I Am Alive: Surviving the Andes Plane Crash

A documentary film directed by Brad Osborne The film mixed reenactments with interviews with the survivors and members of the 1972 Andes Flight Disater. Also interviewed were Piers Paul Read, renowned mountain climber Ed Viesturs, Andes Survivors expert and alpinist Ricardo Peña, historians, expert pilots, and high-altitude medical experts.

>> [Nando] My name s Nando Parrado.

I was one of the 16 survivors of flight 571,

which crashed in the Andes mountains on Friday the 13th of October of 1972.

We knew a plane cannot fly that close to the mountains,

and I looked towards my mother and that was the moment of impact.

I was in a very deep coma.

So, you wake up very slowly, and I woke up in hell.

We waited for a rescue, but it didn't come.

Our plane that crashes in the middle of the mountains in the snow season there is no way people can survive.

And after a week, after ten days, after three weeks, after a month, after two months --

who would believe there was people alive.

The decision of eating the dead bodies of our friends started to creap into our minds at the same time.

We all had the same fear -- the same lack of hope -- the same confirmation that we were dead.

I decided that I was going to die, but I was gong to die trying.

Initially, the trip was planned for four days.

We would leave on Thursday, and we would come back on Monday morning.

You are young.

You don't have that much money,

and the easiest way and the cheapest one was the charter an air force plane.

The night before the plane left for Santiago,

the captian of the team told us that there was ten seats available on the airplane,

and if anybody wanted to bring family or friends, they could go for free.

So, I jumped from my seat and I phoned my mother.

I said, "Mom, prepare a bag, you are going to Chile tomorrow."

And tell Susie -- Susie was my sister -- that she was going too.

Susie was 17-years-old, I remember, and she always was running around my rugby teammates,

because, you know, rugby players -- that's how simply they happened.

I wanted to give them a present of love to invite them to go to Chile with us.

They would shop and have a nice time.

We would come back on Monday,

but it never happened like that.

We left on Thursday,

but when the plane came close to the Andes the weather was not good,

so it had to land in Mendoza.

The last seat in Argentina before the Andes,

and we had to wait for the weather to be better so that the plane could cross.

So, we had to sleep in Mendoza that night.

And the next morning we went to the airport,

and we boarded the plane,

and we left finally on Friday morning for Santiago.

Nothing made us think or believe that something terrible was going to happen.

Friday the 13th.

I'm not a superstitious person,

and I don't care about that, but I didn't know Friday the 13th, and I would crash on that day.

You know, some guys think about it and some guys don't.

Obviously, the pilot didn't think about it too much.

How could a pilot make such a big mistake -- a pilot with experience.

>> [Male Speaker] The captain on this flight was a Uruguayan Air Force colonel,

and that implies that he was an experienced pilot.

I know that he had 29 crossings of the Andes,

which is a lot.

However, his total time -- his total flight experience was in the range of 5,200 hours.

In today's standards, 5,200 hours is not a lot of time.

>> [Col Enrique Crosa] The training by the crew was done acording to international standards.

It was in a good condition to fly that plane without any problems.

>> [Male Speaker] The Fairchild had a max gross takeoff weight of 45,000 pounds,

and carried anywhere between 45 and 50 passengers.

The engines that it had were two Rolls Royce Dart 7 engines,

which are approximately 1,725 shaft horse power each

The aircraft struggled because it was under powered.

We pretty much referred to it as a lead sled.

Of the 78 Fairchild 227's built 23 crashed,

and there were a total of 393 fatalities.

A third of them have been involved in accidents,

which equtes to not a very good safety record.

>> [Nando] At the time, we didn't know that the safety record of that model was absolutely horrible.

Had we known that, we would have never got into that airplane.

After takeoff from Mendoza, the captain elected to fly south and make a turn towards the Planchon Pass,

and the reason he elected to do this is

because he could fly the aircraft through a pass and at a lower altitude.

If he had led to stricly go over the Andes,

he would have had to go a lot higher,

which would have been a lot more stressful on this aircraft.

It has a hard enough time getting up to 1,500 to 1,600 feet,

let alone what it needed to get over the Andes without going through a pass.

>> [Male Speaker] The Andes Mountains rise so abruptly that they create very serious storms.

If the jet stream is coming from the Pacific, all this moist air gets funneled by the mountains.

That speeds up winds and creates precipitation --

creates clouds, so the storms that can be formed by the Andes can be very fierce.

This was a team of friends -- a team of young people flying to have a fantastic fun weekend.

So, the mood in the airplane was absolutely happy.

I remember people laughing -- people talking.

You know sitting, kneeling down on the seats, and looking back and talking with the guys.

>> [Gustavo] We were all singing.

We were all super happy, throwing the ball from one side to the other.

It was quite a fun atmosphere.

>> [Nado] Initially, I sat on the window,

but Ponchito was my best friend.

He was like my brother,

and he said, "You have been for a long time on the window let me look down.

It is easier for me if I'm on the window to look out,"

So, we changed seats.

He sat on the window,

and I sat on the isle.

That's one of those moments in life that without thinking that

would decide who would live and who would die.

>> [Male Speaker] There was a cloud cover on the mountains,

so they had to cross the Andes,

and they radio Santiago and they want permission to turn north,

and they fly it north to Santiago.

>> [Male Speaker] The Fairchild was expectd to arrive at Curico at 3:33 p.m.,

but reported that it was over Curico at 3:24.

That distance is usually covered in 11 minutes,

and they reported that they covered it in 3 minutes.

Surely, the plane was still in the middle of the mountains.

>> [Male Speaker] So, the pilot's obviously made a mistake at some point in calculation.

It's actually they are right in the middle of the range,

and they are thinking they are already past it.

He makes the unexplained and catastrophic decision of turning north into the Andes.

This changes the fate of all the passengers on the plane.

>> [Roberto Canessa] So, he decided to descend,

and as it was all covered by clouds,

he didn't see that the mountains were under the clouds.

>> [Male Speaker] When a pilot gets into a position where he is not where expects to be,

or not where he thinks he is,

in order to get out of that situation,

he has to convince himself that he's made a mistake,

and it's a different mindset.

You have to now think, "I've made a mistake. How am I going to get out of this.

>> [Col Enrique] The cause of the accident was clearly human error.

The fault of the crew.

>> [Nado] We started to get into some light --

not very heavy turbulance.

The plane started to shake a little.

>> [Carlitos] The flight attendant came out into the cabin and said,

"Put your seat belts on because the plane is going to dance a little bit."

