MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“Alive” survivor Coche Inciarte dies aged 75

“There are 16 cordilleras, one for each of the 16 of us who have survived, and although based on the same facts, they are somewhat different,” wrote Coche in his memoirs

José Luis “Coche” Inciarte, one of the 16 survivors from the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crash into the Andes mountains on Friday, October 13, 1972, died Thursday at the age of 75, it was reported in Montevideo. With Inciarte's death, 14 survivors of the tragedy remain alive. On June 5, 2015, Javier Methol passed away due to cancer and severe bone problems.

Carlos Paez, another of the survivors and Inciarte's friend, confirmed to El País that Coche died around 7.30 am, after battling an illness.

“We are all very sad, he was a brother for 51 years,” lamented Carlos Paez, another survivor of the tragedy that eventually became a Hollywood movie.

The Uruguayan Air Force Fairchild F-227 turboprop carrying the Old Christians rugby team and some of its supporters crashed in the Valley of Tears in the Chilean Andes. After 72 days in the mountains, only 16 people survived when all search and rescue operations had been halted and they had been left for dead.

“And I appreciated life for the first time, not as a right, but as something that had to be deserved and done to deserve it. That was the beginning of this story,” Coche Inciarte told Montevideo's El País in 2022.

“There are 16 cordilleras, one for each of the 16 of us who have survived, and although based on the same facts, they are somewhat different,” wrote Coche in his memoirs, which focused on other issues of the tragedy beyond the well-known action anecdotes such as the feeding of the dead.

“I learned to observe human behavior, and I could conclude that the highest human condition on this planet could be seen at 4,000 meters,” he had said in a TV interview.

“Alive” was the name of Piers Paul Read's 1974 book which inspired the 1993 Hollywood movie, featuring Ethan Hawke in the leading role of Nando Parrado.

Gordon Currie played Coche's part in the film, which was directed by Frank Marshall and narrated by John Malkovich.