Could you eat human flesh to survive?

Several of the survivors of a plane crash in the Andes mountains make an emotional trip back to the crash site in 2006. The survivors share their experiences during that unimaginable ordeal and their feelings towards those events some 35 years later.

Time has not diminished the drama of the tale of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes in late 1972. Of the 45 people on the plane at the time of the crash, 16 came down from the mountain about 70 days later with a saga of survival not easily forgotten. Theirs is a journey born of tragedy and human endurance. It was an exercise in terror for those on the plane, as it slid down the mountain, before finally coming to rest in a valley of snow high up in the Andes.

Of the 45 people on board, 32 had initially survived the crash. Some, however, had sustained serious injuries and died soon after, while six others died buried in an avalanche that covered the entire plane where they slept. Moreover, with little warm clothing, the survivors were exposed to the extreme cold of the night air, high up in the Andes.

By their tenth day in the Andes, the limited food supplies had virtually run out. Starving, they voiced what they all knew to be true, but had not dared to voice before. They had to eat, or they would die. The only thing left for them to eat, however, was deeply repugnant to them. Digging deep into their conservative, religious souls, they found a way to justify actions that would have them transcend a new reality. Their fallen comrades would now provide the means of their sustenance. All eventually succumbed to this only means of survival.