Lost in Antarctica for 572 Days — True Story –
December 22, 2009. Antarctica, Antarctica. The coldest, most desolate place on Earth. That morning, a Bassor BT67 aircraft took off from Union Glacier Camp carrying 32 tourists, two experienced pilots, and two guides, 36 people total. They had one simple dream, to fly over the frozen beauty of Antarctica, and create a memory that would last a lifetime.
At the controls was Captain Akmed Rashid, a former military pilot with over 20 years of experience flying in Antarctic skies. By 2000 p.m., the plane was cruising at around 2,500 m, cutting through the air at 380km/h over the Ellsworth Mountain Range and toward Vincent Massie, Antarctica’s highest peak.
Everything was perfectly normal, but nature had other plans. 92 minutes into the flight at 3:32 p.m. the aircraft ran straight into one of Antarctica’s most feared weather events, a catabatic storm. Freezing air came screaming down the mountains at 200km/h. And within seconds, super cooled water droplets flash froze onto the plane’s propellers and more critically blocked the pitot tubes, the sensors that measure air speed.
The cockpit instruments started feeding wrong data. The autopilot failed. Captain Rashid grabbed manual control, but it was already too late. A violent gust threw the aircraft downward like a toy. At 3:38 p.m., the outofc control plane slammed into a ridge in the Heritage Range. A deafening explosion, then silence.
When Captain Rashid opened his eyes, blood was running down his face. The cockpit was completely destroyed. He pulled himself out of the wreckage and looked around. The plane had split into two pieces, but luck had given them one small mercy. After hitting the mountain, the plane had slid down a thick sheet of ice which absorbed much of the impact.
One by one, people started coming around. Screams, pain, fear. Captain Rashid called out, stay calm, hold on, we are alive. He started counting. 1 2 3. All 36 people were alive. It was nothing short of a miracle. Though many had broken bones and serious injuries, the reality sank in fast. They were stranded in one of the most dangerous places on the planet.
Frozen mountains in every direction, deep glaciers, dead silence. Nobody knew exactly where they were because the storm had thrown the plane nearly 200km off course. Worse, the emergency transmitter had been destroyed in the crash. The first 24 hours were spent building a makeshift shelter from the plain’s wreckage to shield against the brutal wind.
They had enough food for roughly 15 days for 36 people. One small advantage, December in Antarctica means 24 hours of sunlight. Captain Rashid made a critical decision early on. If we’re going to get out of here, it has to be during these months of daylight. Once the 6-month polar night begins, it’s over.
On day two, he organized the group. Four twoperson teams were sent in different directions to scout. A hunting team went out for food. The rest stayed to care for the injured and reinforce the shelter. A 25-year-old engineer in the group spent hours trying to fix the damaged radio using the plane’s battery and spare wires. He failed.
Ice had permanently destroyed the internal components. But he did manage to build a small heater which gave everyone some relief from the brutal cold. All the scouting teams returned empty-handed. Nothing but ice in every direction. The hunting team had barely caught one small fish. By day five, patience was gone.
PART 2 ‼️
Tensions boiled over. A group of five people stood up and said, “Sitting here waiting to die is stupid. We’re walking out.” Captain Rashid begged them not to go. walking into an unknown Antarctic wilderness without navigation was suicide. They didn’t listen. They grabbed a small portion of food and supplies and left. It was the biggest mistake of their lives.
The nearest research station was over 1,000 km away. By day 10, food was almost completely gone. Hunger had gotten so extreme that people were boiling the leather from airplane seats trying to extract any nutrition. They sucked on snowballs just to feel something in their stomachs. Day 20 brought the first death. An elderly woman developed hypothermia and pneumonia. There was no medicine.
Everyone could only watch helplessly as she suffered and then passed away in front of them. That moment broke something inside everyone. For the first time, they could clearly see their own deaths approaching. Meanwhile, the rescue operation was searching in completely the wrong location. After 20 fruitless days, the mission was officially called off.
A government report was released to the world. The aircraft went down beneath the ice. All 36 passengers are presumed dead. Their families had already begun grieving while they were still alive, fighting for every breath. By day 25, food was completely gone. People scattered individually, using sharp pieces of aircraft metal as weapons to hunt.
Occasionally, someone caught a small fish. Once in a while, a large seal would be found and people would fight over it before finally dividing it up. Humanity was slowly disappearing. Then another disaster struck. A ferocious Antarctic blizzard roaring at 300km/h hammered them for five straight days. Their shelter built from aircraft wreckage was blown apart like paper.
To survive, they dug holes in the snow and buried themselves inside. Two or three people per hole, screaming from hunger, listening to each other’s cries through the blizzard walls. Those five days were worse than hell. They had nothing to eat but snow. In those holes, at their absolute lowest point, some of them began having dark thoughts about each other.
Thoughts no one would ever speak out loud. When the storm finally stopped, they crawled out with frozen hands, faces, and ears. They hunted immediately and got lucky, a large seal. They ate and survived. Then Captain Rashid called a meeting. We have 10 days to stockpile as much food as possible. Then we walk. We use the sun as our compass and we keep moving until we find civilization.
