Is the plane supposed to be flying so close to the mountains?

That was the last thing a passenger of Uruguayan Air Force flight 571 said before the plane crashed into the Andes mountains.

The plane cared 45 passengers and crew, most of whom were members of an Uruguayan rugby team, a few friends and family, and one woman who bought a seat to attend your daughter's wedding.

It was supposed to be a two-hour flight to Chile for a rugby match turned into an unbelievably harrowing and horrifying ordeal that would test the passenger's physical and mental strength and their will to survive.

And many would not survive. For those who didn't die in the initial crash, they would suffer for up to 72 days and what would become known as the Valley of Tears.

In the end, only 16 of the original 45 would come out alive.

The passengers of Flight 571 faced extreme weather, avalanches, a variety of injuries, sickness, sun blindness, thirst, and starvation, social fear, they were forced to eat the bodies of their friends and family who lay into snow next to them if they wanted to entertain any chance of continuing to exist.

Tragedy after tragedy struck the survivors until two of them set out on foot on day 60 determined to either hike out of the Andes or die trying to find help.

Nando Parado and Roberto Canessa, the group's expeditionaries, would save their friends from certain death, but they aren't the only heroes in this story.

Every passenger played a role in the group's survival from organizing and rationing food, butchering bodies, delegating chores to keeping people spirits up with prayers and stories.

What the surviving 16 men would go through was something very few people will ever experience in their lifetimes.

The true story of these passengers has provided a case study on modern cannibalism, mental and physical toughness, teamwork and desperate situations, and the human survival instinct and will to live.

These survivors have said that although the human flesh gave their bodies just enough energy to survive the mountains, their desire to live, to see their families again, to tell their story to others, to help each other, that is what really got them out alive.

Could you do it? Could you survive being stranded amongst the freezing, barren peaks of the Andes Mountains?

Would you be able to eat your best friends if that was your only survival option?

Would you try to hike out yourself in sub-zero temperatures with no equipment, no protective gear, rather than wait for rescue?

After hearing the story of the miracle of the Andes, I'm guessing you'll feel a huge amount of admiration for the survivors and what they went through.

During this story though, you'll probably often find still disgusted and horrified.

Nice you did.

Settling for one hell of a survival tale on today's, could you actually do this?

Even if your life depended on it, addition of Time Suck.

This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck.

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