The Snow Society: Andes Plane Crash Mystery
The Snow Society: Andes Plane Crash Mystery. The Snow Society, a film directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, will compete on March 10 for the Oscar for ‘Best Foreign Film’.
By Megan Sauer
On January 23, The Snow Society, a Netflix production, obtained its Oscar nomination in the ‘Best Foreign Film’ category.
Three weeks after its premiere, the feature film based on the novel of the same name by Pablo Vierci remains in the conversation of viewers about the details of the plane that fell in the Andes mountain range.
Among the questions that have arisen about the crash in which only 16 of the 45 people traveling in it survived is the reason why the crew could not avoid the accident.
Through a voice-over, Numa Tucartti, one of the passengers who survived a few weeks after the accident, narrates the events before and after the flight that would arrive in Santiago de Chile.
Enzo Vogrincic , Uruguayan actor who plays Numa, was the one who played one of the most endearing characters in the film directed by JA Bayona . Through his story, he takes viewers into the moments of survival of the crew members.
However, some technical aspects are left out of the story, as the film adaptation focuses on a moving approach to the memories of the passengers who died and those who remained trapped in the mountain range for 72 days.
What caused the crash of the Uruguayan air force plane in the Andes?
Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 departed on October 12, 1972 from Montevideo, Uruguay. There were 45 people on board : 40 of them were passengers (19 rugby players and 21 family and friends); the remaining five people were pilots.
The destination of the crew was Santiago de Chile, a city where the young people of the Old Christians Club team would face the British team of the Old Boys Club.
However, weather conditions prevented the flight from reaching its destination in one ‘pull’; Therefore, the experienced pilot Julio César Ferradas decided to stop and make a stopover that night in Mendoza, Argentina.
The next day the situation had not improved significantly, however the captain resumed the flight.
According to the accident records, on October 13 at 2:30 p.m. Ferradas took off but as soon as they began to fly over the Andes, a thick bank of clouds affected visibility almost completely.
Despite the difficulties, Julius Caesar remained attentive to the information provided to him by both aeronautical technology and that shared with him by the control tower.
According to a report on the Britannica site , a miscalculation by Ferradas told him that they had already surpassed the Andes mountain range; Therefore, at 3:21 p.m., the pilot asked the control tower for permission to descend and prepare for landing.
It is worth mentioning that visibility was still zero when Julius Caesar made the request. But the surprise was enormous when they surpassed the cloud bank and the crew realized that they were still flying over the immense mountain range.
However, the plane was already 3,500 meters high, very close to some crests of the mountain range. Despite the maneuvers that Ferradas and his team tried to carry out to ascend as quickly as possible, the ship collided with one of the mountains.
According to the testimony of Eduardo Strauch, one of the survivors, for the documentary The Journey Without a Destination, the passengers began to see the peaks closer and closer, and just a few minutes later they felt the first turbulence that would lead to the fatal crash.
“Shortly after, an imposing shaking began to be felt, the peaks getting closer and closer, and the truth is that I began to get terrified.”
Seven people died in the impact against the ridge. After the accident, the plane’s fuselage stopped at the Glacier of Tears, the name that would be given to that area of the mountain range where the survivors remained for more than two months awaiting rescue.
Over the following weeks, several more people would die from cold, hunger, dehydration, the avalanche that buried the fuselage, and injuries from the crash.
The expedition that Fernando Parrado, Roberto Canessa and Antonio José ‘Tintín’ undertook to seek help was the prelude to what would become known as the ‘Christmas Miracle.
It was on December 22, 1972 when the rest of the survivors watched as a pair of helicopters approached the area to take them back home.