>> [Nado] And then we got into a little bit heavier turbulence,

and the move changed a little bit.

Nobody was throwing balls.

You know, everybody was sitting on the seat with the seat belt fastened.

>> [Male Speaker] They head down through the clouds,

and they think they are descending into Chile.

And, of course, as you get closer to the mountains,

there is the turbulence of all the wind currents that the mountains create.

So, they start shaking.

They come from off the cloud cover,

and realize that they are completely surrounded by rocks and mountains.

>> [Male Speaker] It was a feeling of fear,

and the fear transformed into panic.

We felt the acceleration of the engine.

>> [Nado] I only had abut five or six or seven seconds to understand that there was something wrong.

That we were going to crash.

The last image that I had is the top of the airplane --

the roof over my head opened and I died.

>> [Male Speaker] The plane begins sliding down at a tremendous speed,

and I was waiting for it to slam against the mountain,

but it stopped.

And when it stopped, I thought "I'm alive."

>> [Male Speaker] I stood in the impact site and realized that there is a saddle there.

The pilots must have seen that saddle and gone for it to try to overcome the mountains.

A little to the left or a little to the right they would have hit cliffs and the plane would have disintegrated.

>> [Male Speaker] It was an extraordinary piece of luck,

I would say, that the plane didn't disintegrate all together when it hit the mountain.

Really it clipped off the back of it,

and then the front tobogganed down the mountain.

That was astonishing.

>> The fuselage ended up landing on this very steep gully.

It was all covered in snow, luckily for them,

which allowed the fuselage to slide down,

make a couple turns that are just the natural fall line,

and lead them all the way to the bottom of the glacier.

It is and extremely lucky situation.

>> [Male Speaker] I think one must be careful when one uses the word miraculous.

I mean, you've got to think of the people who didn't make it,

and who died, and who were eaten.

I mean it obviously wasn't miraculous to the parents of those boys.

>> [Male Speaker] This is one of the seat arm rests,

and I found it high on the mountain.

This belonged, obviously to one of the seats that flew out the back of the fuselage.

It was, obviously, very chilling to think of somebody was riding on that seat.

It is a testament to a very tragic moment.

>> [Male Speaker] None of us were familiar with snow.

We were like little boys.

In Uruguay, the maximum amount of is 500 meters,

so we knew nothing.

It was a disaster:

Dead people, injured people, people with broken legs.

>> Immediately after the plane crashed,

we went about attending to the wounded.

I went over to Nando's mother,

and I touched her, and she was dead.

>> She was like wrapped around a seat in a position that I was sure that she was not alive.

>> Nando's condition for us was a dead body.

>> He had flown from the back seat to the front seat,

and his face was very swollen,

and I could barely know who he was.

>> [Male Speaker] The co-pilot was in a lot of pain.

He asked us to bring him the revolver in order to kill himself because he was suffering so much.

>> Someone said that he was alive,

and I realized that he was the key man that could tell us where we were --

what was our location.

He was completely trapped.

It was impossible to get him out.

>> Before the pilot dies,

they hear him saying, "We passed Curico."

"We passed Curico."

The pilot was in shock.

He probably realized that he had made a mistake,

but he's telling -- "But how can this be?"

>> I remember very vividly that he said,

"We passed Curico."

"We passed Curico."

And there was a map there,

and we begin looking at the map,

and Curico was on the Chilean side very clearly.

>> The survivors are thinking,

this is the only reliable information we have from somebody who is supposed to know about this.

So, if we passed Curico,

that means we are on the western edge of the Andes.

>> You find yourself in a glaciated valley at 12,000 feet in the middle of the Andes.

It's still today a very remote place.

>> It's like stepping into a giant freezer --

this valley surrounded by peaks on three sides and kind of open to the east.

The mountains around you are peaks that are 14, 15, 16 thousand feet high.

To the east you have a volcano that's 18,000 feet --

very sheer, steep.

This party immediately had to protect themselves from the elements,

or all of them may not have survived the first night or two,

and they were put instantly into a very high altitude environment

where now they have to start, very quickly adjusting to the elevation.

>> The first night was horrible

because the sun set at 4 in the afternoon,

and we had to wait about 15 hours for the sun to come up again.

>> They quickly had to decide how they were going to survive the first night.

Sharing warmth amongst themselves was probably the most important thing that they could have done.

>> You're in this expectation that you're going to be rescued,

and hopes are high.

And you are going to do everything you can to survive those first few days

until the helicopters come over the mountain and pick you up.

And then they don't

And then the friends around you die.

>> After the plane crashed and we didn't have any food,

we shared a few little cups of liquor, some little chocolates, and that was all we had.

>> We had some little chocolates,

and that was all we had.

>> [Male Speaker] Nando? Nando?

>> When a person who had an accident like what Nando had,

the treatment we would do nowadays in the 21st Century is actually what nature did to Nando,

with total serendipity in 1972.

It was recently proven that low temperature that is hypothermia

is one of the only effective neuro protectants that is something to protect an injured brain.

The fact that Nando was considered dead and was put with the seriously ill and dead bodies

close to the entrance and coldest part of the fuselage

probably exerted a significantly protective effect of his injured brain.

Based on a great paradox, the accident itself is what probably kept Nando alive.

>> [Nando] The first things that I started seeing were the eyes and the faces of my friends

who were very close to me looking to me and speaking,

"Nando, we crashed."

"Can you hear me?"

"Can you listen?"

"Can you hear?"

"We crashed."

>> I remember Nando saying the first words and asking about his mother and his sister.

>> [Nando] They said your mother is dead and Susie is wounded.

She's hurt.

My mind discarded, in that moment, my mother.

I mean she's dead.

I can't do anything for her.

So, I focused on my sister,

and I crawled to where she was.

>> He was very devoted to her and was trying to do his best,

but it was very difficult.

>> [Nando] The first time I got of there,

I was shocked at the sheer majesty and sight of the place where we were.

Everything was white, white, white, white.

And it was cold, and it was huge in sight.

At an altitude of 11, 12, 14 thousand feet,

there is absolutely nothing.

There is ice, snow, and black rocks.

That's all.

There's nothing that can provide any sort of food or nutrition --

nothing -- absolutely nothing.

Obviously, we waited for a rescue from the first, second, third, fourth day,

but it didn't come.

>> We arrived in Chile,

and they divided the search area between the Chilean Air Force, the Argentine Air Force, and us

And we performed a series of flights over the Andes from north to south.

That was something we had never done before,

and we saw absolutely nothing.

