Oct 13, 1972 

Uruguayan rugby union team the Old Christians Club, 29 killed

A chartered plane carrying members of a Uruguayan rugby team, along with friends and family, crashed into a remote section of the Argentinean Andes mountains, on Oct 13, 1972. Eighteen people were killed in the crash or succumbed to injury and cold at over 3,600 meters altitude. Of the 27 survivors who were alive a few days after the accident, another eight were killed by an avalanche that swept over their shelter in the wreckage. The last 16 survivors were rescued on Dec 23 1972, more than two months after the crash after passengers Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa trek across the Andes for 10 days and found a Chilean horseman for help. Faced with starvation and radio news reports that the search for them had been abandoned, the survivors fed on the dead passengers who had been preserved in the snow. [Photo/IC]