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Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by…
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Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (original 1974; edition 2002)

by Piers Paul Read (Author)

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2,359646,458 (3.96)94
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, 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)
Member:MHanover10
Title:Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors
Authors:Piers Paul Read (Author)
Info:Avon (2002), Edition: Reissue, 318 pages
Collections:Your library, Currently reading, Wishlist, To read, Read but unowned, Favorites
Rating:****
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Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read (1974)

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» See also 94 mentions

English (58)  Spanish (2)  Italian (1)  Catalan (1)  French (1)  Dutch (1)  All languages (64)
Showing 1-5 of 58 (next | show all)
This is the gripping, dramatic, grim and thought-provoking account of a group of young Uruguayan rugby players and their family and friends stranded in the snow capped Andes after their plane crashed when the pilot misjudged his location and wrecked his aircraft one day in October 1972. A number of passengers and crew perished in the crash itself or died of their injuries shortly thereafter. Even so there were some 29 survivors at this point of the original 45 passengers and crew. The survivors had very little food to share among them while waiting to be rescued, and soon they faced the inevitability of death .....until they took the shocking but necessarily life-saving step of eating the bodies of their dead friends and fellow passengers and crew. The account of these events is very detailed and entirely matter of fact and unsensationalised. It would be easy to be appalled and disgusted by this, but without this recourse, there have been no eventual survivors at all. In the end, after the deaths of 8 in an avalanche, and a further few from a combination of injuries and malnutrition, 16 of the boys eventually made it, after two of them managed to find a way out of the barren area where they were stranded by scaling a mountain, and raised the alarm. This is a great and almost spiritual account of reportage, written only two years after the events from the accounts of the survivors. ( )
  john257hopper | Oct 17, 2022 |
One of those narratives that you just can't shake out of your head. ( )
  Joannerdrgs | Sep 22, 2022 |
8427938284
  archivomorero | Jun 27, 2022 |
Not for the faint of heart

Wow! What a heartbreaking tale. This was very graphic at times retelling what these young men had to do to survive. A very serious read.
At times it was very confusing who the author was referencing because he would refer to them with first name, last name, sometimes even a nickname or combo all within the same pargraph. ( )
  NicholeReadsWithCats | Jun 17, 2022 |
It is a hard book to read and a hard book to put down. ( )
  paworkingmom | Jun 5, 2022 |
Showing 1-5 of 58 (next | show all)
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Piers Paul Readprimary authorall editionscalculated
Koning, DolfTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends.
—John 15;13
Dedication
We decided that this book should be written and the truth known because of the many rumors about what happened in the cordillera. We dedicate this story of our suffering and solidarity to those friends who died and to their parents who, at the time when we most needed it, received us with love and understanding.
First words
Introduction: On October 12, 1972, a Fairchild F-227 of the Uruguayan Air Force, chartered by an amateur rugby team, set off from Montevideo in Uruguay for Santiago in Chile.
Uruguay, one of the smallest countries on the South American continent, was founded on the eastern bank of the River Plate as a buffer state between the emerging giants of Brazil and Argentina.
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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, 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.

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