Talk:Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Aircrew

This is an excellent article; informative and a good read. Well done all around. One detail still puzzles me, though. Did any of the aircrew survive the crash? I assume that they were all killed in the impact, but the article doesn't mention the fates of all the people on the aircraft, it only lists the fate of a few. The opening of the "Hard decisions" section almost seems to imply that at least the co-pilot survived (it mentions the survivors having knowledge of the co-pilot's assertion that the plane had passed Curico, although this could also have been overheard from the cabin or indeed broadcast over the tannoy), but otherwise the aircrew vanish from the storyline early on and are not mentioned later. Was there an official enquiry into the crash? -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 13:53, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I have not done a complete review of the article, but I can answer your questions. You are right about the pilots--one died and the other other was near death and kept on saying they passed Curico, although that was incorrect. He died shortly afterwards. In the film, I know they found empty wine or liquor bottles in the cockpit, which made them think that may have been responsible for the crash, but I can't remember if that was in the book, and just something they put in the film.

A mechanic lived for a while and kept on telling the survivors that if they found the tail and the batteries, they could radio for help. This was incorrect as well.

It looks like this needs to be incorporated in the article, so your questions are helpful.

I highly recommend the Read book first and if you're still interested, then the Parrado book. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 15:50, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Names

Seeing the passenger list, the names shown in the film corresponds. But there are not Federico Aranda and Alberto Artuna... Changed names ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.10.37.176 (talk) 19:24, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

That's correct, but this is the case for most people involved in the crash, precisely ALL the people that died but some relatives of survivors (such as the mother and sister of Parrado and the wife of Methol). One of them is for example Marcelo Perez who in the movie is Balbi. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.37.45.44 (talk) 18:11, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Hotel Termas Sosneado?

In actuality, the plane had crashed inside Argentina and just a few miles west of an abandoned hotel named the Hotel Termas Sosneado.

Where was this? Is the site still there today? --98.232.181.201 (talk) 07:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The name of the hotel is the "Termas del Flaco". It was closed during the time of the accident but according to Piers Paul Reads book "Alive" it had a plentiful supply of food stored away. It is open today —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.209.220.36 (talk) 22:11, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I have to correct you; Termas del Flaco are in Chile, on the west of the Andes, while the Hotel Termas Sosneado is in Argentina on the east side of the Andes, a few miles from the crash point. Please refer to the image that is embedded in the article about the way of Parrado and Canessa:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alive-andes-2.jpg

As you can see the Termas Sosneado id depicted on the right of the crash point. Instead Termas del Flaco is the place just on the wes of the Andes which is reached by the unpaved route passing through La Rufina —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.37.42.90 (talk) 19:50, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The Hotel Termas Sosneado was closed in 1953, almost 20 years before the Andes crash, and was allowed to fall into ruin quite soon afterward. I am not sure where Piers Paul Read got his information about it being well-stocked with supplies (how? The furniture and accoutrements were all stripped away by vandals over the years) so it is a bit of a mystery what supplies might have been there, if any. After the improvement of the road in the 1960's, cars could drive up to the site of the ruins, and campers, hikers and trekkers did stop there and enjoy the hot springs.

Here's a link with photos of the hotel when it was in operation and some of the ruins today.

http://www.taringa.net/posts/imagenes/1750340/Hotel-Abandonado,-Termas-del-Sosneado,-Mendoza,--Arg_.html

If anyone can find a reliable source with information on the status of the hotel in 1972 it would be a useful addition to the article. Palisadesk (talk) 22:32, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Reason for Cleanup Tag?

I'd be happy to help clean up the page if it looks to informal, but I don't see anything that's too terrible, am I just missing it?Altairantares (talk) 18:45, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Tail number

Anyone know the tail number of the aircraft involved. Once found and referenced, it can be added to the list of aircraft by tail number. Mjroots (talk) 15:23, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The fin (tail) number was T-571. There are photos of the aircraft showing the tail number but it is also confirmed in the link to the Aviation Safety Network report on the crash (see link under External links). I don't know how to add it to the List of Aircraft by Tail Number. The plane had a twin, tail number T-572, which was retired a few years ago and was used in the filming of Arijon's documentary. Palisadesk (talk) 18:13, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Correcting the Parrado-Canessa trail

