On October 13th 1972, a Uruguayan rugby team known as the Old Christians Club takes a plane to fly to Chile for a special match. Most of them never left the country so this is very exciting, and some family members come along for support. When they start approaching the Andes mountains that separate Chile and Argentina, the plane shakes a couple of times.
A passenger explains that the warm winds from Argentina collide with the cold mountain air, which creates a suction effect that causes slight turbulence. However as the plane keeps going, the turbulence gets worse and suddenly the plane sinks a few miles. The pilots force the plane to keep going through the stormy winds while everyone holds tight and watches their things fall in the corridor.
For a second they see the sun only for the plane to go down again and hit the mountain as it breaks in half. One of the players is blown away with the tail of the plane while the front keeps going until it crashes into the snow, sending all the seats clashing against each other and killing multiple people in various gruesome ways. One by one, the survivors try to let go of the shock and leave their seats to help the passengers who got trapped.
There’s blood everywhere and two med students try to guide those with broken limbs to help them calm down. A few guys check on the pilot, but he dies after just a couple of words and the radio isn’t working. Others try to scream for help to no avail.
The temperature starts dropping fast, especially when night falls, so the survivors huddle together inside the plane, using bodies and bags to try to cover any holes. Many of them can’t stop panicking or crying, so they try their best to comfort each other. In the morning, they discover a few more people have died frozen.
The storm has passed and the sun is strong, so they look around and see nothing but snow and mountains for miles. The group decides they must start working to survive. They take out the seats and debris from the plane so there’s room for everyone to sleep at night, then they move the wounded survivors to the spot where they can receive the most sunlight, prioritizing their care.
Any object they find that may be useful is put away in the suitcases for protection, and all bags and suitcases are searched thoroughly for food. The bodies are moved away from the plane and kept together nearby, covering them in snow to keep them from rotting in hopes they can take them with them when help comes. On the first day they already have eleven dead people, plus the one guy that flew away.
Once they’re organized, they have a little snack, already being careful to ration their food to make it last. Suddenly they hear a plane fly by so they try yelling and waving their arms, but they aren’t found. On their second night, they’re ready to sleep inside the plane, using the clothes from the bags as blankets and covering the hole with the suitcases.
On day three, Nando finally wakes up. He’s been unconscious since they crashed, so they have to explain what happened. His body is in a terrible condition, but he still drags it on the ground to be with his sister, who isn’t doing very well either.
When Nando asks about their mom, they have to inform him she died, which makes him think about his father alone back in Uruguay. Afterward, they use some metal to start melting snow for water. They also make a huge X on the ground with suitcases, hoping they’ll be seen.
When another plane flies by, they try to make the sun reflect on mirrors and keep on yelling. Someone notices the plane’s wings rocked, so it may be a sign they were seen. The next day, they hear the plane again but it’s far away, meaning they’re searching in a different area and didn’t see them.
The group starts to discuss survival options and remembers there were some batteries in the tail, so they should go out to find it. After building some goggles with mirrors and the leather from the seats, four survivors start going up the mountain to find the tail. As soon as they go up a few miles, they discover the crash site can’t be seen from afar because of all the snow.
This means the chances of a rescue plane finding them are almost zero. At that moment they notice some snow coming down, so the four guys decide to return to the crash sight for now. Days start to pass and after a week they run out of food.
There are no animals or plants in the area, and they try some moss from a rock but it tastes absolutely disgusting. Nando mentions that he’ll eat bodies if he must, and soon an argument ensues over whether they should take meat from the dead passengers. Some survivors mention their pee is black and others mention a fear of going to jail for it, but they don’t reach an agreement.
As time continues to pass, they get so desperate for food that they start eating anything they can find like shoelaces and cigarettes. This only causes their pee to get darker. On the eighth day, Nando’s sister passes away, and Coco decides to write a letter to his parents, describing the tragedy but also the beauty of the place.
