A Plane Crashed in the Andes Mountains
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A Plane Crashed in the Andes Mountains
Fifty Years Ago, a plane carrying an amateur Uruguay rugby team crashed on the way to match in Chile
On October 13, 1972, a plane crashed in the Andes Mountains. On board were an amateur Uruguayan rugby team, the Old Christians, along with their relatives and supporters. It took over two months for some survivors to finally be rescued, and only after two of the players, Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, made it out of the mountains by foot and successfully got help. Sixteen of the plane’s 45 passengers survived the ordeal through extraordinary measures, not the least of which included cannibalism of their deceased comrades.
The plight is immortalized in various books, movies, plays, and music including:
Miracle in the Andes (book)
Alive (movie)
Stranded (movie)
So what relevance does this event have to the increasing repression of the period? Well, it’s perhaps not immediately evident; however, in the aftermath of the rescue (December 22, 1972), I will be posting again about how Bordaberry’s government discussed the survival. For now I just want to point out that the first mention of the crash in the leftist weekly paper, Marcha, occurred on October 27, 1972 when the front cover declared: “The people to the streets to enforce democracy!” The issue discussed the various confrontations between the government and Uruguayans, such as in the halls of Parliament, over who would be in charge of the schools, and even a strike by doctors over the arrest and imprisonment of fellow members of the medical community for being accused of being part of a “seditious organization.” However, on page 15, an article, “Después de la caída” written by Hugo Alfaro, discusses the crash and the search for survivors which had, at this point, been abandoned.
In the last paragraph, he alludes to his broader issues with Pacheco and now Bordaberry’s government. He explains that during the presidency of Jorge Pacheco (Dec. 1967-Mar. 1972), Pacheco ordered that the Air Force take charge of some of PLUNA’s services in the interior of the country, and issued certificates for pilots without the requisite flight hours and necessary training. While he notes that “perhaps none of this has to do with the…disaster, or maybe yes…we must not forget so much error or so much irresponsibility lightly.”
In this way, even during the tragedy of, what at the time was thought to be the death of 45 Uruguayans, the incompetence and corruption of the government could not be ignored. How those tensions played out two months later after the rescue? You’ll have to subscribe and come back to read…