To Play the Game: A History of Flight 571

John Guiver

John Guiver

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13th October 1972: A Uruguayan Air Force plane, commissioned for a civilian flight, crashes in the Andes. Among the forty passengers are a first-division rugby team, accompanied by family and friends. Hindered by treacherous conditions, the search and rescue efforts cannot locate the wreckage, and are abandoned after eight days.

Ten weeks later, two unkempt boys are spotted by a muleteer high in the Chilean foothills. One throws a note to him, across a mountain torrent: I come from a plane that fell in the mountains... In the plane there are still fourteen injured people...

Drawing on extensive original research, the author sheds new light on this extraordinary story from a perspective of fifty years, expanding on events before, during, and after the ordeal. His retelling is enriched by the accounts of those who didn't return from the mountain, related through the eyes of their families, bringing much-needed balance to a story which has largely focused on the survivors.

John Guiver's comprehensive account, which includes an in-depth look at the world from which the passengers came and an analysis of the possible causes of the accident, is a fundamental contribution to the history of this famous event.

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John Guiver turned to writing after a career in the world of artificial intelligence and hi-tech software. His interest in the 1972 Andes Flight Disaster led him to travel to the site of the accident in January 2013 in the company of one of the sixteen survivors, Eduardo Strauch. Through him, he met many others connected to the story, including survivors Pedro Algorta and Coche Inciarte, whose memoirs he translated. Over the years, he has conducted numerous interviews within the close-knit passenger community, and has delved deeply into various archives, including that of Piers Paul Read who wrote the best-selling 1974 account of the tragedy, Alive. The detailed information he amassed led him to write a comprehensive history of this iconic event. To Play the Game retells the story both on and off the mountain, giving an in-depth look at the world from which the passengers came, and an analysis of the possible causes of the accident. The account is enriched by the stories of those who didn’t return from the mountain, related through the eyes of their families, bringing much-needed balance to a history which has largely focused on the survivors.