>> It would be a little crazy to assume that your son had survived.

An important thing for me was the search.

>> It was very sad.

The stage we lived through.

We didn't know anything.

I was one of those that finally believed that none had survived the Andes.

>> My heart told me that they were dead.

>> [Nando] The last hours that I spent with my sister, Susie,

the only thing I could do was to hold her.

We didn't have any medicines.

We didn't have anything.

She was very badly hurt, injured internally.

I stayed with her the whole night,

and I think that she was aware that I was there.

She couldn't speak.

She only looked at me with her beautiful eyes,

and she died in my arms that night.

At least I'm happy that she passed away with me,

you know, not alone.

The real hope died on the 10th day

when we listened on the small transistor radio that we had

that the rescue had been abandoned.

And before the 10th day we had these games of hope,

and after that hope was not existent --

hope only prolonged our suffering.

The hope absolutely went away.

>> I said Nando, "There isn't anything left in the storage compartments,"

where we kept the chocolates and the can of sardines we had.

And Nando looked me in the eyes and said,

"Carliots, I want to eat the pilot."

>> The struggle to survive was so strong,

and the fear and the waiting for the helicopters,

and fighting the fear and the stress,

and helping other guys.

Days went by,

and I never felt pain in my stomach or anything like that.

I was hungry, but I don't remember having any pain.

>> When people are in a starvation mode,

what happens is we start taking all our food supplies from our liver.

The next thing to go is typically muscle.

And then our adipose tissue -- or fatty tissue,

and then we start digesting our internal organs.

That's really what happens as people starve.

They had to have a food source.

They could only survive a few days without water.

They had kind of solved that problem.

But you can only survive in that kind of environment from days to weeks without some kind of food.

>> When you're abandoned,

there is nothing at that altitude.

You are looking to any item that could be available.

And we had read so many times about history,

and explorers who were without food,

and they tried to eat thier shoes and thier suitcases and leather straps,

and we tried.

We tasted.

We tasted pieces of leather from suitcases.

They would do much more harm,

so there was absolutely nothing.

You cannot eat that foam from the cushions.

You cannot eat plastic.

When rescue was abandoned,

you know that you have to eat.

The chocolates are gone.

If you want to survive --

the survival instinct is probably the strongest instinct in any human being.

It brings you to a different state of mind.

>> The decision of eating the dead bodies of our friends,

started to creep into our minds at the same time.

Because we all had the same fear --

the same lack of hope -- the same confirmation

that we were dead.

We were condemned.

No rescue.

We were abandoned to our own luck.

On the same day, three or four or five guys started to speak about the same thing.

I spoke it was Carlito.

I don't remember if I was the first one or not,

but you know five, six hours later everybody was speaking about the same subject.

>> I said, "Adolpho, Nando is crazy. He wants to eat the pilot."

And Adolfo told me, "He's not that crazy."

"My cousins and I have already been thinking about that."

>> It was very difficult to accept this idea.

It was in the mind of many of us.

We want to live,

and the only way was to eat the bodies of our friends.

>> One of the things that was used to persuade some of those reluctant to eat the dead bodies

was the comparison of the Eucharist.

The Catholic Eucharist where Christ's body was turned into bread,

and you eat the bread.

It was sort of an analogy that helped some of the doubters, if you like, to eat human flesh.

>> The survivors only had a screwdriver and an ax that was on the plane.

So, they had to make more tools.

Some of the tools that they made were knives that were made out of plastic of the windows.

In February 2005, we had the luck to find one of these -- one of the knives they made.

The reason why they need a knife was to cut meat.

This was obviously used for that.

>> It was sharpened or cut with the ax.

>> It's terrible to invade someone else,

and to take advantage of someone that is dead.

The only reason that I did it is

because I thought that if I had died I would be very proud to be a part of the project of life.

>> [Nando] It's hard to put yourself in that situation,

but being there you had been one of us.

There is only one option.

The decision comes quite easy.

>> Think about it.

Every individual in that group had to look down

see little pieces of protein --

little pieces of fat, and when they bring it up to their mouth,

what's their mind telling them?

For some it's going to be, "Oh my god. This was my friend."

"This was someone in seat 3B."

And others when they consumed it,

and all of a sudden the body responded in a favorable way,

where they felt some strength --

maybe some flow of energy back in the body.

This was a glimmer of hope to where they can survive and be rescued.

>> From a religious point of view for me,

it wasn't a sin.

I understood that a body that was there before the worms ate it

could be utilized by us.

For me that didn't affect me then,

and it doesn't affect me now.

>> From the medical point of view,

it's fat.

It's lipids.

It's carbohydrates, and a source of energy.

There is no doubt about it.

>> For them, trying different parts of the body --

eating organs that are more rich in vitamins was essential for the nutrition.

It was something that their bodies were craving.

When they would try something different,

it would taste good because the body is telling them,

"Yes, you need more vitamins. You need this"

Any different flavor was something that was highly welcomed.

So that is how they ended up eating everything -- almost every part of the body.

>> People used the term "cannibalism" for their food source.

I actually consider it survival food.

They did what they had to do.

I've read, and I've seen our story described as cannibalism,

which I think is wrong.

Cannibalism is when you kill to eat.

I mean ancient warriors killed the enemy tribes and then they eat the dead,

and it had a lot of tribal and spiritual meanings also.

In our case, I think the terminology we should use is anthropophagy.

And it's just terminology.

We made a pact, and we did what people do now.

People give blood to friends -- to family members.

They make organ transplants.

And we made a pact.

We said okay hand in hand.

If I die please use my body, so at least one of us can get out of here.

As a human being, you would see and do things so horrible you cannot even start to imagine,

but things get worse.

>> What the survivors didn't' realize was that this place was a time bomb.

>> Where the fuselage was was a place that gets regularly hit by avalanches.

It was just a matter of time before an avalanche would come down.

Nobody in the plane hand any experience with glaciers, with avalanches, with snow.

That's one of the tragedies of this situation.

>> Avalanches have been known to move reinforced concrete buildings off their foundations.

They've taken trains off the train tracks.

They have taken steel bridges and blown them apart,

so that there is an enormous amount of impact pressure behind avalanches.

>> [Nando] You're at the worst thing that can happen in your life.

I mean we were stranded in the Andes,

surviving in the worst way a human being can survive.

>> For three consecutive days it snowed,

and snowed, and snowed.

We were totally enclosed in the plane surrounded by snow.

>> Surviving in that way, two and a half weeks after the plane crashed,

at night in complete darkness.

