Alive

The Story of the Andes Survivors

Piers Paul Read

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781504039123
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Biografie in ambito storico

The #1 New York Times bestseller and the true story behind the film: A rugby team resorts to the unthinkable after a plane crash in the Andes. Spirits were high when the Fairchild F-227 took off from Mendoza, Argentina, and headed for Santiago, Chile. On board were forty-five people, including an amateur rugby team from Uruguay and their friends and family. The skies were clear that Friday, October 13, 1972, and at 3: 30 p.m., the Fairchild's pilot reported their altitude at 15, 000 feet. But one minute later, the Santiago control tower lost all contact with the aircraft. For eight days, Chileans, Uruguayans, and Argentinians searched for it, but snowfall in the Andes had been heavy, and the odds of locating any wreckage were slim. Ten weeks later, a Chilean peasant in a remote valley noticed two haggard men desperately gesticulating to him from across a river. He threw them a pen and paper, and the note they tossed back read: "I come from a plane that fell in the mountains..." Sixteen of the original forty-five passengers on the F-227 survived its horrific crash. In the remote glacial wilderness, they camped in the plane's fuselage, where they faced freezing temperatures, life-threatening injuries, an avalanche, and imminent starvation. As their meager food supplies ran out, and after they heard on a patched-together radio that the search parties had been called off, it seemed like all hope was lost. To save their own lives, these men and women not only had to keep their faith, they had to make an impossible decision: Should they eat the flesh of their dead friends? A remarkable story of endurance and determination, friendship and the human spirit, Alive is the dramatic bestselling account of one of the most harrowing quests for survival in modern times.

Five

1

The seventeenth day, October 29, passed quite well for those stranded in the Fairchild. They were still cold, wet, dirty, and hungry, and some were in great pain, but in the last few days a degree of order seemed to have been imposed on the chaos. The teams for cutting, cooking, melting snow, and cleaning the cabin were working well, and the wounded were sleeping a little more comfortably in the hanging beds. More important still, they had started to single out the fittest among them as potential expeditionaries who would master the Andes and get help. Their mood was optimistic.

They ate at midday; by half past four in the afternoon the sun went behind the mountain to the west, and at once it became bitterly cold. They filed in groups of two into the hulk of the plane in the order they were to sleep – Juan Carlos Menéndez, Pancho Delgado, Roque, the mechanic, and Numa Turcatti entered last, for it was their turn to sleep by the entrance.

Each boy, as he entered, took off his shoes and put them up on part of the hat rack on the right-hand side. They had decided that day to make this rule to save the cushions and blankets from getting wet. Then the couples crawled up the plane to their assigned places.

Though it was only the middle of the afternoon, some closed their eyes and tried to sleep. Vizintín had slept badly the night before and was determined to make himself as warm and comfortable as possible. He had been allowed to keep his shoes because he slept exposed to the cold on the hanging bunk. There was a strong wind outside which blew freezing air through every hole and crack in the plane. He had managed to secure a large number of cushions and blankets (the covers of the cushions which they had sewn together), and with these he padded and covered his body, including his head.

Carlitos Páez said the rosary out loud, and some of the boys talked quietly among themselves. Gustavo Nicolich confided to Roy Harley his hope that if he died someone would take back the letter he had written to his novia. ‘And if we all die,’ he said, ‘they might find the wreck and the letter and give it to her. I miss her so much and I feel so awful because I paid very little attention to her. And to her mother.’ There was a silence; then he added, ‘There are so many things one regrets … I hope I have a chance to put them right.’

The dim light grew dimmer still; a few drifted into half-sleep, and their breathing took on a more regular pattern which in its turn lulled others to sleep. Canessa remained awake, trying to communicate telepathically with his mother in Montevideo. He held a strong image of her in his mind and repeated over and over again in emphatic whispers which were inaudible to the others, ‘Mama, I am alive, I am alive, I am alive …’ Eventually he too dozed off.

The plane was now silent, but Diego Storm could not sleep because of a painful sore on his back. He was lying between Javier Methol and Carlitos Páez on the floor, but the longer he lay in such discomfort, the more convinced he became that it would be better on the other side of the plane. He looked across and saw that Roy Harley was still awake, so he asked him if he would change places. Roy agreed and they squeezed out of their positions and crawled by one another.