In section "Finding help" There was a faulty map and description of Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa's trail. I corrected the map and the description in the text. The earlier map shows a trail beginning in the North direction, which is wrong, and impossible. Parrado moved towards the West, and reaching the crest of the crater-like valley there was only one valley they could climb down into. This valley lead first west for 2 miles, then northwest for 1 mile, until they reached a bigger valley they could follow in the southwest direction. The two maps the earlier map used as references show this clearly. I also moved the starting point slightly to a position which is shown as the position of the fuselage on most maps of this accident. (I did not have an SVG-editor so I made a .png version. Feel free to make an .svg version which is correct.) Study the maps at http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=1972_Andes_flight_disaster&params=34_45_54_S_70_17_11_W_type:landmark and you will see that I am right.

Note that climbing towards the west from the airplane wreck there is a mile long crest which lead them into a certain valley, no matter where on that crest they arrived after climbing up the rock wall. To get into another valley they must have gone in a direction far from due west. You can also study the movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sILm8VM-fec&feature=related I Am Alive: Surviving The Andes Plane Crash made by History Channel. About 20% from the end of the movie the trail toward the west is shown on a map.

If you study topographical maps of the area you will realize that if they had climbed towards southwest they could have followed a high mountain ridge for a mile to be able to descend into the valley where the upper part of Rio Azufre is situated. This would have been practically impossible, and their story says that they started descending directly from the point where they reached the crest. To climb towards the north out of the crater, which the earlier map showed would have meant that they would have needed to move far north inside the crater to even start to climb, so this is very unlikely and does not fit with their story. They climbed towards the west and because of that they must have descended into the valley to the west, which is shown in my version of the map.

In one of the maps in the list above an arrow towards the east is called "the easy way out". Luckily they did not try moving down into the valley in the east. If they had done that they would have faced a big river with a road on the other side of the river. But nobody used that road. The Sosneado Thermal hotel several miles down that road was a stone ruin and they would have had to walk in deep snow for many weeks or more along the river to even have a chance to see people on the other side of the river. They would have died if they had chosen that direction. Fortunately they chose the only direction, west, which made it possible for them to get out of there alive. Roger491127 (talk) 19:49, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

At http://www.viven.com.uy/571/eng/FotosIneditas.asp you can see a good photo of the crash site valley, as seen from east-northeast, in the summer, so there is very little snow. In this photo you can clearly see the east-west ridge in the middle of the valley, dividing the valley in a southern part, to the left in the photo, and a northern part. Straight ahead you can see a very high part of the crest surrounding the crash site, so high that it was a bad choice for climbing out of there. To the right of that top there is a lower section of the crest, direction due west, which is where Parrado and Canessa climbed out of the valley. To the left of the top you see the south side of the crest, where the airplane lost the wings and the tail part. From that point you see a steep downhill which is where the fuselage sled down in the deep snow. It came to rest at the bottom of the south part of the valley, south of the ridge in the middle of the valley, placed exactly in the way of the avalanche which killed many of them. The avalanche followed the same path as the fuselage down into the valley, hitting the open back end of the fuselage. If Parrado and Canessa had climbed out of the valley in direction north as the earlier image showed they would have had to first climb the ridge dividing the valley, and move down its north side, which is very steep as you can see in this photo, to a point much lower than the fuselage, and then they would have had to walk a long way upwards towards the north, to the right in the photo, before they could begin climbing the north wall of this valley. It would have taken them more than a week to reach the northern crest, which is what the earlier drawing showed as their exit from the valley. This would have been stupid and it is not consistent with their story, moving in the direction west, and is not supported by any maps except for the drawing I corrected and replaced. It is not even supported by the two maps referred to in the description of the earlier image. Those maps show the trail I show in my map. Roger491127 (talk) 08:26, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I have now made a SVG version of the map with the correct escape route. After 5 hours work with installing Inkscape, and learning how to use it, and I needed to use another browser to upload the image, I have succeeded. The "derivative works uploader" did not seem to work so I used "Upload a new version of this file" on the page http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Volcan-tinguiririca.svg. instead.

