The #1 New York Times bestseller and the true story behind the film: A rugby team resorts to the unthinkable after a plane crash in the Andes. Spirits were high when the Fairchild F-227 took off from Mendoza, Argentina, and headed for Santiago, Chile. On board were forty-five people, including an amateur rugby team from Uruguay and their friends and family. The skies were clear that Friday, … clear that Friday, October 13, 1972, and at 3:30 p.m., the Fairchild’s pilot reported their altitude at 15,000 feet. But one minute later, the Santiago control tower lost all contact with the aircraft. For eight days, Chileans, Uruguayans, and Argentinians searched for it, but snowfall in the Andes had been heavy, and the odds of locating any wreckage were slim.
Ten weeks later, a Chilean peasant in a remote valley noticed two haggard men desperately gesticulating to him from across a river. He threw them a pen and paper, and the note they tossed back read: “I come from a plane that fell in the mountains . . .”
Sixteen of the original forty-five passengers on the F-227 survived its horrific crash. In the remote glacial wilderness, they camped in the plane’s fuselage, where they faced freezing temperatures, life-threatening injuries, an avalanche, and imminent starvation. As their meager food supplies ran out, and after they heard on a patched-together radio that the search parties had been called off, it seemed like all hope was lost. To save their own lives, these men and women not only had to keep their faith, they had to make an impossible decision: Should they eat the flesh of their dead friends?
A remarkable story of endurance and determination, friendship and the human spirit, Alive is the dramatic bestselling account of one of the most harrowing quests for survival in modern times.
more
The story of how these people survived and then did the impossible, by saving themselves after they were written off for dead is beyond inspiring.
Having gone through numerous survival training exercises and also being in the Special Forces unit that worked at high altitude in the winter, I have some understanding of what they went through, but their circumstances were so incredibly difficult. The hard choices they made. The ability to persevere in the face of grief and overwhelming odds is something everything should read to understand the power of the human spirit!
Makes me wonder if I would have survived under those circumstances and how important people with good leadership skills are in a disaster
One of my all-time favorites. Just heart-wrenching. Because it’s true, there is no “fun” in this read, but there is hope and determination. A classic.
This book is not for the squeamish of the judgemental. However, it is a great story that explains what happened in this tragic true story. The book explores what humans are willing to do to survive and the character and different reactions of those involved in this tragic event. It was an interesting read and one of the more memorable books that I read in 2019.
An older real-life adventure survival story I read long ago, but still remember vividly. The haunting aspect of this trip regarding what the plane survivors went through to just keep themselves alive makes for a horror novel-like read. Recommend for all adult readers.
Put in real life perspective of the horrible details of resorting to cannibalism to stay alive, but a little more than I could stomach in areas; also on the nuances of how the personalities interacted. But if you ever want to imagine what it would take to stay alive in such horrible conditions, this is it.
The book was hard to put down once you started reading it. Very intense.
I read this book many years ago, and since it had been decades since then I decided to read it again. The impact that this book had on me only increased in size and scope. From the initial crash to the many disasters that followed these boys {and they were just boys} kept their faith in God and each other. The degree of human suffering is beyond anything that most people could endure. When faced with the unimaginable, they did what had to be done. As it became clear that they would have to face hell to achieve a rescue they did not hesitate to do so. All for the love of their fellow man. This is one book you don’t want to miss. Absolutely remarkable!
First read the story years ago and then revisited the audio version, a great survival story.
This book tells the true story of a rugby team whose plane crashes in the Andes in 1972. The crash high in the snow covered mountains killing some of the 40 travelers immediately. The remaining passengers (many who are between the ages of 19-21) need to figure out how to survive until rescue comes. The pilots are dead, as is the radio, so there is no way to figure out where they are and how to call for help. Many of the passengers are injured – some fatally so.
For 72 days, the remaining members of the passengers are trapped on the mountain. They weren’t traveling with many possessions, and the below freezing temperatures each night and a broken, open plane quickly became a death sentence for many. Out of 40, only 16 survive, and in the end – rescue never came to them. Brave members of the team had to escape the mountain to get help far below where they were staying.
While on the mountain, the passengers were forced to do unthinkable acts in order to stay alive. They worked with what little resources they had to tend to injuries and keep from freezing to death.
This was a pretty good book. The story is incredible – I cannot believe that these passengers were able to survive for as long as they did deep in the Andes mountains. There had been no food on the flight, so they started with only a little food posessions that the passengers had brought themselves. They didn’t have a lot of heavy clothes and the tail of the plane had landed in a completely different place, so they didn’t have a lot of the suitcases. The plane was broken in pieces, so they had a hard time keeping out the cold and the wet. They had a major avalanche that buried people and the plane. They lived through impossible situation after impossible situation. And even after the police gave up the search, their parents never gave up. But it still took the passengers getting themselves off the mountain and noticed or they would have all perished because no plane could find them. They were not able to be spotted from the air.
I recommend this read, and then watching the movie afterwards. Their survival is a tale that should be known.