Confluencia de Rio Azufre y Arroyo del Vulcanos

Chile / Libertador General Bernardo OHiggins / Rengo /
 Upload a photo
Some may wonder why it took 8 days for Nando and Canessa to reach this point only 11 miles as the crow flies from the fuselage. It must be remembered they were travelling after one of the heaviest snowfall winters remembered in the previous 50 years. And most of what you see on this map until they reached this confluence at 4500 feet was all still covered in very deep and infirm softened snows. Further the first 4 days were consumed travelling only 3 and 1/2 lateral miles over a 14,600 foot pass climbing 2,600 feet and descending even further with heavily laden improvised packs, while at altitude diminished elevations and in severely mal-nourished condition. Try it sometime and see how well you do . . . . .
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   34°47'58"S   70°28'52"W

Comments

  • One thing to bear in mind is that at 18,000 feet the atmosphere is only 1/2 as dense at sea level, and therefore oxygen availability is cut in half and exertions are correspondingly more exhausting. Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_pressure
  • It's been said before (and I agree) that the real reason anyone survived was their young age and excellent physical conditioning as college rugby players. Any average commercial flight could have expected to have maybe a handful of similarly young and physically fit passengers instead of 90% of them. They all would have died within a week.
  • Interesting, here reading from my Santiago de Chile, it was a terrible history, but heroic.
This article was last modified 15 years ago