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Glacier of Tears

Chile / Libertador General Bernardo OHiggins / Rengo /
 valley, glacier, invisible

Lying just within Argentina, this glacier was where Uruguayan Air Force Fairchild 571 crashed in October 1972
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   34°45'54"S   70°14'3"W

Comments

  • palisadesk (guest)
    A memorial cairn with a large cross has been built to honor the dead at the site. Can it be seen in the photograph? It is supposedly located a few hundred feet from the edge of the glacier.
  • Skypilot (guest)
    The 3 memorials are on a low lateral moraine on the south edge of the area you have described. They can be seen as 3 dark dots at the end of the switchbacking trail seen on the zoomed in satelite image. The area you have described is the south facing portion of the bowl or "glacial cirque". However if one zooms out you can also see the other half of this bowl which is northern facing and therefore direct sun-exposed. When they crashed in the early springtime (though still winter up here) these northern facing slopes were covered with 10's of feet of snow, and these are the slopes they tobboganed down and initially climbed while searching for the tail. It is 2,100 vertical feet in 1 mile of surface distance, from the plane's impact point down to where the fuselage came to rest.
This article was last modified 17 years ago