The Andes crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 happened exactly 50 years ago on October 13, 1972. A rugby team heading to Chile crashed straight into an Andean peak at 14,200 feet. Sixteen of the 45 passengers survived 72 days trapped on a glacier, isolated from civilization and having to resort to eating the bodies of the dead to survive, drying human flesh on the fuselage in the high altitude sun.
In those 72 days, they endured extremely cold temperatures, avalanches, starvation and dehydration and ultimately two of them climbed out of the Andes to bring helicopters to rescue the other survivors, some of whom by then were afraid of flying.
The high altitude nightmare – an incredible and grisly story of survival against all odds – spawned books, movies and documentaries. It also changed the life of Broomfield, Colorado, musician and explorer Ricardo Pena.
On February 12, 2005, Pena discovered the jacket, passport and wallet of survivor Eduardo Strauch high in an unexplored gully above the glacier where the passengers, dressed minimally for warm spring weather, experienced their epic survival story.
“When I first saw the jacket, I thought I was in an Indiana Jones movie,” he said.
In December 2005, with a grant from National Geographic, Ricardo led the first expedition to cross the Andes by the historic escape route completed by survivors Roberto Canessa and Nando Parrado in 1972. This was done in the same month as the survivors’ trek to experience the challenge of similar snow conditions. This story was featured on the cover of the April 2006 National Geographic Adventure magazine.
Exactly 50 years to the date of the crash, Pena told members of The Explorers Club Rocky Mt. chapter in mid-October 2022 that due to climate change, more and more of the aircraft is being revealed. “It’s such a dramatic reminder visiting the site that people were really there,” he said during his presentation.
Today, he and Strauch remain fast friends. In fact the Andes survivor officiated at the wedding of Pena to Ulyana Horodyskyj, Ph.D., a scientist, part-time professor, mountaineer and explorer, and member of the RMEC advisory board.
Pena has been involved in many projects and documentaries regarding the Andes survivors since then and guides expeditions to the Mexican volcanoes, Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro, Nepal, the Andes Survivors site and many other peaks.
This December, Pena plans to return to the crash site, for the first time during the time of the year that coincides with the dates they were there: December 6 – 11, 2022.
To become part of Pena’s next expedition to the site, see:
https://alpineexpeditions.net/andes-survivors/, info@alpineexpeditions.net
Watch his October 2022 Fjallraven store presentation here:
photo by Jeff Blumenfeld: Ricardo Pena (right) shows an armrest from the ill-fated aircraft to author and mountaineer, Gerry Roach, an Everest summiteer in 1983 and the second person to climb the highest peak on each of the 7 continents.