By the way, if you google for a file named 002103212323.kmz and download it, and you get the free program Google Earth and install it you can doubleclick on the file 002103212323.kmz and that starts the program Google Earth and you are placed in the Valley de las Lagrimas and you can look around and move around. There is a marker on the edge of the west mountain wall which shows you where Parrado and Canessa moved down into the next valley. I used this program to walk the same way they walked to the place where they met the huaso who got them help. I did this yesterday and it was very interesting, but it took me one hour to walk the same way as they did in 10 days. Roger491127 (talk) 14:31, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Investigation

Was there an official investigation conducted into the crash? I do see a similar question here, but no info on an official investigation. If there was no investigation, why didn't it happen? Jay (talk) 09:06, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Crash Site Co-ordinates?

It seems there may be a slight discrepancy regarding the actual co-ordinates of the crash site. Given the map for the crash site and the co-ordinates, Google Maps place these co-ordinates in the Cile side of the continent, and not the Argentina side. However, the crash landing map and the 'trek' map both indicate a bowl-like feature on the mountain where the fuselage was located which correspond within the Google Maps coordinates, but this could also just be co-incidence. Can someone please tell me what the exact location is, and where on Google Maps to look? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.34.172.200 (talk) 12:39, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see this discrepancy. If you follow the link and go to:

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=-34.765,-70.286389&z=15&t=Hmarker0=-34.765,-70.286389,Uruguayan%20Air%20Force%20Flight%20571

you'll see that the place of the crash is on the right (east) od the Chile-Argentina border (the white line; i.e. in Argentina —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.37.45.44 (talk) 18:17, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree there is something wrong with the coordinates as they are now (34°45′54″S 70°17′11″W). This has the crash site at the bottom of a valley, when all the pics clearly indicate it's on a slope. Perhaps someone mistakenly put in the location of a present-day memorial site or man-made marker. -Rolypolyman (talk) 17:51, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

If you examine the crash site photograph (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crash_site.JPG), note the shelf of snow above the rock formation in the distance, above and slightly to the right of the cross, and also the series of rocks exposed in the snow in the distance to the right of the cross. You can spot these in the sat image to the left (West) of the marker. The caption on the image of the memorial indicates it was "taken looking west" - I'll take that to be "westerly", since if it was due west, it would have been 200m or so north of the specified coordinates. In any event, the general depression area indicated by the coordinates would seem to correspond to the phototograph well enough. Results for web searches for crash site photos include a sidelong image of the fuselage with mountains off in the distance (at http://novelthought.org/miracle-in-the-andes/ though I cannot confirm authenticity), which also appear consistent with the position indicated by the GPS coordinates if you are facing East (implying the fuselage was facing North, with the markings facing Westerly). Dropping into Google earth, if face East from the marked location, you can see the mountains in the distance matching up with those in the background of the colour fuselage photo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.101.89.243 (talk) 23:21, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Duplicate page spotted

New pages feed shows an article called The story of the plane crash in the Andes, 1972. I have requested that the article be merged into this one as it contains information on the same event. (Please let me know if I did anything wrong.) Thank you. Jsaur (talk) 15:09, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Never mind, it was speedily deleted. Please ignore this! Jsaur (talk) 20:18, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

This Article Is Horribly Written

This article, it's titles most particularly, is entirely inappropriately written, almost like a novel and not at all like an encyclopaedic entry. The article could do with being written from a more factual standpoint and a general tidying up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.161.176 (talk) 04:21, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

The one who refused

Who was it that after surviving the initial days by eating flesh refused to eat anymore and died of starvation? It was either Arturo Nogueira (died 34th day) or Rafael Echavarren (died 37th day). There are no more details in the article on these both. Jay (talk) 08:17, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Ok, it doesn't seem to be either. As per this site, Arturo Nogueira died due to the inflammation of the wounds on his legs, and as per this, Rafael Echavarren succumbed to his injuries. But the I Am Alive documentary did talk about such a person who died of starvation after choosing not to eat the flesh. Jay (talk) 08:46, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

The link above on Rafael Echavarren also says "he was the only victim of the crash to be removed from the mountain; his father personally recovered his son's body to bring him home to Uruguay for burial." This is significant that can be added to the article if we have a reliable source. Jay (talk) 09:06, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

You're thinking of Numa Turcatti. He died on Day 60 from an infected sore on his leg that his body could not fight because he was not eating enough. KevinLuna (talk) 17:58, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

"unauthorized"