We heard a distant sound.

>> I heard some people describe an avalanche when it started as a large boom --

like a sonic boom from an airplane, as the avalanche failed on its weak layer.

Sometimes they make hissing noises.

Sometimes they are absolutely quiet,

and you don't even know that they are coming down the mountain until they actually strike you.

>> Very quickly we felt something like the sound of a pack of horses charging at us --

coming from above.

>> It was something so lightningly fast.

I heard a sound, and I looked to my right,

and at that moment the avalanche hit the airplane.

>> The avalanche came down off the mountain.

It went right in the open end of the fuselage,

blowing out the wall that they had built to help protect them, and buried all the people inside.

>> Two seconds later, I was completely buried by the avalanche.

>> Quickly tons of snow got inside the fuselage and buried us completely.

>> I was trapped completely by the avalanche,

and it was the most deadly silence you may imagine.

I couldn't move.

>> You are stuck in this contorted position.

You could be bent backwards with your heels against your head.

You could be in a position where the pain is just unendurable,

and yet you can't breathe anymore either.

>> It can be a horrible, horrible way to die.

>> I felt I was dying, and then a smile came to my face.

I realized that everything was over.

>> You can only survive three minutes without oxygen.

If you don't have adequate oxygen to breathe,

you will die in that three to four minute time frame.

>> Probably somewhere around 75% of people that are buried in avalanches die from asphyxiation.

>> Roy hardly managed to get out,

and then I got out.

The first thing that we wanted to do was dig our friends out.

Diego Storm, Nicolich, but when I got to them, they were both dead.

>> It must have been an incredible panic situation.

"Now what do I do?"

"What do I do?"

They are all in this confined space,

but as soon as you move snow,

you're piling it on top of other people,

because everybody is packed in so tight.

>> We continued looking for people, uncovering what we could.

>> I opened up my eyes, and I realized that I was alive and they dug me out.

>> Roy Harley took all the snow from my face.

>> And I remember looking for the only woman that was alive at the time,

which was Liliana Methol.

Looking for her, I found the head of Nando Parrado,

and he managed to survive.

>> This avalanche killed eight of us, you know.

Eight of our guys were killed by that avalanche.

>> It was just another brutal blow --

as if things couldn't get any worse.

The avalanche comes and kills eight of them at that point,

and it's hard to imagine, I think,

you're trapped in this little space.

The avalanche has completely covered the plane.

There is no light, and now they have a little space and a little bit oxygen to survive on,

and they're on top of their dead friends --

the ones that were just alive instance before.

And to have to survive three days in something like that,

I think, is just one of the most horrible circumstances you can even imagine.

>> Our first concern was to be buried like a submarine without power in the bottom of the ocean.

You know, we have water on top.

How do we get out of there.

And, also, we had air.

So, we said, "Okay, don't move too much."

"Breathe slowly."

Because we didn't know if we had air.

A lot of the guys said, "What does it matter?"

"There is air nowhere."

"We are buried."

"We are dead."

"If we get out of this burial of this fuselage, we will be on the same situation that we were before."

-- stranded, lost in the middle of the Andes.

Nobody is looking for us.

We don't have any food.

We don't have water.

We are cold.

We will die anyway.

We are already buried.

Let's stay here.

>> Now they have to eat from their very own friends that were right there.

Even worse.

This story of survival has so many extreme moments.

>> I think that the human spirit is stronger than reality sometimes,

and we asked ourselves "What are we doing?"

At least we are breathing.

And if we are breathing, we are alive.

Let's fight until we stop breathing.

I found one of the posts that you tie straps to hold the luggage,

and there was one of these poles in the floor.

And I used it to make a hole in the top of the fuselage so that air would come in.

I always think that if the avalanche hadn't happened, we wouldn't have survived.

And people say, "Why?"

And I look back and I say, "Well, first the avalanche covered the airplane,

and all the blizzards and all the storms went over.

So, we were not hit directly by the storms.

And, secondly, we could wait there one and a half more months because we had eight more bodies.

And it's very hard to think about that,

but it's a reality.

I was terrified.

I didn't know what to do.

I just followed my heart -- my intuition.

I wanted to go back to my father,

and I didn't take into account all the risks that those things involved.

Had we known what we were going to face,

we would never have started.

>> As the snow melted around it,

it left the fuselage in a bit of -- sort of a pedestal.

So, it was very unstable.

In fact they were afraid that it was going to roll off into a crevice.

>> Over the weeks, you know,

they came into a routine of drying out the airplane, and drying out their sleeping pads,

and gathering water and gathering food.

And it comes down, again, to a routine of basics.

They were in a survival situation.

>> The most secure place on that remote landscape was the fuselage.

It was like an igloo, and comfort was inside that place.

You only got out of there because you had to trek.

You had to test things.

You had to explore.

>> The Andes are an amazing mountain range.

They stretch the whole length of South America.

They're rugged.

They're tall.

The air is thin in the Andes just like in any other high mountains of the world.

So, it is a very challenging and difficult range of mountains to try to climb.

>> The first guys who left the airplane for the first time,

they just went away like 250 yards from the fuselage,

and they found it so difficult to walk on deep snow, crevices that they had to return.

>> It was very hard to go out from the plane.

It was very hard because the plane in some sense would protect you.

I went out on three expeditions.

I went out, I came back --

always trying to look for the tail of the plane.

And in the last expedition, I remember that I surrendered.

>> I returned with my eyes mostly blinded -- burned by the snow --

because I didn't have any shades and it loosened up my teeth and my feet were practically gangrene.

>> It was very tough because you felt like an insect against huge forces of nature.

>> It is the story of being easier to die than it is to live.

The most attractive option was to die.

>> Any survival story that you read about,

whether it's on a desert island or in the middle of the ocean or the mountains,

people simply out of desperation improvise,

and they build and make the things that they need to survive.

>> Once we had created a couple of snow shoes,

I was elected as the expedition leader

because of probably my will to get out of there and look for my father and go back to him.

And I said, "Okay, we have to test the equipment."

"We have to go further down the valley to see how we react ourselves as a team."

>> Nando became the kind of the "head boy."

He was the sort of -- the younger boys looked up to him.

>> Roberto, Antonio, and myself we left one morning

to try to get away as far as we could from the airplane and come back in a day.

It was a test.

It was research and development, you could call it.

We started to walk down the valley, down the valley, down the valley,

and suddenly as soon as we went over a small hill, we saw the tail.

