A survivor of the 1972 Andes plane disaster, which has been adapted into a film called Society of the Snow, has explained why eating his teammates wasn't cannibalism.
Netflix has released a movie based on the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which is a chartered plane that crash-landed in the Andes mountains on its way from Montevideo, Uruguay to Santiago, Chile on October 13, 1972.
Three crew and eight passengers sadly died on impact, another five within hours, and one more a week later. Tragedy struck again on the 17th day of their ordeal when an avalanche completely buried the plane, filling it to within one meter of the ceiling - leading to the deaths of eight more passengers.
A total of 45 people were on board the aircraft. 19 passengers were members of the Old Christians Club rugby union team, while the others were their friends and family members.
Watch the Society of the Snow trailer below:The show chronicles how the survivors noticed search planes overhead, but rescuers failed to spot them in the snow. The group then recovered a transistor radio, only to find out the search for them had been called off and everyone onboard was presumed dead.
At an altitude of approximately 3,500 meters in the snowy Andes mountains, the passengers faced freezing conditions, with temperatures dropping to an astonishing -35 C. They took shelter within the undamaged fuselage by creating a makeshift wall using suitcases, plane fragments, and seats, per The Independent.
Food was the biggest problem as the catastrophic crash left the survivors with insufficient supplies such as chocolate, sweets, nuts, crackers, and some alcohol - which was consumed very quickly despite the group's stringent rationing. They then began eating leather from luggage and seat cushions.
It was at this point that the remaining members of the group realized that their inhospitable conditions could not continue and they needed someone stronger for their survival - so they resorted to eating the corpses of their dead friends, despite struggling with that idea.
The group was finally rescued two months later after survivors Canessa, Nando Parrado, and Antonio "Tintin" Vizintín decided to hike through the mountain range in an attempt to get help. They stumbled across Chilean herdsman Sergio Catalán, who gave them food and then contacted the authorities.
On December 22, 1972, helicopters began evacuating the remaining 14 survivors at the camp. Due to the terrain, only half of the survivors were able to be saved that day so four rescuers volunteered to stay behind with the remaining seven for one more night. The next day, they were all flown out.
The passengers' horrifying plight made national headlines in Montevideo, Uruguay, and led to backlash and rumors that they killed some of the survivors to eat them.
These accusations of cannibalism forced some survivors, like Carlos Páez - who was 18 years old at the time of the crash - to speak out in their defense in a statement obtained by El País.
"This bothered us because it wasn’t true… it raised doubts in the minds of the families of the boys who died...Some magazines said we were cannibals. That’s not true, because [being a cannibal] means killing another person because you like to eat human flesh. We didn’t do that," he said.
According to Screen Rant, Páez explained that he would have felt honored if his friends used his body if he had passed away, as it was a life-threatening situation.
Canessa also shared the same sentiment when he explained that the group made a pact that, if any of them died, the others could eat them to survive, adding that he would have been proud if his body helped his friends, per National Geographic.
Society of the Snow is based on Pablo Vierci’s 2009 book of the same name, which contains accounts of all 16 survivors of the crash - many of whom Vierci knew as children growing up.
The film - which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes and is also Spain’s official Oscar entry - is available to watch on Netflix now.