On day 40, 31 people shouldered their packs and loaded a sled made from wreckage with about 15 days worth of hunted meat. They began walking. They were already going the wrong direction. They just didn’t know it yet. Day 41. Kneeed deep snow with every step. Each footfall was a battle. Day 45, another blizzard. Two days hiding in snow holes.
When it passed, four of their teammates were found frozen solid inside their holes dead. They were now 27. Not far ahead, floating in a massive glacial sea. They spotted two bodies. They recognized them. Two of the five people who had broken away from the group weeks earlier. Day 50. In the distance, they spotted three figures standing still. They ran toward them.
It was the remaining three members who had left the group. But their reunion quickly turned grim. Those three had been stuck at that exact spot for a week, blocked by a 15t wide creasse, a crack in the ice with no visible bottom. Crossing it seemed impossible. The guide had rope.
He tied one end on their side, then threw the hook to the other side. He started to cross. The hook slipped. The guide fell, screaming into the darkness below. Silence. After a long moment, the second guide stepped forward. He threw the rope again, tested it repeatedly, and slowly, carefully crossed hand over hand. On the other side, he secured the rope tightly and began calling people across one by one.
For 2 to three hours, each person, trembling, looking down into the abyss below them, crept across that rope. One wrong grip meant death. That day, they looked death directly in the face. Day 65, food gone again. exhausted beyond description. Then on a glacier, they spotted penguins. Desperate and starving, they hunted the penguins and ate their raw meat just to stay alive.
It was a moment that shamed whatever humanity they had left. But they were just living skeletons determined to keep breathing at any cost. They kept walking. Day 75, 200km/h winds carrying chunks of ice that hit skin like bullets. They sheltered in a snow cave and waited. Day 80. They had now traveled roughly 200km.
They believed they were headed toward a research station 1,00 km from the crash site. What they didn’t know, there was another research station just 300400 km from where they crashed, and they had been walking directly away from it. They now had 800 additional km ahead of them. Day 150. 6 months had passed.
The sun set for the last time. Darkness swept across Antarctica. The six-month polar night had begun. Now they had to navigate and survive in total darkness. The psychological damage this caused was immense. Day 170, vitamin deficiency led to scurvy. Gums started bleeding. Teeth became loose.
Wounds on their bodies refused to heal. Day 200. Scurvy took the life of the youngest member of the group, an 18-year-old girl. Her death crushed what remained of everyone’s spirit. Day 230. Starvation and psychological pressure had turned people into something barely human. Darkness, hunger, and sickness were consuming them slowly.
Day 350, when all hope had essentially died, they looked up and saw the sky explode in color. Aurora, the southern lights. Green, blue, and violet ribbons of light danced across the entire sky. For the first time in months, looking up at the night, they felt that something beautiful still existed in this world. Day 420, Captain Akmed Rashid, who had held everyone together through all of this, became seriously ill.
Frostbite was destroying his body. A former mountain climber in the group named Kanji saw his opportunity and seized leadership. Kanji was hard and ruthless. His decisions split the group into two factions. Day 470. Following Kanji’s shortcut, they got caught in a blizzard. Nobody died, but they became hopelessly lost. Day 500, one team member’s frostbitten fingers developed gang green.
To stop the infection from spreading, Captain Rashid, still alive, heated a rusted knife and cut off the fingers himself. Day 530, a final confrontation between Kanji and Rashid over control of the group. Most members sided with Rashid and his humanity. Kanji, furious at being outvoted, split off alone in a different direction.
Nobody ever found out what happened to him. They were barely skeletons now. Walking required every ounce of will they had left. Day 560, they spotted a seabird, a skewer. Its presence meant the ocean was nearby. Dead hope flickered back to life. Day 565, a tiny black dot appeared in the distance.
Was it real? A hallucination? Slowly, the dot grew larger. A human figure. Like electricity through their dead bodies, they understood. They had just completed a 1,000km journey through the most hostile place on Earth. In that moment, 571 days of suffering flashed before their eyes like a film. The crash, the hope someone would come. eating leather.
5 days buried under a blizzard. Watching friends freeze. Crossing the creasse on a rope. Eating raw meat. 6 months of polar darkness. Scurvy eating their bodies. Losing 20 plus companions one by one. They used every last fragment of strength to move toward that figure. Two more people collapsed and died from exhaustion on that final stretch.
Finally, 13 barely recognizable humans, more skeleton than person, collapsed at the door of Esparanza. An Argentine research base in Antarctica. When the scientists inside opened the door, they stood frozen in shock, as if they were looking at ghosts. After rescue and treatment began, the survivors learned the terrible truth. The world had declared them all dead just 20 days after the crash.
Their return stunned the entire world. It was the greatest and most painful survival story in human history. Even after returning home, none of them ever fully escaped the trauma of what they had lived through. Captain Akmed Rashid was awarded his country’s highest civilian honor for his extraordinary courage.
His story was later documented in a book titled 572 Days, Ice and Hope, written by acclaimed author John Creek.
