'Miracle of the Andes' plane crash survivor Fernando Parrado recalls tragedy

It was Friday, 13 October 1972, and Fernando Parrado sat down in row nine of the plane about to depart from Montevideo to Santiago de Chile. 

His best friend, Panchito, asked him to change seats so he could be at the window and see the scenery. 

Panchito died when the plane crashed. 

After the accident, Parrado was in a coma for four and a half days, but he recovered, only to find himself alone in the middle of the Andean mountains. 

He survived for 72 days where no one is expected to -- at an altitude of more than 3 000 metres, without proper equipment, water, and food, at the age of 22. 

He hiked for ten days, 45 kilograms lighter, to look for help, crossing mountains and glaciers that the most experienced mountaineers fear. 

Fernando Parrado, or Nando, as his friends call him, is one of the 16 survivors of one of the most incredible stories of the last century.

It spawned a book and film, both called Alive.

Fifty years after the accident, Parrado says that for him, on this date, there is nothing to commemorate but rather to pay tribute to those who were left behind. 

"I shouldn't be talking to you. I should be dead. Buried in a glacier 50 years ago," he told Euronews.

Parrado was a young player in an amateur rugby team in Uruguay. Along with his sister and mother, he was among 45 people on their way to Chile to play a match with their national champions. 

In the middle of the journey, while flying over the Andes mountain range, the turbulence began. 

"Plane crashes are always caused by a combination of things: an underpowered plane, loaded to the limit, bad weather, a crew that is not as experienced as it should be, etc." he said.

The aeroplane experienced a downdraft, and as it flew out of the cloud cover, it became clear to