When You Have To Eat Your Friends To Survive

Weird History tackles the subject of that Uruguayan rugby team that crashed into the Andes in 1972. Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Santiago, Chile, crashed into a mountain in Argentina at an elevation of 11,710 feet. Search teams scoured the area, but eventually gave up.  Of the 45 people aboard the plane, only 16 survived to make it home.

Being stranded on a high mountain in the snow for two months called for some hard decisions. They could melt snow for water, but there was nothing to eat -except for the frozen corpses of those who had already died. There's a huge difference in killing someone in order to eat them and taking advantage of someone who already died, but cannibalism is a deep-seated taboo either way. The survivors really had no choice, because otherwise they would have all perished. But their story stays with you, no matter how many times you've heard it.