Survivor Of Notorious 1972 Plane Crash Who Resorted To Cannibalism Recalls Last Days Of Ordeal

A photograph of the infamous 1972 plane crash in the Andes has resurfaced on social media.

The chartered aircraft smashed into the Andes between Chile and Argentina on October 13, 1972 and 16 of the passengers survived with Dr Roberto Canessa, Nando Parrado and Antonio Vizint trekking for ten days to find help.

Those who stayed behind were forced to eat the corpses of their friends to survive.

Appearing on This Morning, José Luis 'Coche' Inciarte remembered the trauma of the event, saying he had to 'make a great effort of energy and mind' to turn to cannibalism but says it 'doesn't live with him'.

"The story doesn't live with me," he said.

"I live my life as I imagined in those days and when I am having problems I think about the Andes and the problem seems to be very little against the others, so it helps me, but it's not part of my life."

There were 45 passengers on the flight when it hit the mountain range which was shrouded in mist at the time.

Twelve of the men died on impact and another five died in the first few hours.

One more passenger died a week later and an avalanche killed eight more passengers on day 17.

The survivors had little food and no heat but had access to a radio, which informed them the search for them had been abandoned.

This was when they turned to eat the other dead passengers who had been preserved by the snow.

"There was no other option if you wanted to stay alive," said Coche.

"We made a meeting between all and we argued whether to do it or not to do it, not to do it seemed to mean to die, everybody decided to eat.

"When you went to take a piece of flesh, the body of your friend, their frozen body, the hand doesn't obey and you have to make a great effort of energy and mind to make your arm obey, and then it obeys, not immediately.

"It was the same with opening mouth to put it inside the mouth and swallow."

Canessa, Parrado and Vizint were able to find a Chilean herdsman, Sergio Catalán, who gave them food and called the authorities.

When asked whether he thought he would make it out alive, Coche said: "Most days I thought I was going to go out from there.

"I had a great confidence with them to reach some place and they did it.

"But other days, in those terrible days that we were waiting for them, I [thought] that they were not going to reach any place, so I put my date of dying on December 24th."