The tail had flown - had been torn from the fuselage and had cartwheeled down the mountain,

and it was in the valley.

There were a few suitcases there.

And instantly we searched for food.

We only found a small box of chocolates and the camera.

We also found something that was quite interesting which were the batteries --

24 batteries that were installed there at the tail.

And we said, "Okay, we have batteries."

"We have radios in the cockpit."

"Maybe we can make these radios work."

So, we decided to spend the night there,

and the next day we went all the way up to the fuselage again.

And we said, "Okay we have to take the radios from the cockpit."

Roy helped us as he had assembled a stereo unit in his home.

We declared him the radio expert.

You know that connecting radio equipment to batteries is not easy.

We didn't have the knowledge.

And from the back part of the radios bundles of cables came out that we had to cut.

How do we connect those cables to the batteries?

Impossible.

It never worked.

Another piece of hope was completely destroyed then.

And we were very depressed because we had put a lot of hope on the radios working.

When we found the camera on the tail,

I remember saying, "Okay it has a roll."

"Let's take pictures because maybe this camera will be found maybe 50, 60, 100 years from now,

and they will reveal the roll, and they will see that people lived here.

Because on our minds we were going to die.

So, we took photographs.

>> One night Arturo threw something at me,

and he said he was in a lot of pain.

So, I lowered him, and he told me he was dying.

So, for about an hour, I started doing CPR.

When I stopped, he was acting as if he was going to die,

and so I continued until finally I told him I couldn't do it anymore.

And he got really gone,

and he let go of my hands like this,

and he died with a look of happiness on his face.

>> In the case of Numa Turcatti,

his physical condition told him that he was going to die.

There was no way out.

And he did not survive.

>> We loved him a lot,

and he never complained.

He died weighing 55 pounds.

>> Waiting is horrible at that point when you are condemned to die.

I kept speaking with Roberto.

"Roberto, we have to get out of here as soon as we can."

We couldn't try to escape to the south because we didn't know where we were going.

To the north -- the northern part of South America.

For us to the east laid the whole Andes,

but to the west was Chile.

We had to aim to that country.

>> The pilot before he died, had said,

"We've crossed the Andes and Chile is to the west."

"To the west is Chile became a kind of slogan that -- a kind of dogma that none of them could doubt.

>> We didn't know if we were in Argentina in Chile.

We only knew that to the west is Chile because of the sun.

We would climb one mountain and from the top,

we would see green valleys, lights of a city in the horizon.

>> To the west, we would be saved.

>> Their information indicated the wise decision was west.

They thought over that ridge has got to be the green valleys of Chile.

To the east, not only did they think that whole Andes was there,

but there's nothing really encouraging for them --

other than the fact that it's downhill.

The survivors didn't realize if they would have gone east into that valley,

there is a hotel 18 miles away from them.

>> The hotel is 18 miles away.

It is a hell of a hike out to get to that point.

It's on the other side of the river.

It is quite a big river.

You can't really cross it.

So, most likely, they wouldn't have been able to get to the other side where the hotel was.

So, it's easy to second guess once you know everything else,

but they didn't.

>> Nando was very desperate to get out of there

because he wanted to go back to his father and tell him that not everything was lost.

>> Nando was raring to go.

He had this extraordinary determination to leave and get back to his father.

>> I think that he realized that either he got himself out of there,

or most likely they were all going to die.

>> I think the others procrastinated.

They hesitated.

They held him back.

They thought the moment wasn't right.

They kept putting it off.

It is difficult to know why.

I think partly because they were frightened he might fail.

>> He needed support, so he asked me to go with him.

And I saw that in the plane there were lots of people pushing Nando,

but they wouldn't go with him.

So, I thought that this was a very coward attitude of supporting someone,

but not completely.

At that moment I realized that I was the guy that could help Nando.

Nando said, "Because you see very well."

"You can handle the maps, and you're a handy man."

"And I want you to go."

Nando was fit.

I was fit.

>> The last expedition was made up of Parrado, Canessa, and Vizintin,

and they had the sleeping bag.

>> I had the idea that with the insulation,

you could make a sleeping bag,

but I not only had the idea.

I made it myself, and it was, without a doubt,

the proudest moment of my life.

The contribution that I made for that final expedition -- that sleeping bag that I made.

>> Carlitos with a needle and copper wire sewed those pieces together,

and we made like a sleeping bag that fundamental to cope with the cold and escape.

>> When I go on a climb, I have a checklist of equipment --

cold weather gear -- solid, heavy boots, crampons,

which attach to the boots, which give me traction in the snow --

ice axes, gloves, hats, insulated clothing, tents, sleeping bags, ropes, anchors.

I mean there's a pile of equipment

that we really don't ever leave home without when we go into the mountains.

And when these guys crashed --

You know, they were rugby players.

They were dressed for summer.

To land in the middle of this arctic wilderness,

you might say, with literally nothing,

it was a pretty amazing feat.

We've got to improvise.

We've got to build and create our own equipment just so that we can get out of here.

>> We had already decided that three of us were going to leave the airplane

as soon as we had a window in the weather.

Finally, we left on December 12th.

The three of us.

>> We left to walk off and Nando returns and he tells me,

"Carlitos, before leaving I want to give a kiss to your rosary."

In exchange for that he gives me a little shoe and he tells me,

"Carlitos, I promise you that I'm going to come back for this other shoe."

That he was going to come back to reunite the pair.

But then he adds, "But this is the most important,

but if this doesn't happen and you need to use my mother and my sister, then do it."

And that was such a great act because he didn't have to give us that authorization,

but he did.

>> To the west is Chile, and this was the idea which we left the fuselage.

>> The only certain thing was to the west was Chile.

>> On the first day we were very optimistic and full of energy.

And at the beginning of the day everything is very easy because the snow is very hard.

But as the day passes by the snow begins to melt.

>> I had never climbed any mountains before,

so I didn't know what I was doing.

It was so strange.

At that altitude, you breathe and you get less oxygen.

I remember seeing those films with climbers walking very slowly towards the summit of the mountains.

And I said, "Why don't they walk faster?"

And then I was in the same situation, and I just couldn't move.

You just take five breaths and move one leg and then the other leg and you climb and climb.

>> When they were confronted with this headwall,

they had 2,000 feet of climbing to do at a 45 degree angle,

which is quite steep.

And the snow was an impediment to their climbing higher.

And you can imagine without any skill --

without any training, you are like a child when you are confronted with a snow slope.

You try to go straight up.

You might be using your hands and your feet.

You're slipping.

You're sliding.

