The Church’s response did not resolve the public debate, which continued for months and to some degree persists to this day. But it provided the survivors — most of them devout Catholics who had spent 72 days struggling with the theological implications of what they were doing — with an authoritative external validation of the framework they had already constructed internally.
The families of those who had died had their own responses. The complexity of being the family of someone who had died in the crash and whose body had been consumed by other survivors is not easily summarized. Some families expressed understanding. Some expressed anguish. All of them were navigating grief made more complex by circumstances that had no precedent and no established cultural script.
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## The Dead: Who Was Lost
Before continuing with the survivors’ stories, it is worth accounting for those who did not survive.
Twelve people died on the day of the crash or in its immediate aftermath: Colonel Ferradas (pilot), several passengers including Dr. Nicola, his wife, Nando Parrado’s mother Eugenia, and several rugby players and supporters including Fernando Vázquez, Gastón Costemalle, Alexis Hounié, Guido Magri, and Carlos Valeta, as well as several who had been in the tail section.
In the days immediately following the crash, more died: Francisco “Panchito” Abal, Felipe Maquirriain, Julio Martínez-Lamas, Graziela Mariani died on the night of October 13-14. Susana Parrado, Nando’s sister, died on October 21.
The avalanche on October 29 killed eight people: Liliana Methol, Gustavo “Coco” Nicolich, Enrique Platero, Daniel Maspons, Juan Carlos Menéndez, Diego Storm, Marcelo Pérez (the rugby team captain), and Carlos Roque (the aircraft mechanic who had survived the initial crash).