The article mentions that certain articles, books, etc., were "unauthorized" and does this in a pejorative fashion. As I understand freedom of the press, nobody owns the news. While there are "unauthorized" biographies, they pertain to individual people with publicity rights, and they are, after all, legal. If something was written by somebody who had been trespassing, the entry onto the land in question may be unauthorized, but the term should not be extended to the publication. Thus, I think the use of "unauthorized" should be deleted. If there is a specific biography, it might be described as unauthorized by a certain person, but that's about it. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 21:50, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I did... --181.164.97.184 (talk) 05:38, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Recreating the hike

I thought I remember hearing somewhere that people have made it a "thing" to try and recreate the hike that the young men went on to find help. Anyone else hear of this or do I have that mixed up with something else?Zdawg1029 (talk) 02:45, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

You might be thinking of the many fans of Krakauer's Into the Wild who make a pilgrimage along the Stampede Trail near Healy, Alaska to the "Magic Bus" where Chris McCandless died of starvation in 1992.See http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/18/alaska-into-the-wild-chris-mccandless-bus-mystic-hiker Or, you could be thinking of a regular journey led by Eduardo Strauch and Ricardo Pena to the crash site, starting in Mendoza, Argentina, and traveling overland on horseback. see http://www.alpineexpeditions.net/andes-survivors-expedition.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Palisadesk (talk • contribs) 15:25, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Plagiarism

Most of the summary of this article is lifted word for word from a Daily Mail article published on the 40th anniversary of the accident http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2217141/I-eat-piece-friend-survive-Torment-1972-Andes-plane-crash-survivor-haunted-ordeal-40-years-later.html2602:306:B80A:C260:20D8:4E1F:B4F9:6233 (talk) 19:07, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

You're right that a few sentences appear to be very similar to the Daily Mail piece, so I took a look at the page history, and those two sentences date back to the end of the year 2008, more than 4 years prior to when the Daily Mail article was published. It appears that we didn't plagiarize them, but perhaps the Daily Mail closely paraphrased us! Mz7 (talk) 23:06, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

Fictional TV show

"The Thirteenth Reunion", an episode of the 1980 TV series Hammer House of Horror, was probably loosely inspired by this incident. Not sure how this works out in terms of WP:TRIVIA though. Muzilon (talk) 23:15, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

What happened??

What on EARTH happened to this article?? It used to be my favorite article on this website... written very concisely, like an encyclopedia should, yet conveyed a good amount of information. Somebody must have rewritten it fairly recently, and now the whole thing is fraught with spelling and grammar errors, weird prose, a lack of links, and garbled language. Am I the only one who sees this?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SaltedSturgeon (talk • contribs) 06:11, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Cannibalism

How did they eat raw, frozen human flesh? Jim Michael (talk) 12:36, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

- Apparently they chewed it to soften it. They also could have used the metal seat backs, which they used to melt snow and make water. — btphelps ^{(talk to me) (what I've done)} 03:14, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Why can not the site be located by Black box (The flying record equipment) please?

It was a military aircraft, so unknown in that time and place if it was so equipped. — btphelps ^{(talk to me) (what I've done)} 03:16, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Flesh?

This article writes "flesh". I thought it was called meat once the body is dead... Or is that rule just for non-human animals? --181.164.97.184 (talk) 05:41, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

The two are technically interchangeable, but human beings are at the top of the food chain, and therefore not a source of food, so "flesh" better conveys the in extremis nature of what the survivors had to do. In fact, one of them told a doctor "human flesh" when he was asked what he had last eaten before they were rescued.TH1980 (talk) 00:04, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Error Re: Meeting With The Muleteers

The article states:

"Sergio Catalán, a Chilean arriero (muleteer), read the note and gave them a sign that he understood. He shouted, "Tomorrow!" which Parrado and Canessa heard."

This is incorrect. As noted in the sources cited in this section, Catalan called out "Tomorrow!" the day before, when Parrado and Canessa saw him and tried to call to him. They did not exchange notes until the next day.TH1980 (talk) 23:46, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

I have fixed this factual error.TH1980 (talk) 01:47, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Distance walked?

