down. It’s done and the weather is clear. After coming out, these people decide that if we want to stay alive then we will have to do something so that we can get out of here. Canessa, Parrado, Vizintin were among the strongest survivors among the remaining survivors, so all the logs together decide that these three should be given a little more food so that they can try to get out of this place and find some help.

33 days after the 15 November 1972 crash, these three people set out to find help. After walking for hours in the east direction, they find a broken part of their own plane. When they go closer and look, they find some items there. Like suitcase, chocolate, 1 bottle of rum, medicines. Apart from this, they get two way communication system of the plane but they had no way to turn on this radio and again these people move ahead in search of help.

December 19, 1972: 59 days after the crash, another snowstorm occurs in which three more survivors die and now only 16 survivors remain, while Canessa, Parrado, Vizintin continue to look for help. It seems that after walking a few more kilometers these people will find help. But after a journey that lasted for 4 days, these people realize how wrong their guess was. Due to lack of food, Vizintin decides to return to the crash site and Canessa continues the journey with Parrado. Vizintin returns to the crash site and Canessa continues with Parrado to find help. They go, after a few hours, when both of them reach the top of the mountain, they see that there are only mountains covered with snow all around, both of them become very dejected and worried, but they find two such people far away in the western horizon. When they see peaks that do not have snow on them, they decide that they should continue moving in the direction of those peaks. After walking towards these peaks for many days, they see a river flowing, there is no limit to the happiness of both of them, now they keep walking with the help of this river, after 9 days on 20 December 1972, they reach such a place. Where they see cows in the fields and on the other side of the river they see people sitting on a horse, Parrado tries to shout but due to the noise of the river the sound does not reach him but among the three people on the horse, one human Sees Parrado and Canessa and yells that he will come again tomorrow.

Finally Rescue

The next day the man comes again and this time brings with him some paper and pencil. He wraps this paper-pencil with a stone and throws it towards them. Parrado writes all his words on this paper in Spanish, telling that he My injured friend has been walking for 10 days and is present at the plane crash site, we need help, we have not even eaten food for many days, we are very weak, please save us. After reading Parrado’s letter, this farmer from Chile remembers that he had heard the news of a plane crash two months ago, but at the same time he is surprised that there is still someone alive in the two months old plane crash. The farmer throws a piece of bread towards Canessa and Parrado and then sets off towards the nearest town so that these people can be saved. After walking continuously on horse for about 10 hours, the farmer reaches the nearest town and tells everything to the army commander there. Finally, on December 22, 1972, the survivors are rescued from the crash site along with Canessa and Parrado.

An article by the books of history.

Arranged by #teamanswerwala

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