Roy lay down on the floor with a shirt covering his face, thinking about what Nicolich had said, when he felt a faint vibration and an instant later heard the sound of metal falling to the ground. This sound made him jump up, but as he did so he was smothered in snow. He found himself standing buried up to his waist and when he took the shirt from his eyes what he saw appalled him. The plane was almost entirely filled with snow. The wall at the entrance had been toppled and buried, and the blankets, cushions and sleeping bodies which had covered the floor were now hidden. Quickly, Roy turned to his right and burrowed for Carlitos, who had been sleeping there. He uncovered his face, then his torso, but still Carlitos could not free himself. There was a creak as the snow settled, and in the bitter cold its surface immediately began to form into brittle ice.

Roy left Carlitos because he saw the hands of others sticking out of the snow. He felt desperate; he alone seemed to be free to help. He uncovered Canessa and then went to the front of the cabin and dug out Fito Strauch, but the minutes were passing and many boys remained buried. Above, from one of the hanging beds, Vizintín had started to burrow in the snow, but Echavarren could not move and Nogueira, though free, seemed paralysed by shock.

Roy crawled frantically to the entrance and squeezed himself out of the small hole that was left, as if he might shovel out the snow by the way it had come in, but he realized at once that this was hopeless so he crawled back into the cabin. There he saw that Fito Strauch, Canessa, Páez, and Moncho Sabella were free and digging.

Fito Strauch had been talking with Coche Inciarte when the avalanche fell upon them. He realized immediately what had happened and struggled against the grip of the snow, but he could not move any part of his body so much as an inch one way or the other. He relaxed and thought with resignation that he was about to die; even if he could escape he might be the only one to do so, and perhaps it would be better to die than to survive alone, isolated in the Andes. Then he heard voices and Roy Harley took hold of his hand. As Roy burrowed toward his face, Fito told his cousin Eduardo, through a hole between them in the snow, to keep calm, to breathe slowly, and to ask after Marcelo. After that he felt a sharp pain in his toe and realized that Inciarte had bitten it. He too was alive.

Fito was freed. Eduardo climbed out of the same hole, and Inciarte, after digging a short tunnel, emerged, followed by Daniel Fernández and Bobby Francois. They all immediately began to burrow with their bare hands in the packed snow, and the first they dug for was Marcelo. When they found his face, however, they saw that he was already dead.

Fito now worked hard to dig down to the living. He also organized the others, who were in some cases so dazed that they did not know what they were doing. Even when a stitch forced him to rest, he continued to urge on the different teams so that those who were digging one hole would not throw their snow into a shaft dug by others.

Parrado lay in the middle of the plane with Liliana Methol on his left and Daniel Maspons on his right. He heard and saw nothing but suddenly found that he was smothered and paralysed by heavy, cold snow. He could not breathe, but he had read in the Reader’s Digest that it was possible to live under the snow, so he attempted to take small breaths. He continued to do this for several minutes, but the weight on his chest became more terrible, he grew dizzy, and he knew that he was about to die. He did not think of God nor of his family but remarked to himself, ‘Okay, I’m dying.’ Then, just as his lungs were about to explode, the snow was scraped from his face.

Coche Inciarte had seen the avalanche and then heard it, a whoosh followed by silence. He lay immobilized with three feet of snow over him and Fito’s toe in his face. He bit it. It was the only way to find out if Fito was alive or tell him that he was. The toe moved.

The snow settled on top of him and its weight made him urinate. He could not breathe or move. He waited and then felt the toe being dragged away from his face. He struggled against the snow and finally slipped out by the same tunnel.

Carlitos Páez had been uncovered to the waist by Roy but still couldn’t move until Fito, when freed, dug away the snow from around his legs. He immediately began to look for his friends Nicolich and Storm, but the snow froze his hands as he burrowed. He warmed them quickly with his gas cigarette lighter and continued to dig, but when he found Nicolich and gripped his hand it was cold and lifeless and gave no clasp in return.

There was no time for lamentation. Carlitos at once dug the snow away from Zerbino’s face and then freed Parrado. Then he returned and burrowed toward Diego Storm, but the snow he scraped away fell onto Parrado, who swore at him. He dug more carefully, but it was all to no avail – when he found him, Diego was dead.