I'm just a random reader from Germany, but in the section "Find help", the text reads "Unknown to them, they had hiked about 59 kilometres (37 mi) over 10 days." However the map next to this text carries the caption "They trekked 24 kilometres (15 mi) over 10 days." This seems to me to be some error in multiple conversions km<>mi, and looking at the reference (1) and the ES-wikipedia-article I am none the wiser... Any help finding the real distance would be great! 80.146.191.221 (talk) 16:34, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. I found two sources that reported 38 and 40 miles, and modified it accordingly. — btphelps ^{(talk to me) (what I've done)} 04:11, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Reading the article I was confused by this, and don't feel its current state is clear. In fact the embedded diagram which shows their course clearly shows a distance which is closer to 24 km than 59/60km. I checked on Google maps myself using the measure distance function and came up with 22km for that indicated course. I have deduced the conflict arises because there's 2 differences distances to consider: 1 the distance they trekked (walked) before they encountered the farmer. 2 the total distance they travelled to get to the town of Curico. It is indicated that after encountering the farmer they were brought on horseback to Curico, so surely that should not be included in any indicated walking distance? DMA — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.47.51.78 (talk) 04:20, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

"Saddle to the west" doesn't exist

"Instead of climbing the saddle to the west that is 1,670 metres (5,480 ft) lower than the peak, they climbed straight up the steep mountain". The linked article (The Long Way Home - Outside) never mentions a saddle to the west or an altitude difference, but rather a saddle to the south - however this is still problematic.

"Instead of making our way up a gentle saddle to the south, for instance, we set off straight up the mountain’s steepest slopes." - The Long Way Home

Issues: 1. Google maps shows no saddle to the west or the south (or north). At the crash site a high continuous ridge line surrounds them at the south, west and north. East is a descending valley. This ridge line never falls below 4000m. The peak is 4670m so a point 1670m below that would be 3000m high. BTW regardless of any arguments about what a saddle is or can be there's definitely no 3000m point to the west. 2. A saddle is not a mountain feature that you 'make your way up'. The saddle itself is a low point between higher points - shaped like a horse's saddle. You could climb up to a saddle, but the saddle itself is not an inclined feature. 3. To the south of their crash site is a spur. ("A spur is a lateral ridge or tongue of land descending from a hill, mountain or main crest of a ridge.") This spur would have provided them a more gradual slope to ascend in order to get to the high 4000m+ ridgeline, from which they could descend to the west. I suspect this is what was meant as the easier option.

IMO both the current article and the source (which the article miscites) have issues - though for the article it's just a terminology issue. DMA 163.47.51.78 (talk) 04:52, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

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Sequence of events

At the end of the first paragraph in the "Hard decisions" section, it is said that Numa Turcatti died before starting the expedition. Then the article goes on to tell things in a way that seems to follow the course of events, but then at the end of the "The sleeping bag" section, Turcatti is then mentioned again as being alive. This needs to get sorted out somehow. --uKER (talk) 14:42, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

There were a couple of "expeditions". If memory serves, Turcatti went on the first one where they barely got anywhere. He died before the main (successful) expedition with Nando and Roberto. --CutOffTies (talk) 14:44, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I can understand what you say, but the article is not clear in that regard. I'll see to rephrase it when I get the time. --uKER (talk) 16:28, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not saying the article is right. If you don't have it, I can look at the Piers Paul Reed book to try to get it right. --CutOffTies (talk) 16:44, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

130.76.24.28 (talk) 05:17, 10 December 2019 (UTC)== Walk down the mountain? ==

Can somebody explain to me why they didn't just walk downhill, untill they reached el sosneado e.g.? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.208.113.245 (talk) 18:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

There are many mountains there.. walking downhill from one mountain would simply mean you have to climb another one. --CutOffTies (talk) 15:26, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

They thought downhill was to the West and uphill was to the East, incorrectly assuming they were on the Pacific side of the river flow.

~ imarino 81.110.111.211 (talk) 10:39, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

You might as well ask; "Why didn't they sprout wings and fly back to Uruguay?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.15.91 (talk) 22:27, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Neither of these comments are true unless you are walking down to an endorrheic basin. You can always just walk down (othrwise it would fill with water untill it overflowed creating a lake and river) --84.208.113.245 (talk) 03:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Because they thought they were closer to the Chilean side. The pilots thought they were over Curico which was why they turned north thinking they were headed toward Santiago. But they goofed up and turned while they were still in the Planchon pass and headed directly into the Andes which was why they crashed. The copilot mentioned this before he died so they all through they were just a few miles from Chile; that is why they headed east. 02:45, 23 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.17.243.76 (talk)