For every step that you go up, you slide back a half a step.

>> It's hard to explain the fear of the unknown.

The having no clue what you are getting yourself into.

It could be terrifying.

Even in mountaineering, when we do know what we're up against --

What the route is.

What the summit is.

It has been documented and everything.

It's still intimidating.

>> I looks like courage.

I can tell you it was not courage.

It was fear.

>> And we tried then to climb through the rocky parts instead of the snow,

and this came unloosed and there were huge rocks coming down.

I was telling Nando, "We are going to kill ourselves."

I was telling Nando, "Come down. This is not the way."

>> I was so wasted when we reached one of the false summits.

I said there is no more strength in me.

Roberto said, "Come on."

"Are you breathing?"

"You're still breathing."

"Come on."

"You can do It."

I said, "Okay, I'll keep on going until I stop breathing."

That was my thought.

Nothing more profound.

Nothing more critical.

I'm alive.

I'm breathing.

I'll keep on going.

>> And we put the sleeping bag and the wind come down,

and the valley was incredible.

It was just gorgeous,

and the moon came down.

And we had some buns that we had find on the tail of the plane.

And taking this run, and I couldn't believe that I was enjoying the scenery,

after struggling and crying and weaping.

>> What we were facing after the first day climbing that first mountain,

was not what I expected to find.

The first day I thought I was going to be in the summit and looking at the green valleys of Chile,

but we were half way climb the mountain.

>> It was very disheartening for the first three days,

because it took them three days to climb up.

What they thought would only take one day took three.

And for three days we saw them as little points up there on the mountain.

>> Roberto was looking in the distance and seeing a line thinking "that could be a road."

And it was impossible for them to tell if it was or not.

>> The road is very interesting because Nando says that the road doesn't exist.

But the road is there, and I bet everything that I saw that road.

>> We actually know now that what he was looking at was the road.

I was there.

I took a photograph.

And I realized that we could actually see the road that we use now from the east to access this valley.

>> But this is a very interesting because although this was a right answer,

at that moment it was a chance in 1,000 that was a road.

>> They were in a very tough situation.

They had already made a huge effort to get that high on the mountain,

and Nando still had the hope that looking over the top of the mountain,

he was going to see green valleys and everything.

>> When I was run down, Nando would say, "Let's keep going."

>> I would climb the mountain, and I would see salvation on the other side.

And when we climbed that first mountain what we saw to the other side really froze me.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't speak.

I couldn't even think because what we saw was horrible.

Instead of green valleys, we saw mountains and snow-covered peaks 360 degrees around us --

to the horizon -- all around us.

And I knew that I was really dead.

I decided the way I was going to die.

There was absolutely no way we could survive what we were looking at.

I told Roberto,

"Look, Roberto, there is no way we can go back."

"The only way is forward."

"We'll die, but we'll die trying."

And he looked at me, and I said, "Okay, we have done so many things together."

"Let's do one more."

"Let's die together."

>> When the three of them Vizintin, Nano, and Roberto got to the top of the mountain

and saw there weren't the green valleys of Chile that they always supposed would be on the other

side of the mountain, it was a terrible moment.

And psychologically it was a terrible blow.

And, again, it sort of shows Nando's extraordinary psychological resilience.

Instead of being daunted and depressed and giving up in despair,

he just said right, "We are just going to go on."

"We are going to keep going west."

>> It has been said that hard and tough and challenging situations create character.

I think they actually reveal character.

When you're put into a situation -- a desperate situation --

all the tings that you are and learned come out.

>> Roberto and myself, we got along very, very together.

We were a fantastic team.

And I told Roberto, "Look, the three of us move very slowly."

And we said, "Antonio, please go back."

"Give us whatever you have of food."

"The two of us will go froward."

"Tell the guys that we'll climb and trek to the west."

>> Tintin -- he was delighted.

He beetled back down the mountain as quickly as he possibly could,

because at least they felt safe in that plane.

You know, they had survived and would go on surviving.

>> After three days, we saw that one of them came down,

and we went to meet him.

And it was Vizintin.

And when we got there,

he told us instead of finding the green valleys of Chile they saw a pathetic and disheartening panorama.

But Nando and Roberto made the decision to take Vizintin's food and his extra clothes.

And they sent him to the fuselage with the message that the two of them would forage ahead.

And they wouldn't stop until they were dead.

>> He saw two peaks that had now snow on them.

And behind those peaks you can see no more peaks,

and you see the moisture of the Pacific Ocean.

When you stand there and you look at how far those peaks are,

it brings it home what a desperate situation they were in.

>> My need to get out was completely unique to me

because there would be a time when we didn't have more bodies

except the bodies of my mother and my sister.

And I wouldn't even like to think to get to that moment when we would have to use their corpses to survive.

I had to get out of there,

and we started down the mountains.

That was two guys deciding to go forward.

>> And I said, "Let's go for it."

"Let's forget about it."

And I knew this was a no return way, but every step is a step.

And if we had gone back to the plane,

there were no chances.

>> I wanted to see what they were up against.

What they had gone through.

Just how challenging it was -- especially for a mountaineer.

I was fascinated by it.

So, in December 2005, we retraced the escape route.

We choose the same days that the survivors had gone.

We wanted to experience the same snow conditions.

Recreate as much as possible the challenge they had without, of course, killing ourselves.

We brought equipment.

We came prepared.

Our plan was to try to set up similar camps to what they had done.

As closely as possible.

But once we were on the slope,

the slope was so avalanche prone that the whole slope could go.

You could fall to your death.

I didn't like it.

I thought the only thing to do here is just push and to go all the way to the top in one day.

Once you hit the ridge, you're safe of avalanches.

Nothing is going to fall on you.

And so it was a brutal day.

It was a really hard day.

We pushed really hard and went all the way up.

Basically, covering the distance that Nando and Roberto covered in three days.

It was exhausting.

When you are in the mountains, it is much harder to judge distances and sizes.

They valleys they climbed down on are just immense.

There is a picture that we took where you see this little dot.

Just a black little speck there.

It's actually Myau, one of our expedition members.

Once you see that little dot, you realize the size of the valley you're looking at.

It's very, very huge mountains all around you.

It is really a very humbling experience.

>> What I remember of the ten days with Roberto,

it's like blurred images of continuous and strenuous effort.

It was so huge.

The mountains are so huge that it looks like you don't make any progress.

And you think, "I'll get there in two or three hours or five hours."

But it is so huge that you never get there.

The only way you go forward is because you can't go back.

