Episode 2440
Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571
Sun, 2024-Jan-07 01:36 UTC
Length - 3:51
Direct Link
Welcome to popular Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of a popular Wikipedia page every day.
With 291,622 views on Saturday, 6 January 2024 our article of the day is Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571.
Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 was the chartered flight of a Fairchild FH-227D from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Santiago, Chile, that crashed in the Andes mountains on October 13, 1972. The accident and subsequent survival became known as the Andes flight disaster (Tragedia de los Andes) and the Miracle of the Andes (Milagro de los Andes).
The inexperienced co-pilot, Lieutenant-Colonel Dante Héctor Lagurara, was piloting the aircraft at the time of the accident. He mistakenly believed the aircraft had overflown Curicó, the turning point to fly north and begin descending towards what he thought was Pudahuel Airport in Santiago de Chile. He failed to notice that instrument readings indicated he was still 37–43 mi (60–69 km) east of Curicó. Lagurara, upon regaining visual flight conditions, saw the mountain and unsuccessfully tried to gain altitude. The aircraft struck a mountain ridge, shearing off both wings and the tail cone. The remaining portion of the fuselage slid down a glacier at an estimated 220 mph (350 km/h), descending 2,379 feet (725 m) before ramming into an ice and snow mound.
The flight was carrying 45 passengers and crew, including 19 members of the Old Christians Club rugby union team, along with their families, supporters and friends. Three crew members and nine passengers died immediately and several more died soon after due to the frigid temperatures and the severity of their injuries. The crash site is located at an elevation of 11,710 feet (3,570 m) in the remote Andes mountains of western Argentina, just east of the border with Chile. Search and rescue aircraft overflew the crash site several times during the following days, but failed to see the white fuselage against the snow. Search efforts were called-off after eight days of searching. During 72 days following the crash, the survivors suffered from extreme hardships, including exposure, starvation and several avalanches, which led to the deaths of 13 more passengers. The remaining passengers resorted to cannibalism to survive. As the weather improved with the arrival of late spring, two survivors, Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, climbed the 15,260-foot (4,650 m) mountain peak on the western rim of the glacier cirque without any mountaineering gear. They hiked for 10 days into Chile, traveling 38 miles (61 km), before finding help. On 23 December 1972, two and a half months after the crash, the 16 remaining survivors were rescued.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:36 UTC on Sunday, 7 January 2024.
For the full current version of the article, see Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 on Wikipedia.
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