A few more storms hit them the following days and they manage to survive by hiding inside the plane. However by day twenty-one, half of the group gets tired of the situation and makes an announcement: they give their permission for the others to eat their bodies if they die. Then they go outside and with a piece of glass, they take meat from the bodies so they can feed themselves again.
Seeing this, a few people change their mind and join the group outside to finally eat too, leaving only five people who refuse to become cannibals. The next day they start a proper system to hide most of the bodies while they do the job, that way it’s less gruesome and those who aren’t chopping don’t have to see it. They also start leaving some meat pieces under the sun to warm them up.
Sometime later, they find a new suitcase buried in the snow and are surprised to find a radio inside. After building a rough antenna, they manage to turn it on, only to learn from the news that after 66 search missions, the government has decided not to look for them anymore. The entire group has a breakdown as they lose all hope, and four people give in and eat human meat.
Afterward, three guys decide to go out and look for the plane tail properly this time. The first thing they find is lots of debris and five bodies, including the guy that had been sucked out of the plane during the fall. They keep moving as fast as they can, which is hard because there’s a lot of slipping down while climbing and freezing winds making it hard to breathe.
At night, they huddle together against the side of the mountain and try to sleep with a storm raging around them. They wake up covered in snow but alive, however one of them is blind and the other two are very weak, so they go back by sliding down on a piece of debris. After such a traumatic experience, the last guy agrees to eat human meat too and goes to sleep in tears.
On day seventeen, the group has been dealing with a storm for five days. They stay inside the plane and try to tell stories to keep the mood up, but suddenly an avalanche comes down, burying the plane and filling it with snow. As the few people that managed to stay on top panic, one of them goes outside, only to notice the storm has gotten worse.
Then they desperately start digging in the snow to bring out all the passengers that got buried, and they even pee on the snow to make it melt faster. After lots of work, effort, and screaming, they manage to get everyone out except for a woman, who was so deep down that she died quickly. At that moment they hear a weird noise and discover another avalanche coming, which buries them again and kills a few more men, including the team captain.
The survivors immediately create a few holes so they can breathe, but as they keep on waiting, they can only pray while they hear the noises made by falling snow. When they recover some energy, they move eight bodies against a corner. On day eighteen, they’ve been buried for two days and the hunger is getting painful.
They have no choice but to start getting meat from the bodies, but this time is much harder because they can’t hide most of the bodies in snow to avoid seeing their faces. It means they know exactly who they are eating. This makes Numa so angry that he starts digging and breaking the windows, which ends up with the glass hurting his leg.
Such thing doesn’t stop him though, and he just keeps on digging. On day twenty, he finally manages to open a hole in the snow big enough for the remaining survivors to come out. After having a moment to relax and enjoy the fact they’re alive, the group begins working on digging out the plane.
Numa discovers he has a cut on his foot that he didn’t feel because of the cold, but he ignores it and keeps on helping. Eventually the sunny days help them get the plane out and they even start considering sending a few men out on a search again, but they still have no way to survive the freezing nights out there. In the end they agree to wait a few more days since summer is around the corner.
On day thirty-four, the thaw finally begins. The two injured men from the beginning are very sick, and the med students know there isn’t anything else they can do. In just a few hours, they discover Coco has his lungs filled with fluid, but no amount of CPR can help him breathe and he dies soon.
When they take out the body, they find his letter and keep it safe. On day thirty-six, the weather has improved enough for Roberto, Nando, Tintin, and Numa to leave on a new search wearing extra layers of clothing to survive the nights. Soon Numa starts feeling dizzy and he falls, so they check his foot and discover his wound is infected.
The group thinks they should take him back, but Numa says he’s strong enough to return alone and asks them to keep going. As soon as Numa returns to the crash site, he passes out. A few hours later, he wakes up to discover the other sick passenger is hallucinating before dying.
The next morning, the group starts working on removing the ice from the cockpit too in case they may need it. Numa wants to help but can’t because he’s too weak, which makes him feel useless and frustrated. Soon the trio comes back with big news: they’ve found the tail of the plane.