To Canessa, the avalanche came like the magnesium flash of an old camera. He too was buried, imprisoned and suffocating, and like Parrado he was possessed less by panic than by curiosity. Well, he thought to himself, I’ve got as far as this, and now I’m going to know what it’s like to die. At last I’ll experience all those abstract notions like God and Purgatory and Heaven or Hell. I’ve always wondered how the story of my life would end; well, here I am at the last chapter. Yet just as the book was about to be closed, a hand touched him; he clasped it, and Roy Harley sank a shaft to bring air to his lungs.

As soon as he could move Canessa searched for Daniel Maspons. He found his friend lying as if asleep, but he was dead.

The snow which covered Zerbino left a small cavity which enabled him to breathe for a few minutes. Like Canessa and Parrado, he did not pray to God or repent of his sins but, though his mind was calm, his body was not resigned to death. He had thrown up one arm at the moment the avalanche struck, and his struggles opened a fissure in the snow beside it, down which air came to his lungs.

Above him he heard the gruff voice of Carlitos Páez shout down, ‘Is that you, Gustavo?’

‘Yes!’ shouted Zerbino.

‘Gustavo Nicolich?’

‘No. Gustavo Zerbino’

Carlitos moved on.

Later another voice called down to him, ‘Are you all right?’

Zerbino replied, ‘Yes, I’m okay. Save someone else.’ He then waited in his tomb until the others had time to dig him out.

Roque and Menéndez had been killed by the falling wall, but part of that wall saved the lives of the two others who slept next to it. Numa Turcatti and Pancho Delgado were trapped under the curved door, which had been the emergency exit to the plane and had been built into the wall, but they had air enough to breathe under its concave surface. They survived like this for six or seven minutes. They made sounds, however, and Inciarte came with Zerbino to their rescue. The snow there at the back of the plane was very deep and Inciarte asked Arturo Nogueira, who was watching from his hanging bed, to help them dig. Nogueira did not move, nor did he say anything. He stayed trancelike on the hanging bed.

Pedro Algorta, still buried beneath the snow, had only what air he held in his lungs. He felt himself near to death, yet the knowledge that after his death his body would help the others to survive instilled in him a kind of ecstasy. It was as if he were already at the portals of heaven. Then the snow was scraped away from his face.

Javier Methol had been able to reach out of the snow with his hand, but as they tried to free him he only shouted at the boys to dig towards Liliana instead. Javier could feel his wife with his feet and feared she might be suffocating, but he could do nothing to help her. ‘Liliana,’ he shouted, ‘make an effort! Hold on. I’ll get to you!’ He knew that she might live for a minute or two without air, but the weight of the boys digging all around him was pressing the snow down upon her. Moreover, their instincts were to help first their own friends, then those whose hands they could see stretching out from beneath the snow. Inevitably, they left until last those like Javier, who could breathe, and those like Liliana, who were completely lost from view.

Javier continued to shout to his wife, begging her to hold on, to have faith, to breathe slowly. Finally, he was freed by Zerbino, and together they dug for Liliana. When they found her she was dead. Javier slumped down onto the snow, weeping, overwhelmed by grief. His only consolation came from his conviction that she who had given him such love and solace on earth must now be watching over him from heaven.

Javier was not alone in sorrow, for when the living huddled together in the few feet of space that was left to them between the roof of the plane and the icy floor of snow, they found that some of their dearest friends lay buried beneath them. Marcelo Pérez was dead; so too were Carlos Roque and Juan Carlos Menéndez, crushed beneath the wall; Enrique Platero, whose stomach wound had healed at last; Gustavo Nicolich, whose courage after the broadcast had saved them from despair; Daniel Maspons, Canessa’s closest friend; and Diego Storm, one of the ‘gang’. Eight had died under the snow.

The conditions facing the nineteen who survived were not so terrible that they did not all feel bitter sorrow at the death of their friends. Some wished that they too had been smothered by the snow rather than continue a life of such physical and spiritual suffering without their companions. This wish was almost met, for a second avalanche hit the plane an hour or so after the first, but because the entrance was already blocked, most of this second fall passed over the plane. In doing so, however, it sealed off the gap through which Roy Harley had crawled out and then in again. The Fairchild was completely buried.

