Andes Museum 1972 (Museo Andes 1972) Tours and Activities

The Andes Museum 1972 (Museo Andes 1972) honors the 29 Uruguayans who died in the 1972 Andes flight disaster, in which their plane crashed in the Andes Mountains en route to Santiago de Chile from Montevideo. The story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, depicted in the 1993 movie Alive, has been dubbed the Miracle of the Andes in South America, for the 16 people who survived the incident.

The charter plane was carrying 45 people, including the entire Old Christians Club rugby union team from Montevideo, which was headed to Santiago for a match. Over a quarter of the passengers died, while several others perished soon thereafter due to the harsh conditions on the mountains when they crashed. The 16 survivors had little food and no heat while awaiting rescue and resorted to eating the dead passengers when they learned from radio news reports that the search for them had been abandoned.

Seventy-two days after the crash, two of the survivors set out on a 10-day trek across the mountains and found a local Chilean arriero, a person who transports goods via pack animals. After giving the survivors some food, the arriero got word back to officials, alerting them of the survivors who still needed rescuing.