Nando Parado SurvivorEssay Preview: Nando Parado SurvivorReport this essayOn Oct 1972 Nando Parado, a member of the Old Christians, a rugby team from Uruguay, boarded a plane to play a game in bordering Chile. His mother Zenia and sister Susana were also accompanying him on the trip. Unfortunately, the plane would never make its intended destination. And Parado would have to experience cannibalism, an avalanche and a 10 day hike through the Andes mountains.
Nando Parado was born in Montevideo, Uruguay and was the son of Selaro and Zenia Parado. He was the older brother of Susana Parado and younger brother of Graciela Parado. He attended the Stella Maris and showed excellence in sports, particularly in the sport of rugby.Due to inclement mountain weather the plane could not fly directly over the Andes, to Santiago, Chile. Instead, the pilots had to fly south, parallel to the Andes, then turn west towards the mountains, before finally turning north and initiating descent to Santiago after passing Curico.
The atmosphere inside the plane was alive and festive, Parado and the other passengers were having good time laughing and passing the ball around, this however would soon come to an end. The pilot notified air controllers in Santiago that he was over Curicó, Chile, and was cleared to descend. That proved to be a fatal error. Since the pass was covered by the clouds, the pilots had to rely on the usual time required to cross the pass. However, they failed to take into account strong headwinds that slowed the plane and increased the time required to complete the crossing. They were not as far west as they thought they were and, as a result, the turn and descent were initiated too soon, before the plane had passed through the mountains, leading to a controlled flight into terrain.
The descent of the Boeing 747 had a large, circular area of about 30 meters in radius. About 20 km above the ground, it is hard to tell where the aircraft went to. As it disappeared, a trail of debris became known on the fly. This could be the cockpit recording of the pilots’ movement if they were going back. The aircraft was still in use by the time the plane crashed around 10:40 on the 24th March 1990. This record-breaking accident took place a mere hours after the 9/11 attacks on New York City (which left nearly a thousand people dead). Since it is the only event that could directly determine the exact location of the wreckage, this was the most thorough investigation it has taken in seven years, and it is believed the plane was heading to that particular region, which is roughly the distance from the airport to the U.S. Postal Service. The NTSB has identified the most-watched aircraft of the crash investigation, which is expected to be done early next year.
Aftermath
According to the U.S. Secret Service, that plane came into service at approximately 9:08pm on 23 March 1990, although this is now known to have been one of three aircraft that were found to have collided during an investigation into the flight by the Boeing 757 into the Hudson River in New York’s Lower East Side.
No further information is available about the fate of the other 857 or the fate of the other 983 or whether the other 761 aircraft that were also crashed during the crash were on a search ground.
A few weeks after the accident, a new law was passed that required airlines to conduct thorough searches for any evidence of suspicious activity before they take flights from one of their airports. This would apply to all airline flights in which a plane was found to have been hijacked or damaged during an investigation. This was followed by the change in procedures at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) by removing the two-week search period starting at 9:00pm on 24 March 1990. By the start of the search period at least three airline captains were required to take the passengers out of the aircraft to allow them to be removed: Patrick Papp, vice president, cargo and handling, and Thomas E. Haines, vice president, interior and emergency systems.
Flight 979 also continued on as normal. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the passengers did not report the plane. Some witnesses said the planes had no engines, so the FAA issued an emergency order directing all flight attendants to immediately return to operations, with only the pilots to depart the aircraft at 2am on 24 March 2094.
Dipping into the cloud cover while still over the mountains, the Fairchild soon crashed on an unnamed peak (later named the glacier of tears). The plane clipped the peak at 13,800 ft, neatly severing the right wing, and tail. The plane then clipped a second peak which severed the left wing and left the plane as just a fuselage flying through the air. The fuselage hit the ground and slid down a steep mountain slope before finally coming to rest in a snow bank, ll,800ft above sea level. The last thing that Parado remembered was the roof over his head being torn off.
Of the 45 people on the plane, 12 died in the crash or shortly after, including Parados mother; another five had died by the next morning. Parado himself was left unconscious at the time, after being thrown from his seat to the front of the plane. His face was badly bruised, leaving him barely recognisable. When he was discovered by other survivors, they initially thought that he was dead, and they placed him outside in the snow near the fuselage with other dead passengers, in order to make room inside for survivors. The remaining 27 faced severe difficulties in surviving high in the freezing mountains. Many had suffered injuries from the crash, including broken legs from the aircrafts seats piling together. The survivors lacked equipment such as cold-weather clothing and footwear suitable for the area and mountaineering goggles to prevent snow blindness.
During this time Parado was safely sealed off from the harshness of the weather, as the pile of dead bodies around and on top of him kept his unconscious body at a stable enough temperature protecting him for 3 days. Once people noticed that Parado was showing signs movement they carried him into the fuselage. Two of his team mates, Roberto Canessa and Gustav Zerbino, explained to him what had happened and that his mother had died. Although he was devastated at the death of his mother, he realised that there was nothing he could do for her and turned to aid his injured sister. During that night his sister died peacefully beside him.
Search parties from three countries looked for the missing plane. However, since the plane was white, it blended in with the snow, making it virtually invisible from the sky. The initial search was cancelled after eight days. The survivors