Roberto Canessa: The tale of one 1972 Andes plane crash survivor and what the ultimate survival guide taught him

THE survivor of the 1972 plane crash was the one who suggested to resort to cannibalism to stay alive.

Roberto Canessa, 70, trekked through the mountains for ten days in search for help for the survivors.

Who is Roberto Canessa?

Roberto Canessa is one of the 16 survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crashed in the Andes mountains on 13 October 1972.

Only 19 at the time, Canessa was a second-year medical school student in Uruguay.

Along with another medical student - Gustavo Zerbino - he assisted the injured during the crash, bandaging fractured bones with strips of clothing and cooling them in the snow. 

Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa had hiked more than 37 miles in 10 days to find help.

They volunteered to make the trek on December 12, because it was clear the most sickly survivors would soon die.

Roberto Canessa was also the reason the rest survived the starvation as he suggested they eat the bodies of the dead.

How long were the Alive from Society survivors in the Andes?

The remaining survivors had to endure 72 days of extreme hardships, including starvation, freezing temperatures and avalanches.

Surrounded by glacier - with no protection gear or view of the horizon- the party of survivors chose to wait until summer to make their escape from 11,718 feet above sea level.

From the onset, the survivors had very little food. All they had consisted of eight chocolate bars, three small jars of jam, a tin of mussels, a tin of almonds and several bottles of wine.

Their small stock dwindled quickly and they resorted to eating parts of the airplane, such as the leather on the outside of the seats.

This made them sicker.

It was then that Roberto Canessa suggested that they eat their friends' remains in order to survive.