A SURVIVOR of the tragic 1972 Andes plane crash has revealed he was proud of his decision to eat his dead friends as it kept him alive.
Eduardo Strauch, 76, was one of the 16 survivors who made it out of the horrifying ordeal after being forced to make some gut-wrenching choices in order to stay alive.
PREMIERE SPEAKERSEduardo Strauch, 76, has revealed he was proud of the choice to eat his dead friends as it kept him alive after the Andes plane crash[/caption]
basecampmediaThe remaining survivors resorted to eating the flesh of those who had already died[/caption]
SpuppliedEduardo said despite his body rejecting the flesh at first he didn’t have any problems mentally with what they were doing[/caption]
Eduardo told The Sun: “My mind was okay, I made all the process and I didn’t have any conscience problem at all, but my body rejected it the first time.
“It was something unconscious because of the culture and all the taboos.”
After spending 72 days in the desolate, snowy mountains Eduardo admitted “it wasn’t easy the first time” the group decided they had to cut up the flesh of the dead bodies inside the wrecked plane.
But stomaching the taste of a human body wasn’t even the hard bit.
The brave survivor said it actually wasn’t that bad to eat despite the horror circumstances.
He continues: “It doesn’t taste, it’s like eating a piece of rice.”
A second survivor Roberto Canessa was the man who first suggested they should eat their friends’ remains in order to survive.
In his book, I Had to Survive, Roberto said: “We knew the answer, but it was too terrible to contemplate.
“For a long time, we agonized. I went out in the snow and prayed to God for guidance. Without His consent, I felt I would be violating the memory of my friends; that I would be stealing their souls.
“We wondered whether we were going mad even to contemplate such a thing. Had we turned into brute savages? Or was this the only sane thing to do? Truly, we were pushing the limits of our fear.”
Roberto was just 19-years-old when he made the choice to do the unthinkable.
Businessman Ramon Sabella, 70, also recalled the harrowing decision he had to make alongside his friends.
Sabella told The Sunday Times: “Of course, the idea of eating human flesh was terrible, repugnant.
“It was hard to put in your mouth. But we got used to it.”
Sabella said those who survived the initial crash landing made a pact that those who lived could eat the ones who died from the exposure.
He said: “We promised each other that if one of us died, the others were obliged to eat their bodies.”
He added: “In a sense, our friends were some of the first organ donors in the world – they helped to nourish us and kept us alive.”
The Andes plane crash
On October 13, 1972, a plane carrying 45 passengers ended up 43miles away from the city it was supposed to land in.
Lieutenant-Colonel Dante Héctor Lagurara initiated the plane’s descent, unaware of the fact that they were still flying over the treacherous Andes.
As the plane came down it struck a mountain and both the wings were sheared off as the remaining shell slid down a glacier at 220mph for a staggering 2,379ft before it smashed into ice.
The Uruguayan Air Force Flight had been carrying 19 members of the Old Christians Club Rugby Union team and their families, friends and fans.
Three crew members and nine passengers died immediately as another 17 died from injuries and suffocation due to an avalanche that occurred days later.
After 10 days, the remaining survivors learned from a radio on the plane that the search for them had been called off.
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 before they decided on eating human flesh.
EPARoberto Canessa was just 19-years-old when he first suggested the group eat the dead bodies[/caption]
APRamon Sabella said the group decided they would eat each other after one died if they needed to[/caption]
The survivors spent 72 days in the AndesRex