Nando Parrado Speaker Profile

Aeroplane Crash Survivor

Nando Parrado was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, member of a middle-class family. Older brother of Susana and younger than Graciela, made his studies at primary and secondary level in the Stella Maris School.

From early age, he demonstrated special skills for sports and excelled in Rugby, where he became captain of the college team.

In 1972 he makes a trip to Chile in the occasion of an international encounter of Rugby. Unfortunately, the flight never arrived at destination; it crashed tragically at 18,000 feet in the Cordillera de los Andes.

The two and a half months that followed changed his life completely. His mother and younger sister passed away in the accident, and Nando made a superhuman effort, and survived for 72 days, finding his way out of the Andes, after 11 days of snowy marathon trek.

Soon after the rescue of the survivors, thanks to the epic passage of the Andes of Nando Parrado and his friend Roberto Canessa, he worked with Piers Paul Read to write the world best seller \“ALIVE \”, and 20 years later was the Technical Advisor in the production of the film \“ALIVE\”. where he was interpreted by Ethan Hawke.

Nowadays, he is a successful businessman and a very active sportsman, he is married with Veronique and has two daughtersVerónica y Cecilia.

He is also the President of the family company Seler Parrado S.A. and the founder of two TV media production companies and a cable one.