I'm Cade Courtley, Navy SEAL and host of Spike TV’s Surviving Disaster. I've heard a lot of great survival accounts over the years. However, these 10 individual narratives represent true self-preservation through instinct, and a never-say-die attitude. This list is a chronicle--a testament--of what I find most impressive in defining true individual strength and human perseverance. These few did not just lead to legend, but more importantly and most basic, survival.
On October 12th, 1972, the “Old Christians” rugby team boarded an Air Force jet in Montevideo, Uruguay for a match in Santiago, Chile. Not only would the ill-fated team not make the game, they were about to begin a nightmarish ordeal that would last several months and shake the players to their very core.
Faced with inclement weather over the Argentinian city of Mendoza, the pilot made an unscheduled landing for the evening. Upon takeoff the next day, the weather wasn’t much better, and even though Captain Julio Cesar Ferradas had clocked thousands of hours of flying experience (including 29 flights across the Andes alone), the ferocity of the storm proved too much for the pilot. While attempting to pass over the mountain range, the right wingtip of the jet crashed into the mountain, causing the wing to damage the tail of the plane. When the left wing of the plane also separated from the jet, the fuselage careened into the mountain slope at 217 miles per hour.
Upon impact, 12 of the 45 passengers were killed instantly or shortly thereafter, with an additional five perishing within the next day. Though the remaining 27 passengers still awaited rescue, they surely had no idea of the harrowing ordeal that faced them in the coming days and weeks.
Not only did many of the survivors have serious injuries, they were at all equipped for the extreme cold of their mountaintop location. Lacking clothing, footwear, and other equipment needed to brave the fierce winds of the Andes, the survivors quickly realized they would need to think…and think fast.
Two first-year medical students who were among the survivors improvised makeshift medical care for the fallen, salvaging pieces of the aircraft for improvised splints and braces for the injured. Sun visors from the cabin of the jet were fashioned into homemade sunglasses to protect against the extreme glare of the sun high in the Andes.
But unfortunately for the survivors, the white color of the jet blended into the snowy backdrop of the mountain, severely hampering the efforts of the search and rescue parties. Eight days after the initial crash, the search was called off entirely, which the survivors soon learned from a small transistor radio in the plane.
Facing abandonment in one of the earth’s more extreme climates, the remaining players despaired over their fate. With rationed food quickly dwindling, the situation grew increasingly dim. Faced with the gruesome realization that they would all die without nourishment, the remaining survivors collectively made the grim decision to eat the flesh of their fallen brothers. The decision to resort to cannibalism was not an easy one, but the group soon came to realize that there was simply no other option.
