Eight of the initial survivors died on the afternoon of 29 October when an avalanche cascaded down on them as they slept in the fuselage. For three days they survived in an appallingly confined space since the plane was buried under several feet of snow. Nando Parrado was able to poke a hole in the roof of the fuselage with a metal pole, providing ventilation. Among the dead was Liliana Methol, wife of survivor Javier Methol. She had been the last surviving female passenger. Hard decisions[edit] Before the avalanche, a few of the survivors became insistent that their only way of survival would be to climb over the mountains themselves and search for help. Because of the co-pilot 's assertion that the plane had passed Curicó (which was completely wrong, the real position was more than 55 miles (89 km) to the east deep in the Andes), the group assumed that the Chilean countryside was just a few miles away …show more content…
Therefore they initially headed east; hoping that at some point the valley that they were in would do a U-turn and allow them to start walking west. After several hours of walking east, the trio unexpectedly found the tail section of the plane, which was still largely intact. Within and surrounding the tail were numerous suitcases that had belonged to the passengers, containing cigarettes, candy, clean clothing and even some comic books. The group decided to camp that night inside the tail section, and continue east the next morning. However, on the second night of the expedition, which was their first night sleeping outside exposed to the elements, the group nearly froze to death. After some debate the next morning, they decided that it would be wiser to return to the tail, remove the plane 's batteries and bring them back to the fuselage so that they might power up the radio and make an SOS call to Santiago for