>> Nando and Roberto as they journeyed out for those ten long, adruous days

that was an amazing feat,

and you truly have to think about what they suffered through.

They can't explain that.

I think I have an idea of what they went through.

But it is still quite an amazing feat.

>> I think it was Roberto that said, "One foot on ground and another foot on snow."

"This is the line between life and death."

"I'm going to make it."

"I'm not going to die out there like everybody else."

"I'm going to live."

>> That line where the ice finished for me was the line between life and death for myself.

>> It was like crossing a very thin line --

jumping from one side to another one.

We were very happy.

>> Now, that the temperatures were warmer,

now that they are not in such a danger to freeze,

now they don't have refrigeration for their food.

And so their food starts going rotten.

That's a new problem.

>> Nando and Roberto had left the 12th of December 1972.

We were near losing our hopes.

>> The next day we were very happy to see things changing

from no more fear of snow, ice, rock,

and we begin hearing water.

It was pouring out.

Hearing water was going back to normal life.

And then we saw this river.

It was growing out of the ice.

And I saw a green spot there.

>> I had a grasp of life.

First when we saw that there was some civilization here --

We saw a cow.

So, there must be a human being nearby.

>> I could see how significant that was for them.

When you start seeing plants.

You start seeing a little bit of flowers -- living things.

And you smell these flowers.

You haven't smelled anything like that in so many days.

And little grass you can smell.

It was just like, "Wow!"

They talk about starting to find their first signs of civilization,

and they had a big debate, Nando and Roberto,

as to whether somebody threw it from a plane or something.

And Roberto told him, "You can't open a window in a plane."

"It obviously didn't come from a plane."

It is the science of humans being here.

>> I was in a five-star hotel.

I had water.

I had grass to eat.

And I realized what simple things we need to be happy.

And how we demand lots more than what we need in life.

>> The precise moment that I really knew that I was going to survive,

I was looking towards the west,

and Roberto was looking towards the north.

And Roberto said, "Look, Nando, a man on a horse."

I looked and instantly I saw him.

We started to shout both of us.

Somebody is looking at us.

It's a human being.

We couldn't communicate,

but he looked at us because, obviously,

he couldn't believe that there were two guys so high up in the mountains.

>> It was very difficult to communicate across this river

because of the noise of this raging river.

You can't cross it.

There's just no way.

There's no question.

If you get down, it'll take you down and you'll drown.

>> The night came and we lost sight of him.

And we spent all that night with Roberto,

I remember, talking and saying,

"Okay, look we are near civilization, so maybe tomorrow we'll get help."

"I feel so happy now."

"How do you feel."

All those things.

And we have to get help for the other guys.

The next morning at around 5:30, 6:00,

we saw a small fire on the shore --

at the edge of the river on the other side of the river.

I was stronger than Roberto, so I went down.

The sound of the water was so high that we couldn't understand eachohter.

And this guy with great intelligence and common sense,

he got a small stone, put a piece of paper around

it, tied it with a string, and pencil and threw it across the river.

That's when I wrote that message.

I come from that plane that fell into the mountains.

I'm Uruguayan.

We have been walking for ten days.

I have a friend up there that is injured.

In the plane there is still 14 injured people.

We have to get out of here quickly,

and we do not know how.

We don't have any food.

We are weak.

When are you going to come and fetch us.

Please, we can't even walk.

Where are we?

For me the most important part is the last sentence.

"Where are we?"

We didn't have a clue where we were.

We knew we were in the Andes in South America,

but that was our reference point.

Where are we?

I threw it back to him.

He reads it.

He looks at me.

Reads it again.

He says, "Okay, wait, wait."

And he got on his horse,

but before he threw me a little piece of bread and cheese

that I brought to Roberto.

It took him ten hours to go by horseback to the nearest civilization.

When he got there, he got five or six military men on horseback from a military post.

And he climbed back, and when they come back,

we were so happy.

You were leaving behind horror.

You were leaving behind death.

And you embraced life again.

And suddenly reality started to shoot on us,

when we saw that journalist and news men from nowhere

started to appear in the middle of the mountains.

>> Nando lost his family.

And I think this was very devastating for him.

>> They gave us some food.

They gave us warm soup.

I remember and things like that.

And then they displayed them up,

and said, "Where are the other guys?"

And I draw a circle on the map.

And they said that's Argentina.

You couldn't have crossed the Andes on foot.

And I said, "Look, I don't know if that's Argentina, but I know that they are there."

>> The distance they covered from where the fuselage was to Los Maitenes

was about 37 miles.

We measured it with GPS.

The problem with that number is that these are really long miles.

>> What Nando and Roberto did still kind of blows me away.

With literally no training.

No skills.

No knowledge of what they were doing and no equipment.

Somehow they survived.

>> I had to retrace the expedition.

I think it's just a really inspiring example of the human spirit --

Of what humans can do in extreme conditions when there's that strong will

>> We heard the Uruguayan Ambassador on the radio that it was official.

That Canessa and Parrado had appeared.

Imagine that moment -- what it was like to hear the names: Parrado and Canessa.

To hear these names was the end of our story -- the end of our pain.

The end of our fight.

It was the beginning of our freedom.

That was what we had fought for.

Imagine what that was like?

We were like crazy men around the radio.

It still gives me goose bumps just thinking about it today --

hundreds of times and 37 years after it happened still it makes me emotional.

>> And that's when they called for helicopters.

And when the helicopters arrived, this thing happened.

Where are the guys?

And I drew the same circle,

and the pilot looked at me and said,

"Look, I will never find them."

"You have to come with us."

So they took me, put me on the helicopter, .

strapped me with seat belts, headphones, a microphone, and we took off.

The pilot kept telling to me,

"I don't have enough power."

"I'm too high for this type of helicopter."

"Are you sure?"

"Are you sure you're not lost?"

No, I'm not lost.

I know where I am.

I remember the helicopter shaking,

and the Plexiglas from the front vibrating.

It looked like it was coming off the rivets.

The engine of the helicopter was at full power.

And finally we crossed over the mountains and then the pilot threw the helicopter down.

I said, "Look, it's there."

"It's there."

And the fuselage was white on white.

Until we were about 300 yards away,

he couldn't see it.

And suddenly he says, "I see."

"I see."

>> Two of my friends jumped into the helicopter,

and I grabbed Daniel with my hands,

and the pilot took off.

He said, "How many do we have?"

I said, "three, three."

I said, "Close the doors."

"Close the doors."

So I went there.

I closed the door.

I closed the other door.