By doing a couple of short trips with the others, they bring lots of clean coats, bottles of rum, cigarettes, and even chocolate. They also find the plane’s batteries, so they try to connect them to the cockpit to make the radio work. After lots of work, they manage to get some static going, but they don’t get anyone to answer them.
Days start passing again, and the group hesitates to go out because spending one night out there almost killed them even with the extra coats. Numa’s infection is getting worse and spreading to the rest of his body. The food they found in the tail is still not enough, so they have to start stripping the bones of meat.
By now it’s become routine and it doesn’t bother them anymore. Knowing he doesn’t have much time left, Numa stops eating so the others can have more. They try to fix the radio again but the wires cause a small short-circuit and they give up.
In their fury, they write a message on the plane counting the survivors. During another trip to the tail, the group is surprised to find some waterproof fabric that was covering the pipes. They immediately bring it back and start putting together a sleeping bag that will allow them to survive the nights outside.
The smaller radio is still working and they hear on the news that even though fifty-eight days have passed since the crash, the Air Force is planning to send another aircraft to search for them. An argument ensues over how to proceed: some of them think they should wait for the aircraft, while others point out that they never see them down here so they should go looking for help. Frustrated, Roberto tears off the sleeping bag.
Afterward, the group decides to distract themselves by making bird noises as they see them fly by, and they find a camera that they use to take a bunch of pictures. That night, Numa gives them permission to eat his body, and in the morning they find him dead. There’s a note in his hands that says “there’s no greater love than to give one’s life for friends”.
Inspired by these words, Roberto, Nando, and Tintin decide to go out again. After getting the new sleeping bag and lots of meat, they start climbing west with the goal of crossing the mountain to reach Chile. The weather gets really windy at night, so they dig a hole in the snow and huddle inside the sleeping bag, which allows them to survive until morning.
When they finally reach the top of a rather tall mountain, they’re devastated to discover there is still a huge amount of miles to cover. For a moment they consider giving up because they don’t have enough food for such a trip, so Tintin volunteers to go back, that way the food will be enough for only Roberto and Nando. The trip is incredibly long and difficult, but after lots of walking, the duo finally comes down to the valley, where the ground is more rocky than snowy.
When Nando’s shoe breaks, Roberto simply ties some fabric around it and they keep going. One evening after dinner, Roberto ends up throwing up, but Nando comforts him and in the morning they’re moving again. All this effort pays off because they eventually find a river with fresh water and even a little lizard.
At that moment, they look up and to their shock, they find a man on a horse staring at them. He’s on the other side of the river and the noise of the water doesn’t let him hear them correctly, so after seeing them scream and wave their arms, he throws some paper and a pencil at them. The duo explains who they are and the man takes the paper back to make some calls.
Soon the message reaches the Air Rescue Service and a new mission is planned. The man comes back for Roberto and Nando and takes them to his cabin, where they can eat proper food at last. In just a few hours, the area is surrounded by reporters who don’t hesitate to ask awkward questions.
When this reaches the news, the group at the crash site is excited to hear that rescue is coming soon, so they start washing up to look as presentable as possible and gather their things in bags, including pieces of the plane as a memento. When the helicopters finally arrive, they take Roberto and Nando with them so they can act as guides. On day seventy-one, the group is finally rescued, and they cry in happiness as soon as they see the helicopters.
Someone records the whole rescue, including the fact the group insists on bringing their bags even if there’s no room for them. In total, sixteen people have survived. Once they reach the city, their families are already there waiting to welcome them back.
Then they’re taken to the hospital, where a huge crowd is waiting to call them heroes. The doctors keep the reporters out and run full tests to check on their health, especially since they notice the skeletal state of their bodies. Since they can barely move, they help each other have a shower, and then their families get in charge of their grooming.
Each survivor is given their own bed, but that night they’re still dealing with the after-shock, so they huddle up to sleep as a group.
