Alive Expedition

Explore Beyond has developed the amazing Alive Expedition. This expedition will take place in the middle of the Andes mountain range on the border between Argentina and Chile. The expedition is based on the airplane crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 and the heroic story of the survivors.

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, also known less formally as the Andes flight disaster, was a chartered airline flight carrying 45 rugby team members and associates that crashed in the Andes on Friday October 13th 1972. The last of the 16 remaining survivors were rescued on December 23rd 1972, 72 days after the crash occurred. More than a quarter of the passengers died in the crash and several survivors of the initial impact had died of cold and injuries by the next day. Twenty-nine passengers were alive several days following the accident but the number of survivors was further reduced by an avalanche that swept over their wreckage shelter.