Museo Andes 1972: The Andes Crash Museum in Montevideo

Objects From the Glacier

The core of the collection comes from the Glaciar de las Lágrimas, the glacier where the wreck lay and where the survivors lived through the 72 days. The museum holds photographs, explanatory drawings, original documents, clothing and parts of the aircraft itself, gathered from the site. The Intendencia's tourism site, which describes the museum as dedicated to the 29 people who died and honouring the 16 who returned, lists these as the heart of the display.

Across the exhibition you will find 35 display cases holding original objects, supported by more than 45 information panels. The clothing and the aircraft parts came down from the mountain, and standing close to them is the main reason the museum matters to people who know the story only from films.

What the Survivors Made

Part of the exhibition recreates the objects the survivors built on the mountain with what the wreck gave them. Hoods and gloves were cut from seat covers to shield heads and hands from the cold. Snow-water collectors were made from seat backs to turn snow into drinking water.

The museum shows recreations of these objects. They tell you more about the 72 days than any panel, because they show the daily problem the group faced: staying warm, staying hydrated, staying a group. The museum states its aim as representing all 45 people on board and their values of solidarity, teamwork and resilience, and these handmade objects carry that better than words.

The Timeline and the Simulator

A timeline runs through the exhibition, setting the events on the mountain beside what was happening in the world during the same 72 days. It is a useful frame if you know only the rough outline of the story. The museum also runs an Andean conditions simulator, where you can feel temperatures down to -20 C and wind gusts up to 10 km/h.

It is brief, but it gives a physical sense of what the survivors endured in thin clothing at altitude. Alongside the documents there are artworks by survivors and by other artists, and unpublished audiovisuals play through the rooms. The admission ticket is rated 4.9 from 424 reviews, and the museum's own estimate for the full circuit is 60 to 90 minutes.

The Building Itself

The museum occupies a house from the second half of the 19th century. It has a granite base, an upper floor with Corinthian pilasters and Carrara marble balconies, cast-iron interior columns, and load-bearing walls that mix period handmade bricks with stone from the colonial wall of Montevideo, pulled down in 1829. The house was bought in 1887 by Manuel Bastos, who came from Amarante in Portugal, and it has stayed in the founder's family for seven generations.

That history ties the museum to the older city around it, since the stones in the walls once stood in the Spanish walled town. The surrounding blocks are the oldest part of Ciudad Vieja, and the walk to the door passes plazas and church fronts worth pausing at.

The Crash

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 was a chartered Fairchild FH-227D flying from Montevideo to Santiago de Chile. It carried 45 passengers and crew, including 19 members of the Old Christians Club rugby team with family and friends. On 13 October 1972 the aircraft flew into the Andes in Argentina and crashed at 3,660 metres.

The co-pilot believed he had already passed the Chilean town of Curicó and began to descend too early, into peaks that were still ahead. The wreck lay high on a glacier, far from any road. The search was called off after eight days, on 21 October, and the outside world assumed no one could still be alive.

Among the passengers, 29 would die on the mountain and 16 would come home.

Seventy-Two Days

The survivors faced cold, altitude and almost no food. They made the decision, stated plainly by Wikipedia, to eat the flesh of those who had died so that the living could hold on. It remains the part of the story people find hardest, and the museum treats it without drama.

On 29 October an avalanche struck the wreck site and killed eight more people, burying the fuselage they were sheltering in. The museum names what carried the group through as solidarity, teamwork and resilience, and that is the thread its rooms follow through the 72 days on the mountain.

The Walk Out and the Rescue

On 12 December, more than two months after the crash, Nando Parrado, Roberto Canessa and Antonio Vizintín set out westward to find help. Vizintín turned back after three days to save food for the others. After nine days of walking, Parrado and Canessa met Sergio Catalán, a Chilean on horseback, on the far side of the mountains.

A Guardian interview cited by Wikipedia puts their trek at about 60 km over 10 days. Helicopters rescued the remaining survivors on 22 and 23 December 1972, ending the 72 days. The story reached the screen in Alive in 1993 and in Society of the Snow in 2023, the second based on Pablo Vierci's 2008 book.

Days and Hours

The museum opens Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 17:00 and on Saturday from 10:00 to 15:00. It is closed on Sunday. Last entry is 30 minutes before closing, which our sum puts at 16:30 on weekdays and 14:30 on Saturday.

The Saturday cut-off is the trap for weekend visitors: arrive after 14:30 and you are too late to go in. If your cruise calls on a Sunday, the museum will be closed and no amount of planning fixes it. A weekend call can still work on Saturday if you come in the morning.

Other old town museums share part of this pattern. The Cabildo closes on Sunday too, while the Torres García museum opens every day 10:00-18:00, so a Sunday visitor still has options in Ciudad Vieja.

Tickets and Prices

Entry is the Museo Andes 1972 admission ticket at $8 per person. It covers admission only, it is not a guided excursion, and it includes free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead. The museum's own ticket page lists reduced prices: seniors 65 and over pay USD 6, youths 15 and under pay USD 4, and children under 12 enter free.

Student groups can be arranged with the museum by email. Two rules come with the ticket: children must be accompanied by an adult, and the ticket may be operated with a multilingual guide. With the entry settled, you can plan the rest of the old town day around it.

Getting There and Access

The address is Rincón 619 at the corner of Juan Carlos Gómez, in Ciudad Vieja. The ticket listing puts the door 27 metres from Plaza Constitución, the square most people call Plaza Matriz, so it is easy to find. From the cruise terminal you walk into the old town past the Mercado del Puerto.

Our cruise port page covers the route. By bus, the one-hour city ticket is $1.29 (UYU 52) with an STM card, or $1.59 (UYU 64) in cash. Accessibility is limited: the museum offers only a mobile ramp, though a wheelchair, QR codes and an audio guide are available.

Our safety page covers the precautions for the old town after dark.

Put the museum early. It opens at 10:00 on weekdays, and a morning visit leaves the whole old town ahead of you. From the door, Plaza Matriz is 27 metres away, so the free Cabildo museum across the square is the natural next stop, open Monday to Friday 11:00-17:45 and Saturday 11:00-17:00.

Walk down to the Mercado del Puerto for a grilled lunch, where paying by foreign card cuts 9 percentage points off VAT until 30 April 2027. The rest of Ciudad Vieja fills the afternoon along Sarandí and down to Plaza Independencia. If you want structure, the Ciudad Vieja walking tour runs Monday to Saturday at 10:30 and 14:30 for $20 and passes the Cabildo, or browse the other Montevideo tours and things to do in Montevideo to build the day your way.