Andes flight disaster - Please Read!

Hello all,

I've created this thread firstly to acknowledge the bravery and courage shown by the survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 and secondly to ask a couple of questions regarding survival in a truly unimaginable situation.

Everyone will have heard of the Andes flight disaster; a plane carrying a Uruguayan rugby team crashed while flying over the Andes and the remaining survivors were forced to eat their dead companions in order to stay alive.

Having heard of this story before but not knowing the exact details I thought I would look it up. I suggest you read the link before commenting unless your already very familiar with the story.

Link: en.wikipedia.org...

The lengths that these people had to go through in order to survive is unbelievable and it truly is an amazing story although its tainted slightly by the cannabalistic acts the group had to partake in.

I was actually quite shocked to learn that the survivors were actually heavily demonised in the press, I understand that its not a very nice thought eating your dead mate but if you had no other choice...

Now that leads me onto my questions, would you eat another dead human if you had no other choice to survive? I know a thread has been started on this before but I'm not solely focussing on that aspect of the story.

Out of 45 people only 16 managed to survive for a period of 62 days at altitudes above 10,000 feet with basically no food & water in an inhospitable climate. Their survival truly is a great feat!

How those people managed to survive and not give in is beyond me although I like to think I have the survival mindset myself and I too wouldn't give in.

It would of been so easy at times for those involved to simply give up trying but they didnt and eventually they pulled through.

Just thought it was worth a mention remembering a truly amazing survival story.

[edit on 26/1/09 by Death_Kron]

It kinda weird to me that you would bring this up because just about 3 hours ago, I was just thinking of this movie. The movie Alive, think I saw it about the time it first came out. Then out of nowhere I started thinking about how in the movie they were in the fuselage of the plane with the luggage stacked up to keep out the cold and an avalanche of something knocked them over. Anyway details, I guess details aren't necessary. Just kinda odd to me that's all.