They went west, to Chile, not east. I think that the original poster above has a valid point. They were not appropriately skeptical of the incorrect information from the co-pilot, who had just demonstrated that he did not know where they were, by flying into a mountain. Had they discounted his dying declaration, they surely would have gone downhill, to the east. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.53.195.38 (talk) 21:14, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

You have to remember how disorientating the whole thing must have been. If you crash (pretty much in the centre of the Andes like they did) and your friends are dead, you have no food, and the low temperatures are enough to kill you, you're not going to have a epiphany about which direction is best to simply "just walk down hill". This would have lead them to Mountains they would have had to climb anyway. Not to mention they needed to wait until the temperatures improved (along with getting the sleeping bag together) before they could attempt to walk out of their. These were clever young men, if it was simply a case of walking downhill they would have done so. Had they immediately set off downhill the moment they crashed they would have died of exposure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.41.157.1 (talk) 00:11, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Just to reiterate the original question, is anybody aware of a more detailed discussion of the hike downhill from the crash site, following the water, and eventually to the east? On Google Maps that hike almost seems easy, whereas the actual hike that took place looks very difficult. Going downhill is never the wrong thing to do. Going uphill may be a very bad idea. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.69.26.172 (talk) 12:25, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Walking downhill is often the wrong thing to do if it leads you to a lake or to a cliff which you're unable to ascend/descend. Jim Michael (talk) 12:33, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

I suggest that anyone wondering about this question read the Piers Paul Read book "Alive". It should answer your questions. Also, talk pages are for improving the article, not for forum type discussion. --CutOffTies (talk) 13:51, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

If the answer is in the book, we can add it, sourced, to the article. This also implies that the question is relevant to the subject. -DePiep (talk) 21:43, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

A Mexican mountaineer, Ricardo Pena, led an expedition for National Geographic to retrace Parrado and Canessa's trek out. He has also led expeditions to the crash site from the east - in 2010, to film for a documentary on the History Channel. In that documentary he discusses the fact that Canessa did indeed see a road to the east from the top of the mountain they climbed, but states that had they actually gone east, they would probably have been unable to cross the Atuel River at that time of year -- it is wide, cold and very fast-flowing. They had no equipment to enable them to cross and would not have successfully reached help on the Argentine side. So yes, the route is easier in theory but would have been impassible to them in 1972. The documentary is entitled "I Am Alive" and could be the source for information about the route, though National Geographic Adventure magazine had an article about it which may also include those details. I don't have a copy unfortunately.

• As a matter of fact, three of them did walk down the valley for a day and a half. They saw nothing but huge mountains and no end to the snow, and they almost froze to death in the process. They believed that going east would lead them deeper into the Andes mountains. It would have been insanely stupid to abandon their only shelter and only source of food to walk blindly into the middle of the Andes mountains simply because it goes downhill. KevinLuna (talk) 17:48, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

• I have just reviewed the geography including a virtual journey with google earth and I have to say: To go west, *up* the mountain, is surely one of the dumbest decision ever. It's unthinkable that people would prefer this way. Because of the "green valleys of Chile". How stupid is that? DrOliverBrausch (talk) 11:27, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

I read an article in a mountaineering magazine about a team that retraced the path that the footballers took to find rescue. When the team gained some altitude above the crash site they could clearly see a road bed down below, there was a photo of the road that they took from that point. After the trip was over they asked one of the original survivors why they didn't just go down west to the road. The answer was that the self appointed "leader" declared that "It could not be a road because he knew where they were," and so they continued their hellish ascent and 38 mile descent. I think that there is a good lesson there to be learned about leaders and followers. Unfortunately I cannot find the original article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.24.28 (talk) 04:42, 10 December 2019 (UTC) I'm back after reviewing google earth and watching this interesting video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skrPS4icHrc on a twelve mile horseback expedition you can pay for if you are too soft to hike. The so called river is just a stream and crossed easy by the riders but they didn't show where. The basin is an easy talus slope down to a gentle valley floor and I can guarantee you if a horse can do I can. It look about one thousand times easier than climbing over the Andes!

Here's a picture of the road visible from where they crossed the mountains; https://www.alpineexpeditions.net/uploads/3/4/3/4/34343030/327893_orig.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.17.136.37 (talk) 06:50, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Asterisks?

Many names of the deceased have asterisks attached, while others don't, but there's no explanation as to why. Any idea why? Little grape (talk) 11:40, 21 October 2022 (UTC)