In the spring of 1972, an airplane flew across the Andes mountains car rying its crew and 40 passengers. Most of the passengers were members of an amateur Uruguayan rugby team en route to a game in Chile. The plane never arrived. It crashed in snow-covered mountains, breaking into several pieces on impact. main part of the fusclage slid like a toboggan down a steep valley, coming to rest in waist-deep snow. Al though a number of people died immediately or within a day of the im pact, the picture for the 28 survivors was not much better. The fuselage offered little protection from the extreme cold, food supplies were scant, the a number of passengers had serious injuries from the crash, and next few days, several surviving passengers became psychotic several others died from their injuries. The passengers who were rela tively uninjured set out to do what they could to improve their chance survival wreckage; others found