The pilot is gravely injured, has blood pouring out of his mouth, and is very clearly dying. It is one of the most gory parts of Society of the Snow, but the pilot does tell the passengers that they are near Chile and says a prayer for their souls.
He mistakenly believed the aircraft had overflown Curicó, the turning point to fly north, and began descending towards what he thought was Pudahuel Airport in Santiago de Chile. He failed to notice that instrument readings indicated he was still 60–69 km (37–43 mi) east of Curicó.
The intention was to fly a U-shaped path, first across the pass to the Curicó radio beacon and to head north, and then descend towards Santiago. However, due to a navigational error, the flight crew mistakenly believed that they had already reached Curicó and began to descend.
The next day, Oct. 13, 1972, the plane took off again and was flying through the Andes when the co-pilot at the controls started to descend, mistakenly thinking he'd cleared the mountain range. The aircraft hit a mountain, breaking both wings off and causing the fuselage to slide down a mountain.
"Society of the Snow" is based on the remarkable true story of a 1972 plane crash in the Andes. For 72 days, 16 people managed to survive, dealing with extreme cold, starvation, and dehydration. Survival expert Cat Bigney explains how complicated surviving in those conditions would really be.
Courage and cannibalism: inside the Andes plane disaster | 7NEWS Spotlight
Where are the 1972 Andes survivors now?
The survivors meet annually
"All of them reunite with all their families. In that way they have seen all the children of their friends as they were born, together with their own ... now most of their children are between 18 and 26 years old, exactly the age they were on the mountain.
Society of the Snow was released on Netflix on January 4, 2024, and has quickly become one of the most popular films on the streaming platform. There were sixteen survivors of the plane crash and the subsequent 72 days in the frigid and dangerous terrain of the Andes Mountain Range who were rescued in December 1972.
When the survivors were debating about eating the dead bodies, Roberto mentioned that they had not had any food or water for seven days and seven nights. This prompted several other survivors to comment that their pee had turned black. Their pee had actually turned dark brown, which is a sign of severe dehydration.
The charter flight was carrying the team to a match in Santiago, the Chilean capital. Twenty-nine people died, but 16 managed to survive 72 days under the most precarious conditions, without food, adequate shelter, or medical supplies for the injured.
Despite heavy winds, the aircraft took off again. While charting a new route to Santiago, the pilot realized he couldn't fly directly to the area without going over the Andes Mountains, which were too high to pass through safely. Instead, he chose to fly over the Planchon Pass, which was at a lower altitude.
Are there any survivors of the miracle in the Andes?
Of the 16 survivors, 14 are still alive. José Luis “Coche” Inciarte died in 2023 of cancer, per the AFP, as did Javier Methol in 2015. Sergio Catalan, the herdsman who encountered Fernando Parrado and Roberto Canessa after their 10-day trek through the Andes from the crash site, died in 2020 at the age of 91.
Were the survivors of the Andes plane crash cannibalism?
A group of survivors lived through the plane crash, only to face the frigid cold and snow of the mountains, avalanches and, most famously, a lack of food. As they fought for their lives for more than two months, they fed themselves by cannibalizing the bodies of those who had already died.
The place where the plane crashed was not strategically visible, so it would have been pointless to try to make a fire. Furthermore, they didn't have enough flammable objects to cause such a big fire, which is why the lighter was used for cigarettes but never a signal fire.
Remember, asking the controller to “say again” when you are unclear on their last transmission makes you a good pilot, not a bad one. Your response of “say again” indicates you are not afraid to admit that you either didn't hear or didn't understand what was said.
"The pilot was not sorry about driving the plane into the storm and risking the lives of fellow passengers" Explanation: His First Flight story is a story based on a young seagull that is a bit trembling to fly as it can't trust its wings.
On 13 October 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed into a glacier in the Andes on its way from Montevideo, Uruguay to Santiago, Chile. Many of the 45 people on board were Uruguayan rugby players.
Fernando "Nando" Seler Parrado Dolgay (born 9 December 1949) is a Uruguayan businessman, producer, motivational speaker and television presenter, and former rugby player and racing driver. He is one of the sixteen survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 which crashed in the Andes on 13 October 1972.
The true story has one other horrifying detail – the starving passengers of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 were only able to stay alive by eating the bodies of those who did not survive.
Yes, the Society of the Snow survivors had to become cannibals in order to survive. Since Society of the Snow kept events very close to how they occurred in reality, cannibalism became a crucial part of the film as the crash survivors admitted after they were rescued that they had to human flesh to survive.
What happened to the bodies in Society of the Snow?
The survivors created a makeshift shelter out of the fuselage. After a few weeks passed and their predicament became dire, the group resorted to cannibalism, eating the bodies of the passengers who had died. “I thought if I would die, I would be proud that my body would be used for someone else,” Canessa told TODAY.
Did the actors in Society of the Snow have to lose weight?
- Juan Antonio Bayona wanted 'Society of the Snow' to exude realism, so he sought scientific advice to ensure that 30 actors lost 30 kilos within a few months, mirroring the victims of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crash in the Andes in 1972.
Nando made a superhuman effort, survived for 72 days, and found his way out of the Andes, after an 10-day snowy trek through the mountains with his friend Roberto Canessa.