And I said, "Give me a break, please."

These friends of mine embraced me and they were crying and shouting so happy.

You know, I remember those smiles so big.

That was a wonderful moment, you know.

>> My father called me, and he was crying.

He said, "Nando is alive."

"Nando is alive."

I was sitting in my bed,

and hugging me there was my father crying.

And he was saying, "You were right."

"He's alive."

So, that was the way that I knew that Roberto and Nando had appeared.

>> They were asking in Uruguay to give forth a list of the survivors.

If it's for Uruguay, then I can give it to the country.

And then I went about uncovering the names of the boys.

And I started Fernando Parrado, Antonio Vizintin, until I came to the name of my son.

And it's evident that I had to hold the phone down because of all the force of that name,

and the surprise and the marvelous feeling of knowing that my son was alive.

>> I got to the door of the this old hospital,

and I was shouting that I wanted to go in.

Nobody could stop me.

And he was very skinny, but so beautiful.

And he held my father in his arms,

and he pulled him out of the floor.

He was strong.

>> People ask me "At that moment did you felt guilt because you were alive?"

We celebrated life.

We didn't have any guilt.

What kind of guilt?

>> An airplane with 45 people aboard --

most of them members of the rugby team from Uruguay crashed on the flight

from Uruguay crashed on a flight from Montevideo, Uruguay to Santiago, Chile.

There was a search, but it was abandoned several weeks ago.

Those mountains are a graveyard for airplanes.

It is 18,000 feet high.

They're icy cold, and continuing snow makes visibility there just about zero.

All those aboard were given up for dead.

And then today the incredible happened.

Two starving, exhausted survivors who had hiked for ten days found their way to civilization.

>> I think that the biggest psychiatrist in the world

would never find an answer to the human behavior there.

>> Would I have done the same thing?

When it came out in American, everyone in New York was saying:

How would I have behaved if I'd been in that situation?

>> In Spain, for instance, the first press release had titles such as --

"The cannibals have returned."

>> We had survived on the flesh of our friends,

and we didn't want to hurt any feelings from the families which were our families too.

>> These survivors in the most appalling conditions didn't turn into savages.

They sustained one another.

They kept their faith in god, and god would bring some of them out of it.

I think it helped them enormously that when they were still in Chile in hospital

a priest came by and said you did the right thing.

And the Catholic Church immediately said they did the right thing.

The survivors had decided at this point that they wanted a book to be written.

And they formed a committee to choose the publisher and the author.

>> They were very afraid of what kind of book would be written.

Inevitably, the truth showed that some of the survivors had performed in a heroic manner.

And other in a less heroic manner.

But I felt that there was no point in writing a book unless you were going to tell the truth.

The picture of Nando builds up in the book as someone exceptional,

and in the end a person who saved them all, comes from the other characters.

It doesn't come from Nando himself.

>> It's very strange because we came out of the mountain with a same dreams.

I had my house, my family, everything.

And when he went to his house, his pictures were at the fireplace with the dead members of his family.

>> My father, being very pragmatic, said, "He's not coming back."

So, he gave away my clothes to people, and he sold my motorcycle.

And he went into a very difficult mental state.

>> He lovede

>> He loved my mother and my sister very, very much.

He cried for them until the end of his life.

>> Nando tried to follow the normal dreams of a young guy.

He was completely lost.

He didn't know what to do or where to go.

And so I don't know if he was tougher when he was out of the mountain,

or when he was up there in the mountains.

>> The Andes made him stronger because he lost his mother and his sister.

And later, afterwards, he continued with such an amazing force of will

that really isn't able to be expressed or understood.

>> When I came back from the Andes I said,

"Look, what's the most important thing in your life before that?"

Before the plane crash, my father was the president of the Uruguayan Racing Drivers Association.

So, he took me to the races since I was very young.

So, I loved the sound, the cards, the racing.

And I wanted to race, so I started racing.

Because I thought it was important for me.

It has nothing to do with the danger, with fear.

No, it has to do with what I felt I should do in life.

I know maybe I'm going to face some dangerous today.

I don't look back and say, "Well, I had so much fear."

"I don't want to have fear anymore."

The main reason in my will of going out of there was seeing my family and my father again.

So, I thought that naming the highest mountain we climbed this name,

and it was kind of a gift to him.

Even though he's gone through this tragic event and lost his mother and his sister,

he decided that rather than grieve and completely shut down why not revel in life?

Why not revel in the fact that I survived this.

And if anything I think he kicked it up a notch,

and said, "I'm going to take advantage of this life I have,

and do the things I love rather than not do anything at all."

>> And through cars, I found a beautiful girl.

I married her.

We have been married for more than 30 years.

I was blessed the moment I decided I had to race cars.

>> Two years ago, we all went to the crash site together.

It was an incredible experience.

And I think that in some sense, it was a way for him to show his daughters where they were born.

Because had Nando not walked out -- not done what he did,

they never would have been born.

So, it was a way of showing them the beginning of their lives.

>> I have had a fantastic life.

I have a fantastic family.

I'm doing what I love, which is appreciated in the astonishing fact of being alive.

Every day.

Every single breath.

>> We went back to Chile with Roberto and Gustavo and our families,

and we were driving through this dirt roads, climbing the mountains, and suddenly

we see a man on a horse coming down the mountain on the side of this small road.

And we drive past him and it was Sergio.

We recognized him.

So, we stopped the car, and Roberto and I run towards him.

I say, "Hey sir."

"Please stop."

"Stop."

"We are lost."

"Can you help us?"

"Can you tell us where we should go to?"

And he looked at us and started crying.

I have that photograph of Sergio and the two of us.

35 years later we remember him,

and whenever we can we go and visit him.

>> [Announcer] Ladies and gentleman, please welcome Mr. Nando Parrado.

[Applause]

>> Sometimes it's difficult to speak about ones self, you know,

but it's nice to feel that sometimes you can give something back.

I don't know if I have a message.

I can share what I feel and what I learned,

and what my life has brought me to.

It's hard sometimes, you know.

Life is simpler than than it looks.

For me love is the most important thing in the world.

The love for our families kept us alive.

You know I would also like to honor all of the people that were on that plane,

because instead of Nando here, Marcelo could be here,

Guido, Arturo, Alexis, Gaston.

Why am I here and not them.

That's one of the questions we'll never have an answer.

I say, "Susie, I wish, that you were here."

"That we never would have boarded that airplane."

"I send you the biggest and warmest embrace I could give where ever you are."

And "You are always in my heart."