As night set in, the survivors were wet, cramped, and bitterly cold, with no cushions, shoes or blankets to protect them. There was barely room to sit or stand; they could only lie in a tangle, punching each other’s bodies to keep the blood flowing in their veins, yet not knowing to whom the arms and legs belonged. To make more space, some of the snow in the centre of the cabin was shovelled to either end; with the Strauch cousins and Parrado, Roy scooped out a hole with room for four to sit and one to stand. The one whose turn it was to stand would jump on the feet of the others to try and keep them from freezing.

The night was endless. Only Carlitos was able to sleep, and then only for brief periods. The others remained awake, wriggling their fingers and toes and rubbing their faces and hands together to keep warm. After several hours another danger presented itself: the little air that was left in the plane became stale and stuffy. Some of the boys began to feel faint from the lack of oxygen. Roy went to the entrance and tried to dig an air shaft, but his arm could not reach up to the surface, and in any case the snow there had frozen into ice too hard to be penetrated by bare hands. Parrado then took one of the steel poles that had been used to make the hammocks and poked it through the roof of the cabin. He worked by the light of five cigarette lighters as the boys around him watched anxiously, for they had no idea if the snow which covered them was one foot deep or twelve. But after poking the bar through and working it up, Parrado soon felt it slide unimpeded into the fresh air, and when he drew it back into the cabin it left a hole through which he could see the frail light of the moon and stars.

Through this hole they watched for the coming of morning, and eventually the damp blackness inside the plane gave way to a pale, lugubrious light as the sun rose in the east and its rays filtered down through the snow. As soon as they could see what they were doing, they considered how to get out of their tomb. There was too much snow above them to get through at the entrance, but it seemed to lie more thinly over the pilots’ cabin; and light could be seen filtering through the window. Canessa, Sabella, Inciarte, Fito Strauch, Harley and Parrado began to tunnel through the pilots’ cabin. It was full of frozen snow which they had to remove with their bare hands, and the six worked in turns. Then Zerbino, who wore thick clothing and could stand the cold better than some of the others, squeezed past the dead pilots’ bodies and reached the window which, because of the tilt of the plane, looked up toward the sky. He tried to open it but the snow piled on top was too heavy, so he came back down. Canessa tried, but he too failed. Roy went next and finally pushed out the glass and broke through the snow into daylight.

He pushed his head above the surface. It was around eight in the morning but darker than usual because the sky was overcast. Clouds of snow swirled around him. He was warmly dressed in a woollen cap and a waterproof jacket, but the strong wind blew snow into his eyes and stung the skin of his face and hands.

He lowered himself down into the pilots’ cabin and shouted down to the others, ‘It’s no good! There’s a blizzard out there.’

‘Try and uncover the windows,’ someone called.

Roy lifted himself up again and this time climbed out of the plane, but the fuselage behind him was completely covered. It was impossible to see where the windows might be, and he was afraid that if he moved he might slip off the roof and be lost in the snow. He climbed back through the window and rejoined his companions.

The blizzard continued throughout that day, the flakes floating down the tunnel past the corpses of the pilots, still crushed in their seats. The thin layer that collected was scooped up by some of the boys to quench their thirst; others broke off harder lumps of older snow.

It was October 30 and Numa Turcatti’s twenty-fifth birthday. The boys gave him an extra cigarette and made a birthday cake out of the snow. Numa was neither an Old Christian nor a rugby player – he had been educated by the Jesuits and preferred soccer – but there was great strength in his stocky figure and calm manner. Many would have liked to give him a better time on his birthday, but instead it was he who improved their spirits. ‘We have survived the worst,’ he said. ‘From now on, things can only get better.’

They did nothing that day but suck at snow and wait for the storm to abate. They talked a great deal about the avalanche. Some, like Inciarte, thought that the best of them had died because God loved them most, but others could make no sense of it. Parrado expressed his determination to leave. ‘As soon as the snow stops,’ he said, ‘I’m going. If we wait here any longer, we’ll all get killed by another avalanche.’

‘I don’t think so,’ replied Fito judiciously. ‘The plane’s covered now. The second avalanche went over the top. So we’re safe here for the time being. If we start out now, the chances are we’ll be hit by an avalanche as we walk through the snow.’

They listened to Fito with respect because he had remained calm just after the avalanche, and now he showed none of the hysteria evident in some of the others.

‘There’s no reason why we shouldn’t wait until the weather gets better,’ he went on.

‘But how long?’ asked Vizintín, another who wanted to leave at...